Studio One 5 Professional review
Notation editing and a unique live-show control environment, plus a host of other new features, take Presonus’ unique Logic competitor to another level.
Presonus Studio One Professional is a top-tier digtal-audio workstation (think Logic X) with some unique and time-saving features. My favorite feature, a superhandy module for organizing and mastering albums, has been joined in the latest version by a clever take on organizing and managing a live performance.
Presonus has also unveiled Sphere, an online service that delivers the entirety of the company’s music software portfolio as well as storage and collaborative features
for a remarkably affordable $15 a month. Even if you’re a diehard user of another DAW, that alone warrants a serious look at this very powerful suite of music tools.
DESIGN AND FEATURES
By today’s standards, there’s nothing startling about Studio One’s design. However, at its inception in 2009, it was the first traditional track and mixer DAW to adopt a drag-and-drop, paned design— you drag effects and instruments to the timeline to add them to tracks or to create a new track. The various areas of the program (timeline, browser, editors, and so on) fit together without overlapping, like panes in a window.
The original developers were also responsible for Nuendo, a surround version of the venerable and popular Cubase from Steinberg. I mention this because Studio One bears more than a passing resemblance to those products in both appearance and approach.
The layout of the main window consists of an inspector panel and controls for the current track to the far left, track headers to the right of those, the timeline area for clips (which may be layered), and then the browser to the far right. At the bottom is the mixing console, which swaps out with the various editors: piano roll, drum, Melodyne 5 visual audio editing (a license is included; fave.co/3cocmcu) via ARA2 (fave.co/39jtbxk), and—new for version 5—musical notation courtesy of the company’s Notion 6 score-editing software (fave.co/ 3DD2RDV). Notion was already pipelined to Studio One for easy exchange of data.
You can float the editors as windows, and view the notation as such while you have the drum or piano roll docked in the bottom pane. The changes in
one editor are mirrored in the other in real time—slick and highly useful. Dual monitors are supported if you want to dedicate one display to mixing and editing and another to the track area.
As mentioned, where Studio One really sets itself apart from other DAWS is with its Project and Show pages. The latter is new for version 5 and is roughly akin to the mixing and automated performance software used to run modern stage productions.
With Show, you define “songs” that encompass “players,” which can be anything from mixdowns of songs, to external hardware, to stacked FX used by live performers. There’s a section to create these “Shows” (seen in the image above) and a streamlined interface for actual performance use (shown below).
Since day one (or version one, if you prefer), Studio One Professional has incorporated a Project page for organizing and mastering your mixdowns into cohesive-sounding albums. It’s unique and a colossal time-saver. Take a closer look at the plentiful EQ and meter options in the image below. I know several users who have bought Studio One for the Project page alone.
Also, note the Start, Song, Project, and Show buttons at the upper right of the image. These are how you navigate between Studio One’s pages and modules. When you’re in the song section, you’ll also see Edit, Mix, and Browse buttons at the bottom right. These partially control what you see in the bottom pane and show/hide the browser.
Note that Studio One also allows you to have multiple songs open and to freely copy clips (not entire tracks, alas) between them. Logic does this, but it’s a buggy feature that’s not recommended by either Apple or anyone who’s tried it.
I do have one other favorite Studio One feature—the ability to stack VST instruments on the same track. This allows me to layer sounds from different sound sources without having to mess around with a sampler. Presonus also freely provides Studio One Remote for Android and IOS for (yes) remote control and operation.
EDITING AND WORKFLOW
I’ve already mentioned the various editors, but there is also an abundance of modal mouse tools: selection pointer, drawing pencil, cutting knife, and so on. There are also extensive—and I mean extensive— context menus and key commands (user definable) that allow you to simply select objects and operate on them, my preferred methodology.
New for version 5 is MIDI Polyphonic Expression editing (fave.co/3mn4ayn). If you’re not familiar with MPE, it allows every note to have independent pitch, pressure, and timbre without resorting to assigning them to different channels (MIDI 1.x has 16 of these). That’s a primitive explanation, but Studio One handles MPE editing perfectly— highlighting the pertinent MIDI controller info for whichever notes you select.
Alas, Studio One 5’s proprietary instruments aren’t MPE enabled yet, and for some reason VST3 instruments don’t currently work—only older VST2 types. I had to install Xfer Records Serum (fave. co/3mpkcs3) wavetable synth before the Enable MPE option was available. Presonus is very good about updates, so I expect a more universal solution in short order.
Ripple editing (stuff moves around with deletions and insertions), quantizing, time stretching, transient editing, and the other advanced features functioned perfectly in my testing. That said, as with any DAW, if you visit the forums, you’ll find all sorts or reports on bugs. I experienced only a single, nonreplicable crash while loading a VST.
Studio One might not have every feature you’ll find in Logic and Cuckos Reaper, but that can be said of many DAWS. The basics are more than adequately provided for, and if I have any complaints about the program, they concern the interface. I’ll get to those issues in a bit.
EFFECTS AND VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTS
For version 5, Presonus has redone the look of some of its effects and updated more than a few of them. The changes are listed in the New Features section below. The fact is, they were plentiful and quite good to begin with, covering the gamut from EQS to compressors, reverbs, delays, and just about everything in between.
If you visit the audio forums, you’ll find users arguing over the quality of this EQ or that, this compressor versus another. Personally, I consider the discussions a tempest in a teapot. Presonus plug-ins are generally top notch and perfectly capable of producing professional results without forcing you to resort to third-party offerings. It’s the same as with nearly all DAWS.
I won’t say quite the same for the virtual instruments. They are very good
and cover most needs, but they aren’t as plentiful as those in Logic. They also aren’t quite up to the quality I experienced in the recently reviewed Universal Audio Luna (fave.co/3dyweju)— then again, no one’s are. Still, like Logic’s, Studio One’s instruments are all free, while many of Luna’s are pay-toplay. Bottom line: If you can’t make music with the instruments, samples, and loops that ship with Studio One, you should probably find another line of work.
WELCOME CHANGES
A major boon for starving (or simply cheap) musicians is that the $99 Artist version of Studio One now supports third-party VSTS without requiring purchase of an $80 add-in. Formerly, only Presonus’ own were allowed without the add-in—a major limitation for folks already married to favorite virtual instruments. There’s also a Studio Prime version that’s free, though obviously a lot of stuff is missing. You can compare versions (fave. co/3mhudfq).
As I mentioned up front, there’s also the new Sphere service, which includes the professional version of Studio One; my personal favorite notation program, Notion; collaborative features and 30GB of online storage; and all the plug-ins and add-ons Presonus markets. At $15 a month, Sphere is a steal, especially when you consider that Pro Tools is $35 monthly without all the plug-ins, and the perpetual license for Studio One 5 Professional is $399.
NEW FEATURES
This is our first review of Studio One, so I’ve stuck for the most part with the basics. Version 5 offers a number of new features I haven’t yet covered. Here they are along with some recaps.
> Notation-style editing of MIDI clips.
> $15 a month rental of Studio One 5, Notion, and all plug-ins.
> Articulation switches (pizzicato, staccato, trill, and so on) for multipletechnique virtual instruments.
> Clip gain envelopes (draw the volume of the clip with automation points).
> Aux mixer inputs for external instruments (these eliminate the need for dedicated tracks).
> MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) editing.
> Dynamics effects now have sidechain inputs.
> Filters in plug-ins may now be added to the sidechain input.
> A State Space Modeled stage is now available for plug-ins with drive (overdrive).
> The Pro EQ plug-in now includes a linear-phase low-cut filter and 12th-octave spectrum display, and adjustable range and peak hold are now available for the input and output meters.
> You can now capture snapshots of the entire mixer at any time, and there’s an assortment of recall options (full, partial, and so forth).
> A dedicated “Listen” bus delivers an independent audio feed with both preand after-fader modes.
AN EYEFUL OF AN INTERFACE
As you may have noticed in the various screen shots, and especially the one on the next page, an awful lot of stuff is visible in Studio One at times.
Much of it is similar, much of it is tiny, some of it is poorly delineated, and, unlike with Logic, you can’t hide what you don’t want or need. You might love this level of detail. You might not.
I lean towards the “not so much” end of the spectrum, as the result of all this microscopic visual clutter is that my eye takes a long time to focus on the feature or tool I need—even when I know its location. When I do find it, the icon is often so tiny that it requires very precise mouse movements.
These wasted seconds aren’t a massive burden when I’m just editing or mixing, but when I have an instrument in my hands and I’m trying to squeeze some fresh and creative ideas out, it can really kill the vibe.
In fairness, Studio One is modeled after old-school mixing consoles, where everything, being corporeal, is always in plain sight. With intimate knowledge and lots of use, the everything-at-hand approach might save users time. Feel
free to let me know what your experiences are.
BOTTOM LINE
There’s no denying Studio One’s power or scope. I have my gripes about the interface, but I have friends that think the GUI is the bee’s knees. Opinions on DAWS are like that, and Studio One has plenty of loyal, enthusiastic users. The fantastic news for everyone is Sphere. Only need the Project or Show page for a month or two? You no longer need to fork over $400 for the perpetual license. Even struggling musicians can afford $15 for 30 days. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention that Presonus sells some sonically excellent and fantastically affordable audio hardware (fave.co/2qzte1m). I’ve owned several of its interfaces. You can read my Techhive review of Presonus’ low-end Eris E4.5 studio monitors here (fave. co/3dzpnl9). ■