John Mlynczak, Education Market Manager for PreSonus, shows us some of the basics of running live sound AND recording a school jazz band with the AudioBox 1818VSL. He shares his channel breakdown and monitoring setup.

With the AudioBox 1818VSL, you can track the entire band, and send students their own parts for study—or whatever submix you feel is best!

Category Education | 0 Comments »
Posted by Bellsauce

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[This just in from PreSonus Artist Olesya Star, who recently completed an unusual duet.]

As an independent artist, people always tell me that to survive you have to take 2 steps left whilst walking forward or you’ll go in circles, so I always keep an open mind to new ventures, avenues and pathways through this minefield called the music biz. One such diversion presented itself to me recently in the form of a country duet, originally meant for Dolly Parton, but sung by Tim Rose. Tim was an original American troubadour who was a founding Greenwich Village folk musician in the 1960s, and former band member with the likes of Mama Cass (Mamas and Papas), and later in life Andy Summers (The Police) and Mick Jones (Foreigner). Sadly, I never met Tim Rose before he died in 2002, but by pure chance I was asked by an old friend of Tim’s  if I would supply “Dolly Parton-like vocals” and work the track, originally recorded in 1988.

The tracks were originally recorded on 2″ tape, so the tape needed to be baked and digitized prior to landing on my studio desk. I had 24 tracks to play with that had been encoded at 24bit/96khz, which I brought immediately into PreSonus Studio One Professional v2.  The job of identifying the microphones that were used in the original recording was completely irrelevant with Studio One, as it was far simpler just to make the recording sound how it should by using the simplest included Studio One features: Channel Strip, Compressor, Pro EQ, OpenAIR reverb and, my favorite by far, the Mulitiband Dynamics effect on the Master channel which glues the track together—sometimes much better than using summing mixers that cost in the thousands.

I recorded my vocals through the PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL, dropped the majority of unnecessary channels/recordings, and sculpted a rough mix before handing the final session over to my producer/mastering guru, Adam Mills. Adam  added some heart-poundingly heavy kick drum and a sprinkle of the missing magic by adding just 2-3% OpenAir in the Mastering/Project section of Studio One, as an insert, with a tight room preset— and no more pre-delay than 15-20ms. There you go, now I’m even handing out secrets!

The result is “You Can Hurry Darling (And I’ll Walk Slow)” which now sounds like I was in the room with Tim Rose at the same time, All thanks to Studio One and PreSonus. Here’s a sample, the full single drops Feb. 14!

Category Studio One | 0 Comments »
Posted by Bellsauce

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Head to your local PreSonus dealer to take advantage of these great savings in December!

• Cash rebates of up to $50 on AudioBox VSL Recording Systems for USA customers!
• $100 instant rebate on Studio One Professional 2 for all customers!

 

 

Category Studio One | 4 Comments »
Posted by Bellsauce

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Lynn Fuston, head honcho over at 3D Audio, posits a compelling question.

 ”Would it be possible to assemble a system that could record 16 inputs onto a multitrack for under $2000?”

The answer is… well, read for yourself. It’s a bit of a lengthy thread but well worth the time. SPOILER ALERT: His solution involves and iPad and the AudioBox 1818VSL.

 

Here’s a highlight:

"I ran a test last night. 16 tracks at 24/96. Recorded for a minute. Added another 16 in record for a minute while playing back the first 16. Then added 5 more stereo tracks. Hit record. Then added 6 more stereo tracks. Hit record. 

Several observations:

1) This is not real world because we don't record 1 minute songs.
2) CPU usage at its highest never exceeded 30%. There are CPU and Disk Space Usage meters right on the front of the mixer.
3) I got "Low Memory" messages at least four times, so I finally quit every other app BUT Auria. That seemed to eliminate the problem.
4) It only bailed on a recording one time, and that was when I had the buffer set to 128. I upped it to 256 and it seemed fine. By then I was playing back 42 tracks at 24/96 and recording 12 more.

I considered doing a stress test and recording for a long duration but file management using iTunes, at least to someone accustomed to using a computer, seems like a real headache. I'm going to wait to do that test until after I finish my actual music recording. I don't want to fill up the drive with huge empty files.

Like the guy at the Apple store told me, "the iPad is designed for GATHERING information." Fascinating. In the big picture, I think he's right. It's a content-vacuum. Videos, pictures, audio: it's designed to collect info. It's really easy to import stuff into an iPad. Exporting (apart from tossing it into iTunes), not so much. So far, it seems like the recording will be the easy part. At least to this seasoned pro who is accustomed to using multiple backup drives and backup utilities like SyncPro and drag and drop file management."

Read the entire thread over at 3D Audio! There’s some great mobile recording opportunities with this setup…

 

Category User Stories | 0 Comments »
Posted by Bellsauce

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November only! US Customers can save on the AudioBox VSL recording interfaces, Studio One Producer, and the Studio Channel!

 

 

 

 

Category Studio One | 4 Comments »
Posted by Bellsauce

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Wow! We’re flattered! I mean, really. The PreSonus Audiobox 1818VSL,  Studio One, and the StudioLive Mixers (the whole fam!) are nominated in this years’ Sound on Sound awards.

It’s a user poll, not one of those “Critic’s choice” things…  so, you know what to do here… right?  Make your voice heard, and we thank you for your support!

 

 

Category StudioLive 24.4.2 | 2 Comments »
Posted by Bellsauce

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Wow. Double wow. We are humbled and honored to have received nominations in Mix Online’s 28th Annual TEC Awards. That’s nominations, plural. In fact, four products of ours were nominated across four categories. They include:

 

Audio Apps Technology for Smartphones & Tablets 
PreSonus QMix 

Computer Audio Hardware 
PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL 

Workstation Technology 
PreSonus Studio One Professional V2 

Small Format Console Technology
PreSonus StudioLive 16.0.2 

From Mix Online’s announcement:

“The TEC Foundation for Excellence in Audio announces the Technical Achievement nominees for the 28th Annual Technical Excellence & Creativity Awards, to be held Friday, January 25, 2013, in Anaheim, Calif. Presented by the TEC Foundation, the TEC Awards is the pro audio industry’s most prestigious awards show honoring outstanding achievement in product innovation and sound production.

Online voting will begin in November among members of various professional audio organizations, and qualified professionals subscribing to audio and music products trade publications.”

Big big thanks to Mix Online for their continued support of PreSonus.  November can’t come soon enough, and who knows, maybe this time we’ll actually freakin’ win, which would make this all eligible for the ultra-rare Quadruple Wow.

Category StudioLive 16.0.2 | 2 Comments »
Posted by Bellsauce

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So, this is really clever!  fostervf16 over at YouTube is using the PreSonus 1818VSL USB interface with his iPad running WaveMachine Labs Auria. He’s found a way to connect the 1818VSL to his iPad using a data card reader, of all things. iPad > Card Reader > 1818VSL. All of this stuff is running off the iPad’s battery.

At the time of writing, I don’t have any insights about what this will do to your iPad’s battery charge. Should you have the necessary components, give this a shot… but save often.

Category AudioBox VSL | 4 Comments »
Posted by Bellsauce

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I love that we get stuff like this from none other than Craig Anderton. My first memory of the guy is his seminal DIY book “Electronic Projects for Musicians,” of which I own a 1st-edition copy that was once a loaner at the Bellingham Public Library. It’s one of my favorite books.

That said, the point of this post is to discuss one of Craig’s shorter, lesser-known works, this adulatory slab of verbiage from Electronic Musician magazine.

Thanks much, Craig, for your help in flying the PreSonus flag. My favorite part is his take on our VSL technology:

“PreSonus claims “virtually latency-free monitoring,” and while this may get the skeptics’ attention, it’s true. As a result, there are three main applications. One is using the outs for cue mixes and monitoring with effects, which will make many musicians happy—especially the temperamental vocalists who want reverb, compression, and EQ in their cans.

Another application is live performance with laptop-based acts. You can process inputs on the way in to your DAW, and process outs going to the house; with the VSL mixer app and your DAW’s mixer, you don’t need external processors, mixers, or preamps. (Note that the 1818VSL comes bundled with Studio One Artist.)

 

The third application is recording with effects. Being able to apply limiting for live recordings is invaluable, but the effects are good enough that if you want to record with, say, compression on the bass, you won’t have to re-create the sound while mixing.”

Read the full review!

Category AudioBox VSL | 0 Comments »
Posted by Bellsauce

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SPOILER ALERT: Here’s the best part of the AudioBox 22VSL review from DAWFreak:

Pros

• Great build quality
• First class preamps.
• Easy to use
• Great price
• The VSL mixer
• Stable drivers

Cons

• NONE

Kinda says it all, right?

Wrong! The rad dudes at DAWFreak have composed a very thorough review, including close-up input/output shots, a full unboxing-style look at all the included extras, and detailed overviews of all the software thats included: they look at both Studio One Artist and the AudioBox’s VSL functionality.

It’s worth the read, if you have the time. Go make a sandwich or something and check it out!

Category AudioBox VSL | 2 Comments »
Posted by Bellsauce

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