PreSonus FaderPort 16 and which version of Studio One?

[Nowarezman]

So I'm thinking hard about buying a PreSonus FaderPort 16.  Comes with a copy of Studio One Artist.  I've looked at the version comparisons between Studio One Artist and Professional on the PreSonus website.  I don't do videos, so those features don't matter to me. 

 

But the lyrics features on the Professional look very interesting.  I'd love to be able to look at my laptop screen while tracking vocals and have the lyrics scrolling by (bouncing ball not necessary ).   And also, just be able to type up lyrics into the DAW and edit them, see where they come in with relation to bars and so on....

 

Any advice on the Artist version vs. the Professional from you Studio One pros?  Craig being AFAIK Pro #1 at Studio One.   I can get by without the Pro-level lyrics thing if the price point for upgrading hits my sticker shock trigger.....

 

nat

 

 

 

[Anderton]

The Professional version lets you put together FX Chains with custom control panels. Check out fig. 2 in this blog post. The Chord Track and Harmonic Editing are unique to Studio One Pro, and that feature was the tipping point that got me to change over for the majority of my projects. Also, the Scratch Pad feature is great for trying out new variations without disturbing what's already in your project.

 

I find the Splitter invaluable for parallel processing, but perhaps the most significant feature other than harmonic editing is the separate mastering page. If you do any kind of album assembly or song collections, the integration between the Project page for mastering and the Song page for multitrack is incredible. When assembling an album, if something happens like you hear a little glitch in a song, you click on over to it, the song opens, you make the change, and then update the mastering file. It's brilliant, actually.

 

Those are the most significant features for me, but this chart shows the complete comparison. There are several other differences that have turned out to be important to me. I would feel limited by Artist, but that's me.

 

 

[Nowarezman]

Thx, Craig, for the info.  The harmonic editing is something that some of the Izotope products can do.  And can't Melodyne also do that now?

 

The Chord Track does sound interesting.  I just now read through an SOS article on it.  I generally shy away pretty strongly against any sort of AI assist to composition, but I'm not adverse to some convenience features.   I'm actually trying to build a Reaktor instrument that lets me build chord progressions quickly to audition a variety of chord sequences to help speed up my composition process.   I haven't found a VST yet that is close enough to what I'm aiming for - 'tho there are certainly a ton of VST midi idea generators and such, like Scalar and so on. 

 

I think I'll get the Artist first as part of the Faderport package and demo the Professional so I can dive deeper into Chord Track, the Lyrics feature, and the Scratch Pad. 

 

Thx again for the guidance - 

 

nat

 

[Anderton]

3 hours ago, Nowarezman said:

Thx, Craig, for the info.  The harmonic editing is something that some of the Izotope products can do.  And can't Melodyne also do that now?

 

No, it's a different animal. Harmonic Editing works with the Chord Track. Typical scenario:

 

• I'm starting to work on a song, playing rhythm guitar, and Studio One is recording.
• Aha! There's a space of about 32 measures that, at least in my opinion, are awesome.
• I trim those 32 measures, and drag it up to the Chord Track. 
• The Chord Track automagically parases the playing, and produces the equivalent of a chord chart.
• Now suppose I think I should have used an Am instead of a C major in one place. I change the Chord track, and now the guitar chord that played a C major is playing an Am. Or maybe a Bmaj7...or whatever. 
• Any other parts that I add can now follow the Chord track, with narrow, parallel, or bass voicings. If I make changes in the chord track, any tracks following it - MIDI or audio - will follow along.

 

PreSonus cautions that processing polyphonic audio won't give the same quality as simply recording audio, and they think of Harmonic Editing as more for prototyping. But several times harmonic editing has made it to the final mixdown. Sometimes, I specifically wanted it to make it to final mixdown, because it added a sense of pitch to drums, percussion, or whatever. 

 

It's also great for recording guide tracks quickly that aren't boring. There's really nothing quite like it.

[Nowarezman]

Got it.  Some of these sophisticated DAW features these days take some explaining!  A quick peruse of product release blurbs or quickie reviews in the media just don't get a clear message across.  Thanks for the info - I can see the appeal now.

 

nat

 

[Anderton]

At one of my most fun seminars, I said that you can never go wrong by having an acoustic guitar driving a song in the background, but what if you only know one chord? So I played an EDM track that went through multiple chord changes, and played the same guitar chord over and over. Of course, it sounded horrible. Then I had the guitar follow the chord progression. Jaws dropped