Studio One 5 Available Now (5.3 Out June 29th, 2021)

[SLiC]

I wish Presonus would just buy Melodyne and integrate it natively (like Ableton did with MAX), its such an interictal part of why I use S1 and it can still feel a little clunky sometimes and the shift in 'look' and way things work can be a bit jarring....I must admit after using Reason pitch correction lately I can see the benefit of having a simple tool that is just accessible on the normal editing pages...

[wuworld]

I wish Presonus would just buy Melodyne and integrate it natively (like Ableton did with MAX), its such an interictal part of why I use S1 and it can still feel a little clunky sometimes and the shift in 'look' and way things work can be a bit jarring....I must admit after using Reason pitch correction lately I can see the benefit of having a simple tool that is just accessible on the normal editing pages...

They aren't going to buy them. Presonus Software, and Melodyne software meet once a week. It integrates very well with Studio One (better than other DAW's).

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I personally wish they'd stop adding these half-assed "pages" no one's asking for (show page, project page) and focus more resources and the DAW aspects, but I get why they do it.

What do you think they could improve in the DAW side of it? It already seems to have way more features than anyone could possibly need and the workflow is mostly very good.

The workflow is very good. But there is definitely room for improvement on the DAW side of things. My list used to be much longer, so kudos to the S1 team, but there's still plenty of room for improvement....

1. Track Templates
2. Dual Pans on the mixer
3. MIDI "All Channels" Option (even before getting into MPE, you couldn't record all MIDI channels onto a single track)
4. Post-pan metering (drives me f*cking nuts that the meters don't show in stereo - only DAW I know that does this)
5. Punch In/out markers independent from loop markers or a loopable preroll - Ever try to do an auto-punch of like a guitar solo while trying to give the player a few bars to count in to ahead of the punch point? Can't do this in S1.
6. MIDI Event List, MIDI Transformer, MIDI Sysex (did they ever add Poly Aftertouch for e-drummers?)
7. Dim Solo
8. Selected events and non-selected events need better visual distinctions
9. Middle mouse drag pan! So much faster to navigate projects when you can just hit the middle mouse button and move the arranger view
10. Eucon support
11. Plugin renaming!!! FFS let us create aliases for plugins in the "Plugin Manager"
12. No transpose on the pattern editor?
13. No automation Trim mode - Ever need to adjust the relative volume of a track after you drew in automation - way more clunky in S1 compared to a DAW with a Trim/Read mode like Reaper?

...note: no DAW is perfect and S1 does many things well. And not everyone's going to have the same wish list as me. But the amount of resources they threw into the Show Page no one wanted could've probably been used to have implemented just about every item on the list above.

[Stan Navi]

The great thing about S1 is that none of the features they've added in S1 affect me. If I don't want to use them I don't have to. Everything else still pretty much works the same as it did since about version 2.6.

I know some don't like the Show Page but a lot of people need something like MainStage without the complexity and setup of something like Live. The Show Page is easier to setup than even MainStage so if you do live shows on a regular basis, it's a no brainer as there really aren't many alternatives on the PC side. So I appreciate Presonus finding an underserved market and trying to serve it especially since it fits their wheelhouse pretty well.

I also think Show Page is not usable for now.
As a piano/synth player, i tried many soft - Mainstage, Ableton Live, Bitwig, Gig Performer.
For me the easiest and funniest soft now is Gig Performer. And S1 Show page don't even near as easy and fun to use. Also they should fix random CPU spikes on Mac OS, with this issue Show Page is unusable.

[apoclypse]

The great thing about S1 is that none of the features they've added in S1 affect me. If I don't want to use them I don't have to. Everything else still pretty much works the same as it did since about version 2.6.

I know some don't like the Show Page but a lot of people need something like MainStage without the complexity and setup of something like Live. The Show Page is easier to setup than even MainStage so if you do live shows on a regular basis, it's a no brainer as there really aren't many alternatives on the PC side. So I appreciate Presonus finding an underserved market and trying to serve it especially since it fits their wheelhouse pretty well.

I also think Show Page is not usable for now.
As a piano/synth player, i tried many soft - Mainstage, Ableton Live, Bitwig, Gig Performer.
For me the easiest and funniest soft now is Gig Performer. And S1 Show page don't even near as easy and fun to use. Also they should fix random CPU spikes on Mac OS, with this issue Show Page is unusable.

I think Gig Performer is pretty good but I think the market that Presonus is really going for is house of worship bands or gig bands. Not necessarily keyboard players that need access to a lot of patches or control over patches. Its primary focus is setting up backing tracks and automating the process of moving from track to track. I know you can setup MainStage/GigPerformer/even Ableton for that kind of thing but it requires way more setup than the Show Page. The Show Page is super simple to setup, assign an instrument or patch to the backing tracks and you are good to go. I've seen some house of worship band directors use Ableton for that, but some of them don't like the setup time as sometimes they need to be quick on their feet when the pastor decides to change things on the fly.

The show page still needs some work for sure, but I don't think it will ever be a full replacement for Gig Performer which markets itself as a plugin host, or MainStage which is pretty much the same thing. Its focus seems to be backing tracks for a show or gig band not electronic musicians or keyboardists.

Let's say I'm a guitar player for example. I can step out on stage with my guitar and let Studio One run the show without much input from me. It can change my guitar rig on the fly per song. If I have an iPad I can loop specific sections or hold the song while I talk to the audience that type of thing. I've tried doing this in Live but never really liked the experience. I've actually found Bitwig to be a bit stronger in this area and is actually pretty good but again you need to do quite a bit of setup.

[BONES]

Ever try to do an auto-punch of like a guitar solo while trying to give the player a few bars to count in to ahead of the punch point? Can't do this in S1.

Why would you need to punch-in? It's not like a 4-track, you can easily add another channel and record on that. Punch-in is an anachronism in a DAW. I often end up with 7 or 8 tracks of vocals which, in S1, I would just drag down onto one channel when I'm done. Much tidier.

7. Dim Solo

?

8. Selected events and non-selected events need better visual distinctions

What? Selections are bright white, everything else is a muted colour. It literally couldn't be any more obvious.

9. Middle mouse drag pan!

You know, it never occurs to me to do that. Even though I spend 8 hours a day in front of After Effects and use it to move around the viewport all the time, it had never occurred to me to try it in the timeline. It works! But I have developed so many ways of moving around the timeline that I can't see myself using it in AfterFX or in S1 (if it was there). It's all about what you're used to.

10. Eucon support

Do you have a EUCON control surface? I had to look it up to find out what it was. Seems pretty niche to me.

11. Plugin renaming!!! FFS let us create aliases for plugins in the "Plugin Manager"

Just rename the DLL if you don't like the name. I do it all the time. Renaming it in the host would be a terrible idea.

13. No automation Trim mode - Ever need to adjust the relative volume of a track after you drew in automation - way more clunky in S1 compared to a DAW with a Trim/Read mode like Reaper?

What, select/drag is clunky? It's just like the Free Transform tool in Photoshop, couldn't be easier. Personally, it is something I like to be precise about, so I usually enter values for each point manually, but I like the way it snaps to certain values.

But the amount of resources they threw into the Show Page no one wanted could've probably been used to have implemented just about every item on the list above.

As I intimated yesterday - it's not all about you! The Show Page is the one and only reason I am now a Studio One user. And no, I never use it and I can't imagine I ever will but it was a point of difference that made me look into S1. Without the Show Page, S1 just looks like a Cubase clone and I already had Cubase. Things like the Show Page and Project Page show me that Presonus are willing to think outside the box and try to offer users something genuinely different. I can see that the Show Page might be perfect for a keyboard player in a band and I fully intend to make use of the Project Page next time I am doing any mastering. Just because you don't have a use for it, don't assume nobody else does.

The rest of your list is just stuff that you'd prefer and some of it is just as likely to actively annoy others who are used to what we have now. e.g. I'd be annoyed if they bothered with punch-in/out stuff, for the reason stated above. It would be something done just to shut you up, not to make the application any better than it was.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Ever try to do an auto-punch of like a guitar solo while trying to give the player a few bars to count in to ahead of the punch point? Can't do this in S1.

Why would you need to punch-in? It's not like a 4-track, you can easily add another channel and record on that. Punch-in is an anachronism in a DAW. I often end up with 7 or 8 tracks of vocals which, in S1, I would just drag down onto one channel when I'm done. Much tidier.

How is creating extra, unnecessary tracks when you don't need them "much tidier?" You can work however you'd want, but I'd prefer to have a workflow that didn't require me creating new tracks when I don't want new tracks.

7. Dim Solo

?

It's solo that doesn't mute the other tracks but just makes them quieter (usually like -12db). Just convenient for focusing on one track but still hearing the context of the broader mix.

8. Selected events and non-selected events need better visual distinctions

What? Selections are bright white, everything else is a muted colour. It literally couldn't be any more obvious.

See here: https://answers.presonus.com/4295/incre ... ted-events

9. Middle mouse drag pan!

You know, it never occurs to me to do that. Even though I spend 8 hours a day in front of After Effects and use it to move around the viewport all the time, it had never occurred to me to try it in the timeline. It works! But I have developed so many ways of moving around the timeline that I can't see myself using it in AfterFX or in S1 (if it was there). It's all about what you're used to.

Yep.

10. Eucon support

Do you have a EUCON control surface? I had to look it up to find out what it was. Seems pretty niche to me.

I do. It's just another option. Eucon offers some deeper features and higher resolution than Mackie Control. It's no cost for a DAW to implement other than development. But Presonus has their own surfaces to sell I suppose.

11. Plugin renaming!!! FFS let us create aliases for plugins in the "Plugin Manager"

Just rename the DLL if you don't like the name. I do it all the time. Renaming it in the host would be a terrible idea.

That's exactly the wrong way to do it. If you rename the .dll, the next time you update it, guess what? You've got duplicates. Now you're dealing with the cleaning that mess up. Much better to have the DAW allow you to create "aliases" for plugins so the settings retain after updates. So instead of every T-Racks plugin being prefaced with TR5 or UAD plugins having stupid names like UAD UA 1176LN Rev A, you could just name the "1176LN Rev A" and have that rename carry over. They added a Plugin Manager that doesn't do basic plugin management like that.

Maybe I should've said "plugin aliases" to be more clear but I assumed people would understand what I meant. See Reaper for a great implementation.

13. No automation Trim mode - Ever need to adjust the relative volume of a track after you drew in automation - way more clunky in S1 compared to a DAW with a Trim/Read mode like Reaper?

What, select/drag is clunky? It's just like the Free Transform tool in Photoshop, couldn't be easier. Personally, it is something I like to be precise about, so I usually enter values for each point manually, but I like the way it snaps to certain values.

Much easier to just adjust the fader, particularly when you're adjusting the levels across multiple tracks. Can it be done without Trim? Sure. But it's just more steps.

But the amount of resources they threw into the Show Page no one wanted could've probably been used to have implemented just about every item on the list above.

As I intimated yesterday - it's not all about you! The Show Page is the one and only reason I am now a Studio One user. And no, I never use it and I can't imagine I ever will but it was a point of difference that made me look into S1. Without the Show Page, S1 just looks like a Cubase clone and I already had Cubase. Things like the Show Page and Project Page show me that Presonus are willing to think outside the box and try to offer users something genuinely different. I can see that the Show Page might be perfect for a keyboard player in a band and I fully intend to make use of the Project Page next time I am doing any mastering. Just because you don't have a use for it, don't assume nobody else does.

You asked what I wanted them to add to the DAW side of things, and I gave you my wish list. That's all. I realize those are just my preferences. But that was the question I was answering. It seems whacky to me that you switched to Studio One because it had a feature you'd never ever use, but that's your choice. One person's bloat (Show Page, Project Page) is another person's out of the box feature. I get it. I don't judge. It's not all about me. But if you ask for my list, you'll get it.

[5Lives]

EUCON is niche? Lol. About as niche as Pro Tools.

[BONES]

I've been doing this for 40 years and today is the first time I've ever heard of it so yeah, I think niche is the right description.

How is creating extra, unnecessary tracks when you don't need them "much tidier?"

But they are necessary because you need to record into them. I bet you have a separate channel for each of your drum sounds? To me that's unnecessary because every drum VSTi is more than capable of creating a finished drum mix for you. In fact, some are really good at it. But you keep doing it the way you've always done it, never questioning whether newer technology might offer a better way, never willing to explore new avenues just to see where they lead.

You can work however you'd want, but I'd prefer to have a workflow that didn't require me creating new tracks when I don't want new tracks.

No, much easier to complain about a feature that doesn't even need to be there than use your tools in a way that makes sense.

It's solo that doesn't mute the other tracks but just makes them quieter (usually like -12db). Just convenient for focusing on one track but still hearing the context of the broader mix.

Which hosts have that? I can't say it's something I'd use much. I'd rather the way mute/solo works in Orion - in the Mixer it mutes/solos the audio but in the Timeline it only mutes/solos the clips (MIDI or audio) so you can still trigger the instrument by other means - but I don't expect Presonus to do anything just to make me happy. It's much easier all round if I make the effort to adapt to the way Studio One works, rather than bitch and moan that it won't work the way I want it to. When I do that, I sometimes discover that there are things I hadn't thought about that actually make Presonus's way better.

See here: https://answers.presonus.com/4295/incre ... ted-events

That's from 2016 and it seems Presonus listened because it's not like that any more. I'll post you a screenshot tonight so you can see.

That's exactly the wrong way to do it. If you rename the .dll, the next time you update it, guess what? You've got duplicates.

Just one of many reasons I rarely bother with updates any more. Although, when I do, I am OCD enough that I go straight to my VST folder and fix it up. It annoys my bandmate, though, because he likes to be messy. And, to be clear, I change a lot of DLL names. Anything with a prefix or suffix, like _x64, has to be tidied up.

They added a Plugin Manager that doesn't do basic plugin management like that.

Explorer is still easier.

Much easier to just adjust the fader, particularly when you're adjusting the levels across multiple tracks.

What? That sounds like a disaster. What if you've forgotten it was automated or got it from someone else and didn't realise? Too many things can go wrong.

You asked what I wanted them to add to the DAW side of things

No, I asked how you thought they could improve it. Only one or two of your suggestions would improve it for me, a couple weren't relevant at all and several would actually make it worse.

It seems whacky to me that you switched to Studio One because it had a feature you'd never ever use, but that's your choice.

No, no, no. I looked at Studio One because of that feature, I bought for a lot of other things I like about it that I would otherwise have remained blissfully unaware of.

One person's bloat (Show Page, Project Page)

How is that bloat? There is a lot of stuff in S1 I'd call bloat, like the audio editing stuff, which would be much better served as a live link to your favourite audio editor (SoundForge, Audition, etc.) and the fiddly little menus and lists to the left of the mixer - but the Show and Project pages are tucked away where you never have to deal with them if you don't want to.

[ozinga]

8. Selected events and non-selected events need better visual distinctions

What? Selections are bright white, everything else is a muted colour. It literally couldn't be any more obvious.

How is this obvious?

Screen Shot 2021-07-01 at 09.23.44.png

[antic604]

How is this obvious?
Screen Shot 2021-07-01 at 09.23.44.png

The ones on the right are selected - it's obvious. Also you've just done it with mouse or keyboard, so unless you have some short-term memory loss condition how is that an issue?

[5Lives]

I've been doing this for 40 years and today is the first time I've ever heard of it so yeah, I think niche is the right description.

So just because you haven’t heard of it, it is niche? Could be you’re just uninformed about what professional rooms are using.

[BONES]

Do you have trouble reading? I explained my position. I have been doing this for a very long time. You definitely hear about things that everyone is using. I've not so much as seen it in a feature list for any DAW I have looked at. And you want to suggest it's not niche? Spare me days!

How is this obvious?
Screen Shot 2021-07-01 at 09.23.44.png

How is it NOT obvious? What do you want, dancing girls?

[EnGee]

How is it NOT obvious? What do you want, dancing girls?

YES!! We want dancing (sexy) girls whenever we select a clip!

The highlighted coloured tracks and mixer channels are not cleared (I mean when they are in whole colours) but I find it clear when using part colours (just the right part of the the tracks and the lowest part of the mixer channels).

[Trancit]

11. Plugin renaming!!! FFS let us create aliases for plugins in the "Plugin Manager"

Just rename the DLL if you don't like the name. I do it all the time. Renaming it in the host would be a terrible idea.

That's exactly the wrong way to do it. If you rename the .dll, the next time you update it, guess what? You've got duplicates. Now you're dealing with the cleaning that mess up. Much better to have the DAW allow you to create "aliases" for plugins so the settings retain after updates. So instead of every T-Racks plugin being prefaced with TR5 or UAD plugins having stupid names like UAD UA 1176LN Rev A, you could just name the "1176LN Rev A" and have that rename carry over. They added a Plugin Manager that doesn't do basic plugin management like that.

Maybe I should've said "plugin aliases" to be more clear but I assumed people would understand what I meant. See Reaper for a great implementation.

Nevertheless, there is a working way...

Just edit the Plugins-(language i.e. en).setting file and the changed names get stored there forever if you like...