Presonus Studio One - Survey / Competition 2021

[antic604]

Well...to be fair...launching a feature aimed at live gigs during a pandemic [where live gigs have basically been prohibited] wasn't the best timing. But no way they could've known that.

More time to practice in the basement to not embarass yourself in front of live audience

[THE INTRANCER]

64 bit, lol. I know it’s low but I need low latency for tracking guitars with amp sims. I can actually do that in S1, but it gets intense when I start adding more tracks/effects.

Use Sends instead of Inserts where you can when using effects plugins in Studio One. It's far more efficient on CPU. Use one instance of a Reverb plugin and distribute to other channels where needed. Using multiples of the same plugin is wasteful if you are live tracking or intend to create a high track count such as with orchestral work.

[Trancit]

64 bit, lol. I know it’s low but I need low latency for tracking guitars with amp sims. I can actually do that in S1, but it gets intense when I start adding more tracks/effects.

I just wanted to have it confirmed...

It isn´t that Reaper is that much more efficient when it comes to multi tasking... it´s still king for sure but not that much ahead...perhaps 5-10% so hardly noticeable in a real world example where it doesn´t matter if you have to freeze tracks 5 minutes earlier or later...

But it has a much better performance with extrem low latencies than all competitors together with their anticipative prerendering especially when it comes to absolutely maxing out the system...

People like me who barely touching the 50% CPU mark and working with "normal" latencies of 256 or 512 samples will not notice much benefit of Reaper´s system, so it heavily depends what you are doing...

[HanafiH]

OK. General followup.

It isn't just Reaper. S1 can REWIRE into Plogue Bidule and deliver an equal and equivalent boost in thread handling. If you can get the freeware AudioGridder to scan your VST directories and host and client on the same machine without crashing, AudioGridder can deliver an equivalent performance boost in both instruments and effects. It's S1 that's the odd man out, almost every DAW I've tested uses general symmetric multithreading across cores, Studio One doesn't..

The problem has persisted since at least Version 3, but Presonus doesn't fix it. Certainly, VST2, VST3 and Audio Units all provide a generic thread handling shell for plugins to use - they have to as there aren't any plugs where the UI doesn't work at the same time as the plug's process.

AudioGridder is free. Worth a try.

[Trancit]

OK. General followup.

It isn't just Reaper. S1 can REWIRE into Plogue Bidule and deliver an equal and equivalent boost in thread handling. If you can get the freeware AudioGridder to scan your VST directories and host and client on the same machine without crashing, AudioGridder can deliver an equivalent performance boost in both instruments and effects. It's S1 that's the odd man out, almost every DAW I've tested uses general symmetric multithreading across cores, Studio One doesn't..

The problem has persisted since at least Version 3, but Presonus doesn't fix it. Certainly, VST2, VST3 and Audio Units all provide a generic thread handling shell for plugins to use - they have to as there aren't any plugs where the UI doesn't work at the same time as the plug's process.

AudioGridder is free. Worth a try.

As you mentioned Audio Units I assume you are on a Mac...
S1 always had trouble on Macs... so the most of these problems aren´t valid for PC...

All tests I did on Windows S1 was always on the second place behind Reaper...

For most tests I ran the order was mostly:

1. Reaper
2. S1
3. Bitwig
4. Ableton
5. FLS

...so I cannot tell about any problems with S1 and multithreading...

[THE INTRANCER]

Who won the competition ?

[wuworld]

Never seen Presonus do a google questionnaire before.... The second question clearly wants them to know if they are wasting their time having people pay a subscription to use Sphere at all or just to provide it for free to everyone... or really to not bother doing Sphere videos at all cause nobody is watching their live streams... just a few guesses. Never used Sphere... not interested in subsciptions ... In any case, the survey is open atm... and you probably won't win anything by doing it.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... rmResponse

Modern users will join Sphere. It's more the older userbase hobbyist who don't like it. I don't think it's going anywhere. Why would they make it for free? They shouldn't... Users complain about paying $15 a month for Sphere, but can go pay $1000 plus for plugins with no room treatment.

[wuworld]

The problem with Presonus is that they don’t really know who to target the Studio One product at. Sphere gets you fifty-six bazillion cheesy soundsets and a bunch of plugs which, if you are a serious user you already have. The last major version introduced tools such as the Show Page which are directed firmly at the -sumer end of the Prosumer market. At the other end of the rainbow users who invest in Presonus hardware get a DAW that can’t multi-task properly with multicoloured rainbow plugs they already have twenty different third-party alternatives to.

Is it a toy for the kiddies or is it a professional DAW? Fix the multitasking and we’ll know. Or is it another ninety drum sample packs?

The target should be music production. The CTO mentioned that in a interview with who they are targeting, and he said music producers. That's the market that is selling right now the most. Hell you even got Steven Slate trying to get more music producers to use analog modeled plugins. Show Page won't get bigger until they add the modern day music production workflows that are common today.

[digitalboytn]

I had to stop using S1 because of the lousy CPU performance. REAPER is truly unbeatable in that regard.

I did a test and the same project in Reaper 6 was using 30% of the CPU compared to SO 4.6 Pro...

Buffer @ 128 in Win 7 x64...Ryzen 5 2600...16GB Ram...

I like some aspects of Studio One Pro,but Reaper kills it when it comes to overall efficiency...

Once you get your workflow set up in Reaper,it's a great work environment and an excellent DAW

[THE INTRANCER]

Modern users will join Sphere. It's more the older userbase hobbyist who don't like it. I don't think it's going anywhere. Why would they make it for free? They shouldn't... Users complain about paying $15 a month for Sphere, but can go pay $1000 plus for plugins with no room treatment.

It's pretty much a Presonus Rentabloat scheme of tools nobody really needs, similar to Propellerheads thing. Friggen waste of money.. that could be better spent on a few good VSTs.

[wuworld]

Modern users will join Sphere. It's more the older userbase hobbyist who don't like it. I don't think it's going anywhere. Why would they make it for free? They shouldn't... Users complain about paying $15 a month for Sphere, but can go pay $1000 plus for plugins with no room treatment.

It's pretty much a Presonus Rentabloat scheme of tools nobody really needs, similar to Propellerheads thing. Friggen waste of money.. that could be better spent on a few good VSTs.

It's a waste because music I'm guessing is a hobby for you. So you probably just buy a whole bunch of daw's and plugins to keep yourself inspired until you get bored. Nothing wrong with that. Those that are serious about music will get Sphere probably. Most of the questions on what people ask or don't know how to do are answered in Sphere videos anyway.

[digitalboytn]

Those that are serious about music will get Sphere probably.

Not necessarily true...

Those that are serious about music will get serious music making tools...

Starting with the development of their musical skills

[THE INTRANCER]

It's a waste because music I'm guessing is a hobby for you. So you probably just buy a whole bunch of daw's and plugins to keep yourself inspired until you get bored. Nothing wrong with that. Those that are serious about music will get Sphere probably. Most of the questions on what people ask or don't know how to do are answered in Sphere videos anyway.

It gets serious when you start buying actual music production hardware rather than software alone, learning to play an instrument rather than just playing with virtual knobs of software.

[pinki]

Modern users will join Sphere. It's more the older userbase hobbyist who don't like it. I don't think it's going anywhere. Why would they make it for free? They shouldn't... Users complain about paying $15 a month for Sphere, but can go pay $1000 plus for plugins with no room treatment.

It's pretty much a Presonus Rentabloat scheme of tools nobody really needs, similar to Propellerheads thing. Friggen waste of money.. that could be better spent on a few good VSTs.

It's a waste because music I'm guessing is a hobby for you. So you probably just buy a whole bunch of daw's and plugins to keep yourself inspired until you get bored. Nothing wrong with that. Those that are serious about music will get Sphere probably. Most of the questions on what people ask or don't know how to do are answered in Sphere videos anyway.

Yes agreed. I am a pro user and recently come to Studio One and Sphere works for me. I also use Notion heavily which helped make the decision of course, but generally I am very happy with Sphere, and not because of the (admittedly pointless for me) construction kits.

[wuworld]

It's a waste because music I'm guessing is a hobby for you. So you probably just buy a whole bunch of daw's and plugins to keep yourself inspired until you get bored. Nothing wrong with that. Those that are serious about music will get Sphere probably. Most of the questions on what people ask or don't know how to do are answered in Sphere videos anyway.

It gets serious when you start buying actual music production hardware rather than software alone, learning to play an instrument rather than just playing with virtual knobs of software.

That's what you think from 10 or 20 years ago. Presonus, Native Instruments, Slate aren't targeting the close minded bitter musicians like what you are demonstrating.