PreSonus Studio One 7 apparently imminent

[slackhead]

... could be the only DAW you need (no more linear DAW + live or Bitwig), nothing removed, just more options.

I would struggle without Bitwigs modulation and routing capabilites.
But otherwise, this does look like a great update.

Most exciting S1 update for some time, looks great as well IMO

I'm going to be very tempted (I'm sill on 4.6 at the moment.)

[J Veronica]

I don't believe them about 3-4 big updates a year. I'm gonna need to see some kind of DLC road map.

[gentleclockdivider]

The big question is if they will release bugfixes once you annual update period is over .
Imho this whole annual update plan rieks , it's double the price as the previous 2 year span releases which always had a free .dot update in between.
Annual releases means more pressure on the developers and imho more bloat stuff that few people really need .

[qtheerearranger]

I don't believe them about 3-4 big updates a year. I'm gonna need to see some kind of DLC road map.

i feel like presonus is giving up. the leaked feature video does nothing to address a lot of their engineering audience. not a single feature that looks like an engineer will be like oh my gosh this will make my life better. as a musician the clips is just a better version of scratch pad for what I do with just constantly tweaking chords so its nice to have some place to drag different chord voicing patterns to. I'm really hoping theres more then what weve seen in the leaked video.

I was expecting more with the fender money. I was expecting fender to make a serious investment to compete against the likes of avid. the obvious sign of v7 is that fender is letting presonus operate as usual.. for good and bad.

[gentleclockdivider]

I was expecting more with the fender money.

A lot of capital was used to fund the research team responsible for perfecting the art of rounding edges .

[qtheerearranger]

I was expecting more with the fender money.

A lot of capital was used to fund the research team responsible for perfecting the art of rounding edges .

dont forget about putting work into impact without changing any of the feature set of impact or adding to its feature set. at least thats what the quick video seemed to show. so sad

[Sweet Tooth]

Almost sure that launcher will be for audio only , whichh would be the lamest decision ever .
Hope I'm wrong .

clip launcher midi

[Freaqpeak]

I was a beta tester for v2... 2010-2011. Really good devs back then. Some things that others didnt have, some workflow things was lots faster than others at the time.
It was great but was missing too many features for me, didnt have time to continue to use it. I remember that it was more demanding on CPU than Cubase at the time, noticebly... long time ago now.
Anyways, Anything missing in Studio One compared to Cubase nowadays?

Does it have any killer features that stands out?

[jamcat]

Does it have any killer features that stands out?

Mix Engine FX and the Project page, for starters.

[dastewart]

...and I thought it was just me.

I hadn't noticed this thread but think I can add some useful info based on my past week of trying out Reaper as an alternative to Studio One.

I've been falling out of love with S1 for the past year or so. Version 6 was a huge disappointment in that pretty much everything they added was irrelevant for how I use S1. The only reason I upgraded was for bug fixes and project templates, I literally can't think of anything else they added that was of interest to me. So, the v7 (non-)announcement and the leak of new features just had me thinking that sooner or later I was going to part company with S1. It's being taken in a direction that doesn't appeal to me. I don't care about all the "bloatware" because I have all the virtual instruments, plugins, sample libraries that anybody could need (although I'll always want more).

What I want from a DAW is to do the fundamental things really well - efficiently, intuitively and easily. And Studio One seemed to be heading in a direction of trying to be an all in one solution for somebody new to the industry. That's not me.

And I haven't even mentioned the new pricing where they've copied the hated Waves Upgrade Plan and kicked their existing pro customer in the teeth.

So, with a very heavy heart I decided to look around and that's had me evaluating Reaper for the past week. At face value it seemed like the DAW that was what I wanted. Something which did the basic stuff very well and didn't offer a huge amount of stock plugins and virtual instruments and tunecore integration (who cares), and splice integration (I don't use splice) and atmos focus etc etc etc. I really liked the idea of a DAW that was stripped of all the sweetie-shop overhead and just did what a DAW should do.

So, first impression were exactly as you expect and I won't repeat what's been said a thousand times: it's ugly but highly customisable. I spent some time trying to get it work like S1 because, even if I switched, I'm going to be using both for a while. Having spent some familiarisation and customising time I tried to think about the "big ticket" items that were going to help me decide whether or not to move. And I decided there was a whole bunch of stuff that I could learn and adapt over time but there were two potential show-stoppers: firstly, the UX and secondly the CPU performance.

I really can't over-state the shock of coming from something like Studio One to Reaper in terms of UI/UX. It's like travelling back in time to the days of windows 95. And while I can easily live with dialogue boxes being plain OS generated options, it's different for the tracks and mixer panel (what Reaper calls TCP and MCP). Because that's what you're going to be spending 90% of the time looking at.

Reaper has a double-edged sword of theme customisation where you can change lots of stuff about the TCP/MCP and/or download other peoples' ideas of how they should look. To cut a long story short, I managed with a few tweaks to the theme and to windows scaling options make something that was usable. Still ugly (when compared to S1) but usable enough. I guess I could get used to it.

That just left CPU performance and the fact that Reaper (nor any other DAW afaik) can do S1's trick of having two different audio buffer sizes: one for playback and one for recording. This is what Presonus call low latency monitoring and in all the years that I've been using S1 and struggling to understand I never saw somebody explaining it really simply. You have one audio buffer size for recording (which you set low to reduce latency) and another for playing back all the other track (which you set high to reduce CPU load). You set the last one in the dropout protection menu.

For example, this is useful when you get towards the end of a project (where you have loads of plugins and virtual instruments which you don't want to "commit") but then decide you want to record something it's still possible.

What I wanted to know from Reaper was how much more CPU efficient it was than S1 so not having this trick wouldn't matter. If I could set the overall buffer size low and still play back the session without any problems then not having a dual buffer wouldn't be an issue. Reaper is (so I have read) famously light on CPU because it doesn't have loads of spurious stuff it needs to support like, for example, an attractive UI.

So, I created the same project on both S1 and Reaper, threw on plenty of plugins and virtual instruments and then compared the CPU load (as measured by windows not by the DAWs) and the render time for the whole project.

And S1 was more CPU efficient than Reaper at all the buffer settings I tried except 1024. S1 used 29% less CPU used at 64, 11% less CPU at 256.

And the render mirrored the CPU usage (i.e. Reaper took longer).

And when I kept duplicating tracks until Reaper was maxing out the CPU and couldn't play it back without pops and clicks, S1 was still running it at 30% CPU.

I'm left scratching my head at this because it's not what I was expecting. I've read many posts by people saying that switching to Reaper was like having a new computer. But I've been through all the Reaper settings and youtube videos about how to set it up to be CPU efficient and I can't find any tricks that I'm missing. Yes, you can freeze (render) out tracks to record and then unfreeze them if necessary but that's not a step I really want to add to my workflow as I don't have to do that with S1.

So either I've messed up this test somehow or S1's BIGGEST unheralded virtue is that it's core audio engine (or whatever it's called) is really very, very efficient. And if that's true I may have to hold my nose and stick with it even though I'd do it very grudgingly.

This is a long post (sorry) but I wanted to share my experiences because I think they are relevant. But I'm also happy to hear any comments on whether I'm just doing something wrong in Reaper and somehow I've set something incorrectly.

[THE INTRANCER]

...and I thought it was just me.

I hadn't noticed this thread but think I can add some useful info based on my past week of trying out Reaper as an alternative to Studio One.

I've been falling out of love with S1 for the past year or so. Version 6 was a huge disappointment in that pretty much everything they added was irrelevant for how I use S1. The only reason I upgraded was for bug fixes and project templates, I literally can't think of anything else they added that was of interest to me. So, the v7 (non-)announcement and the leak of new features just had me thinking that sooner or later I was going to part company with S1. It's being taken in a direction that doesn't appeal to me. I don't care about all the "bloatware" because I have all the virtual instruments, plugins, sample libraries that anybody could need (although I'll always want more).

What I want from a DAW is to do the fundamental things really well - efficiently, intuitively and easily. And Studio One seemed to be heading in a direction of trying to be an all in one solution for somebody new to the industry. That's not me.

And I haven't even mentioned the new pricing where they've copied the hated Waves Upgrade Plan and kicked their existing pro customer in the teeth.

So, with a very heavy heart I decided to look around and that's had me evaluating Reaper for the past week. At face value it seemed like the DAW that was what I wanted. Something which did the basic stuff very well and didn't offer a huge amount of stock plugins and virtual instruments and tunecore integration (who cares), and splice integration (I don't use splice) and atmos focus etc etc etc. I really liked the idea of a DAW that was stripped of all the sweetie-shop overhead and just did what a DAW should do.

So, first impression were exactly as you expect and I won't repeat what's been said a thousand times: it's ugly but highly customisable. I spent some time trying to get it work like S1 because, even if I switched, I'm going to be using both for a while. Having spent some familiarisation and customising time I tried to think about the "big ticket" items that were going to help me decide whether or not to move. And I decided there was a whole bunch of stuff that I could learn and adapt over time but there were two potential show-stoppers: firstly, the UX and secondly the CPU performance.

I really can't over-state the shock of coming from something like Studio One to Reaper in terms of UI/UX. It's like travelling back in time to the days of windows 95. And while I can easily live with dialogue boxes being plain OS generated options, it's different for the tracks and mixer panel (what Reaper calls TCP and MCP). Because that's what you're going to be spending 90% of the time looking at.

Reaper has a double-edged sword of theme customisation where you can change lots of stuff about the TCP/MCP and/or download other peoples' ideas of how they should look. To cut a long story short, I managed with a few tweaks to the theme and to windows scaling options make something that was usable. Still ugly (when compared to S1) but usable enough. I guess I could get used to it.

That just left CPU performance and the fact that Reaper (nor any other DAW afaik) can do S1's trick of having two different audio buffer sizes: one for playback and one for recording. This is what Presonus call low latency monitoring and in all the years that I've been using S1 and struggling to understand I never saw somebody explaining it really simply. You have one audio buffer size for recording (which you set low to reduce latency) and another for playing back all the other track (which you set high to reduce CPU load). You set the last one in the dropout protection menu.

For example, this is useful when you get towards the end of a project (where you have loads of plugins and virtual instruments which you don't want to "commit") but then decide you want to record something it's still possible.

What I wanted to know from Reaper was how much more CPU efficient it was than S1 so not having this trick wouldn't matter. If I could set the overall buffer size low and still play back the session without any problems then not having a dual buffer wouldn't be an issue. Reaper is (so I have read) famously light on CPU because it doesn't have loads of spurious stuff it needs to support like, for example, an attractive UI.

So, I created the same project on both S1 and Reaper, threw on plenty of plugins and virtual instruments and then compared the CPU load (as measured by windows not by the DAWs) and the render time for the whole project.

And S1 was more CPU efficient than Reaper at all the buffer settings I tried except 1024. S1 used 29% less CPU used at 64, 11% less CPU at 256.

And the render mirrored the CPU usage (i.e. Reaper took longer).

And when I kept duplicating tracks until Reaper was maxing out the CPU and couldn't play it back without pops and clicks, S1 was still running it at 30% CPU.

I'm left scratching my head at this because it's not what I was expecting. I've read many posts by people saying that switching to Reaper was like having a new computer. But I've been through all the Reaper settings and youtube videos about how to set it up to be CPU efficient and I can't find any tricks that I'm missing. Yes, you can freeze (render) out tracks to record and then unfreeze them if necessary but that's not a step I really want to add to my workflow as I don't have to do that with S1.

So either I've messed up this test somehow or S1's BIGGEST unheralded virtue is that it's core audio engine (or whatever it's called) is really very, very efficient. And if that's true I may have to hold my nose and stick with it even though I'd do it very grudgingly.

This is a long post (sorry) but I wanted to share my experiences because I think they are relevant. But I'm also happy to hear any comments on whether I'm just doing something wrong in Reaper and somehow I've set something incorrectly.

On the official Studio One forum, which I used to be part of and used Studio One daily between 2015 / 2016 there were comparison test studies between Reaper and Studio One in terms of efficiency. The performance difference was pretty much negligible between them, then Presonus introduced the dual buffer system which made a significant improvement in how well the application was able to cope at different buffer levels and still perform well. My own reaction was that of wow when I had tested it and I could only presume that Studio One was really taking full advantage of my multi-core CPU. Studio One's options provide the simplicity to adjust things easily and not only that, the ability to open multiple songs and easily switch between them which I found useful in my composing.

I came from Reason so was use to dealing with a lot onscreen and being held back in CPU performance. For me anyway I'm still on 4.6 Pro so if I were to upgrade, there will be a lot of new extra stuff and therefor value in upgrading to 7.0 I think. What I've found over the years is that Presonus refine and update things to make things easier. Stuff like adding sidechain was made really easy with a simple button click. Notation is interesting because I play the keyboard and my niece can play piano whilst reading notation so she during her days off could play what I recorded.

Clip launching is something that will help to generate ideas quickly. You may only use 25% of what Studio One offers you, but it's there should you want it in the future if it's not outdated and improved. With Reaper, it does the basics, however the UI/UX will always be a burden. I think everything that I asked for and want as standard in Studio One now, is now there. Being able to customise Studio One by removing stuff you don't need from the UI, being able to undock the browser etc. to make it feel more like your own and customise the colours and stuff is really cool as is having Hi-DPI support. Tabbed instrument / effect tabs, a lot of stuff you take for granted is taken away and you feel it when you which to other DAWs.

I've came up with my own concepts and ideas for Studio One over the years as many here know, some including a clip launcher type thing using nodes.

Switching DAWS is like switching to a new or old pair of shoes, breaking them in may be painful or like floating on air.

[jens]

That just left CPU performance and the fact that Reaper (nor any other DAW afaik) can do S1's trick of having two different audio buffer sizes: one for playback and one for recording.

Wait - what???


Dude! Reaper had that for so much longer than S1 - in fact iIrc Reaqper was the first DAW to have that and especially those being familiar with it were the ones pestering the S1 dev team long enough (for years) requesting it in S1 until they finally gave in and added it.

So you basically attempt to completely rewrite DAW-history here.


At least Samplitude and Cubendo nowadays have that too by the way - and both longer than S1.

[musikarldererste]

That just left CPU performance and the fact that Reaper (nor any other DAW afaik) can do S1's trick of having two different audio buffer sizes: one for playback and one for recording.

Wait - what???


Dude! Reaper had that for so much longer than S1 - in fact iIrc Reaqper was the first DAW to have that and especially those being familiar with it were the ones pestering the S1 dev team long enough (for years) requesting it in S1 until they finally gave in and added it.

So you basically attempt to completely rewrite DAW-history here.


At least Samplitude and Cubendo nowadays have that too by the way - and both longer than S1.

wait in studio one you can have two separte buffer sizes , how awesome is this ?
cool will check it out

[jens]

Again: other DAWs had it when S1 wasn't even around...

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/magix-samplitude-9

(So January 2007 was when Samplitude introduced this feature, S1 first was released in 2009 - then it took them about a decade or so to add hybrid buffers.)

[jens]

Cubase added ASIO Guard in 2013.

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/steinberg-cubase-7

S1 introduced the function with V3.5 in 2017 (i.e. a good whole decade after Samplitude).

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... 5-features