Everything you want to know about Studio One 3.2

[Vintage73]

How dare they market!!!

[RockinMillie]

One thing I am sure of without having access to the Studio One source code is that experienced Object Oriented programmers will re-use existing functions within their existing classes rather than re-invent functionality. That has to be more efficient.
It's how Object Oriented programming works

You seem to know what you are talking about, meaning you have some kind of inside information, right? Haha, I love when people are so sure of themselves and when they try to convince people just by saying "this is what actually happens" when they don't really know what actually happens. Assuming =/= reality. Come with some proof first, otherwise PreSonus is not guilty.

Anyway, I must say it's really fun to say MARKETING when you hate/don't like something, I started to use it in real life too, got some good laughs.

Of course we could go and live in North Korea and escape all this evil marketing. No wait a minute, that would be just a different kind of more insidious and evil marketing.

OK then, let's all become off-grid spoon whittlers.
That'll teach those smooth talking marketing gits.

This you cannot do by just putting plugins on channels and buses. That is the primary point of my longwinded explanations above.

Actually I though the points and assumptions that you made were credible and not long-winded at all.

[ghettosynth]

This you cannot do by just putting plugins on channels and buses. That is the primary point of my longwinded explanations above.

Actually I though the points and assumptions that you made were credible and not long-winded at all.

Thanks, I know I'm longwinded, I try. At any rate, my experience with inter-channel crosstalk mirrors the only other poster who's really talked about it. If we exclude tape adjacent channel crosstalk, it's usually very low level and a function of certain aspects of board construction.

I'm really curious if anyone thinks this adds something positive to a mix?

[SLiC]

How dare they market!!!

I know, like those bastXXds as Studio One Expert who keep posting free videos about how to do things in Studio one.....how dare they......

[LawrenceF]

I'm really curious if anyone thinks this adds something positive to a mix?

I'd say just try the demo and come back and tell the rest of us what you think. Imagine that you mixed a song without using the plugin at all, just ignored it completely. Everything sounds good. Now you engage the plugin on the master bus and turn the crosstalk knob a little bit and the mix will certainly change a little because signals will be bleeding over into other channels causing various effects with EQ and compression and other DSP.

- It may result in increased presence in some ways.
- It might just plain suck for that particular mix.
- It may just make everything louder.
- It may just sound better, for some reason which wouldn't matter.

It's hard to say because (obviously) every mix is different. Mixing is largely a creative endeavor, it's not a formulaic adventure. If you turn a knob - any knob - and you like what you hear - for any reason - it's good. If not, turn the knob down.

Like Melodyne or anything else, sometimes you'll like it, sometimes you won't. Every mix is different.

I wouldn't so much worry about what other people think in a given unrelated isolated situation having no actual relationship to the 50 tracks in front of me. I'd more just think about how or when it might be useful to me... and when it's not... I won't use it. Given that it's free I don't think about it all that much tbh. Not sure why the crosstalk knob is causing so much discussion. It's just a knob to turn or not like any other knob. If you don't like what it does on mix X, turn it off. If you do, leave it on.
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[SLiC]

This you cannot do by just putting plugins on channels and buses. That is the primary point of my longwinded explanations above.

Actually I though the points and assumptions that you made were credible and not long-winded at all.

Thanks, I know I'm longwinded, I try. At any rate, my experience with inter-channel crosstalk mirrors the only other poster who's really talked about it. If we exclude tape adjacent channel crosstalk, it's usually very low level and a function of certain aspects of board construction.

I'm really curious if anyone thinks this adds something positive to a mix?

Its pretty early for 3.2, I think most of us are just playing with it at the moment (I have pushed it extreme on some drum tracks and it was 'interesting' but I normally mix with my X32 (digital anyway!) so its not a big deal for me, I haven't used any console emulation to compare it to.

It seems to be very similar to AVID HEAT (other than it doesn't cost $500) as I mentioned earlier, and there is quite a bit more explanation (marketing) on HEAT, so perhaps there are answers there- certainly everyone agrees it is very subtle - emperors clothes? Who knows, people pay 10's of thousands for high end analogue mastering and I can personally hardly hear a difference....its in the 'ear' of the beholder- if it sounds better to you, use it, if not....

[ghettosynth]

Not sure why the crosstalk knob is causing so much discussion. It's just a knob to turn or not like any other knob. If you don't like what it does on mix X, turn it off. If you do, leave it on.
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Because it's the only knob that justifies the claim that it couldn't be done as a plugin. They kind of make a big deal about this needing to be "at the audio engine level." That's not really true if you exclude inter-channel crosstalk.

I know that I could try the demo, but, my experience would be colored by the fact that I think that it's not really interesting. I said this up front, I never use the "noise/hum" settings in plugins that model those features.

I'm thinking out loud here to see if there's a good explanation of how it might positively impact a mix. The demo videos so far have been unconvincing, not because of the feature's inherent value, per se, but because they haven't really demonstrated it in a definitive A/B setting.

[LawrenceF]

Because it's the only knob that justifies the claim that it couldn't be done as a plugin. They kind of make a big deal about this needing to be "at the audio engine level."

I hear you. I don't personally base what I do on what "they" (whoever 'they' are in any given situation) say in ads or marketing. I base what I do only on what I hear coming out of my speakers. My job is to mix, not so much to second guess developers. The other stuff is (to me, mmv as usual) completely irrelevant. I turn knobs until I like what I hear and then I print that.

But sure, I'm kind of a tech geek too and I do have interest in how things work, but talking about whether X thing could have been done as Y doesn't put any money in my pocket or finish any mix for me so at some point it eventually becomes irrelevant (again, mmv on that).

Not saying it should be irrelevant for everyone else though. It's the net and people talk or worry about whatever they want to talk about.

Suffice to say, I don't "trust" anything but what I see happen in front of me and what I hear coming from my monitors. All of the other stuff (the random advertising across the industry) is mostly just noise. If their marketing claims are supportable or not has no real impact on the result of my work. Whatever happens just happens, or not, and the truth is always revealed in any case.

[ghettosynth]

I love this guy's take on this, which I largely agree with. I'm trying to keep an open mind about this sort of thing. So, forget about actual demos or mixes, do people actually think that modeling crosstalk is a good thing? Why?

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=88180

Ya know, as an "old timer" from the analog days, I always
just crack up at this concept. "Youngins" today!!! LOL!!!

Pining for some nostalgic way to create the UTTER GARBAGE
issues we dealt with "back then" - crosstalk is what caught my
eye. What a BANE crosstalk was - couldn't track the bass
next to a delicate vocal - couldn't put the snare alongside a
quiet guitar part.... ugh!! We struggled and planned, to make
track arrangements work within the constraints of crosstalk,
not only in the console strips but in the tape itself if narrow
gauge. And FORGET putting a SMPTE stripe next to ANYTHING. On
an 8-track deck, that meant your MIDI/SMPTE sync took TWO tracks
(track one for stripe, track two empty) and only left 6 tracks
for analog, which meant BOUNCE, BOUNCE, BOUNCE and all the added
hiss, crosstalk, wow, flutter etc. that went with it. It was
HORRIBLE to deal with, especially using "narrow gauge" like 8 tracks
on 1/4" tape for example.

And then these silly VSTs I see to induce WOW AND FLUTTER!!! or
"Tape Hiss" or some other such malady of the "analog days".

It just cracks me up. We spent THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS back then to buy
gear to overcome all of these things, but now folks want to pay
good money to bring them back - SIMULATED!!!

As someone above said, if you really want the sonic annoyances
of the "Analog Age" then buy an analog console (preferably a
cheap one) and an analog multi-track tape deck.

It's bad enough that there are VSTs now to introduce those
bad memories into a mix - but to ask for a DAW developer to
actually implement it as a "feature"??????

LOL!!!!

Incidentally, if you want a DAW where development is not really driven by marketing and hype, then Reaper is a good choice.

[LawrenceF]

Incidentally, if you want a DAW where development is not really driven by marketing and hype, then Reaper is a good choice.

Or just do what most reasonable adults do, demo a bunch of them and use whatever you like best or whatever works best for you personally, and stop worrying about marketing and hype so much.

[ghettosynth]

Incidentally, if you want a DAW where development is not really driven by marketing and hype, then Reaper is a good choice.

Or just do what most reasonable adults do, demo a bunch of them and use whatever you like best or whatever works best for you personally, and stop worrying about marketing and hype so much.

Sure, but that wasn't my point. My point was that Reaper development reflects a certain aesthetic about new features that isn't as driven by marketing. This isn't a Reaper fanboi post, it's not even my primary DAW, but rather a statement about the differences between how marketing and development interact with respect to new features.

So, if one is looking for that kind of flavor, e.g., they're hoping that devs spend more time on something other than modeling crosstalk, Reaper might be a good choice for you.

It's not about whether or not marketing or hype bothers you on some moral or emotional level, it's about whether marketing impacts design choices.

[LawrenceF]

[development] driven by marketing

I think your implication above that Studio One development is driven by marketing is most likely a flawed assumption. I actually think (there and everywhere else) that marketing just follows whatever the developers do, even if they go too far sometimes in the view of some with ad hype, not so much that marketing people are telling the developers what to create, "driving" the development process.

But it's KVR and many things here are based on arguably flawed assumptions.

My guess would be that the marketeers there don't even know what they'll be hyping until it's been developed already. Obviously, if anyone has evidence otherwise I'll change my view of that.

Not making an argument here btw, but some of this stuff kinda gets silly at times, to suggest that marketing people who don't code are somehow telling professional developers what to code and when.

[Gamma-UT]

So, forget about actual demos or mixes, do people actually think that modeling crosstalk is a good thing? Why?

In that quote, it's worth noting that Reaper old-timer is talking about tracking with crosstalk, which is a PITA, because you don't want spill from track to track, especially when you've spent ages placing microphones to avoid it in the acoustic world. When you flip it over to mixing, crosstalk becomes something of a non-issue – unless you've got the kick and bass muted next to a vocal track, you fully intend to mix those strong signals on the mix bus itself. "Crosstalk, what? I can't hear it over all that bass!"

Except, for one small thing – you are probably going to get a small amount of sidechain compression on those weaker signals caused by the high-energy elements, such as kick and bass from both crosstalk and voltage sag induced by strong transients. This, you might interpret as "glueing" in the mix. It's one thing you want handled in one place in summing algorithm although I guess you could distribute it. Or you can just slap a compressor on the mix bus with some very fast attack and release characteristics and fake it. Is the overall effect going to be very different.

The one thing that doesn't capture is the comb filtering that SoS spotted in its review of VCC and which Fabrice said was what they measured. This makes a degree of sense in that you've got a bunch of electrical transmission lines hitting a node. You will get some reflections that will affect the signal – phase cancellations would cause a small amount of comb filtering. Plus, you've got some kind of LC tank-circuit resonator in the circuit that will have a small filtering effect. So, slight comb filtering doesn't seem too odd in that context.

Is this something you want? Something you need on every channel? Or maybe something you might want to add on certain channels because the console designers tuned those filter/impedance values to sound good most of the time?

[ghettosynth]

[development] driven by marketing

I think your implication above that Studio One development is driven by marketing is most likely a flawed assumption.

Obviously what's true about S1, I can't say, I don't work for them.

I actually think (there and most everywhere else) that marketing just follows whatever the developers do

But I don't agree with this at all. I've worked as a developer in different projects for years and this is simply not true. In fact, this is really part of the reason that Justin Frankel started Cockos in the first place.

, even if they go too far sometimes in the view of some with ad hype, not so much that marketing people are telling the developers what to create, "driving" the development process.

I don't want to get lost in pedantry about who's telling who what to do, rather, this is about whether business factors or something else drives development more significantly. Sometimes they overlap, often they don't. A great example of where business needs drives development the wrong way is in many freemium games where gameplay takes a back seat to revenue generation. On the other side of the coin is many open source projects where there are often few to no business needs, per se, development is driven by other factors.

Not making an argument here btw, but some of this stuff kinda gets silly at times, to suggest that marketing people who don't code are somehow telling professional developers what to code and when.

I didn't say "marketing people", rather, it's marketing concerns. However, they do my friend, they may not tell you how to implement something, but development does not regularly get to make product decisions on their own in any place that I've ever worked. I've worked on a lot of things that have had stupid features because of executive decisions. It depends on how your product managers and development teams work together. On the flip side, devs often need management oversight to reel in excessively costly ideas. It's a give and take but when the balance goes too far in one direction, you tend to get more fluff.

Devs are rarely given a blank slate to come up with a feature set for the next release, this is driven by market analysis and product development. It's often done in cooperation with the development team but, in my experience, the question isn't "what cool features can you implement", it's "can we do this and can we do that." Sometimes that leads to "if we do this then we can get this great feature as well", and that may lead to something new, but, management decisions are often made by people without technical background.

I have no insight into S1 beyond observing it externally. However, just off the cuff, I would say that its development is much more driven by market concerns than Reaper is. Reaper is almost open source like in the interaction between users and development.

The choice to embed the console feature screams of product management. It is a way to differentiate the product and the justification is marketing fluff. The point of my post above was to highlight how this kind of feature, for better or for worse, probably wouldn't make it into Reaper. Consistently, features in Reaper have reflected a much more stoic and functional approach. Modeling noise and hum is something for the marketing types and if you want that, you'll have to get it from an external plugin.

Enough though, let's get back to talking about inter-channel crosstalk, and, if we must, noise. How does this improve your mixes.

[ghettosynth]

So, forget about actual demos or mixes, do people actually think that modeling crosstalk is a good thing? Why?

In that quote, it's worth noting that Reaper old-timer is talking about tracking with crosstalk, which is a PITA, because you don't want spill from track to track, especially when you've spent ages placing microphones to avoid it in the acoustic world. When you flip it over to mixing, crosstalk becomes something of a non-issue – unless you've got the kick and bass muted next to a vocal track, you fully intend to mix those strong signals on the mix bus itself. "Crosstalk, what? I can't hear it over all that bass!"

First, great post, thanks. To your point, sure, in general I agree. The thread was about these kinds of features in Reaper and my agreement is that I'm not convinced that trying to recreate things that we used to want to avoid improves recordings noticeably beyond the placebo affect.

Except, for one small thing – you are probably going to get a small amount of sidechain compression on those weaker signals caused by the high-energy elements, such as kick and bass from both crosstalk and voltage sag induced by strong transients. This, you might interpret as "glueing" in the mix.

This is a very good point, but, it is clearly dependent on how crosstalk is implemented, and modeled. If the source of crosstalk is pre-fader, then you may not get the gluing that you intend, rather you get a sort of a mushy glue.

Also, as I mentioned above, crosstalk in boards that I've had (all cheap) was never uniform across all channels. So, you would not get the kick compressing everything in a nice uniform manner.

From what people have said so far, crosstalk in S1 is uniform across all channels in a bus. So assuming that muted channels aren't included in that, you will get the effect that you're addressing, sans voltage sag, of course.