How To Use Studio One 3

Master the nuts of Presonus' incredible DAW recorder in minutes with the first in a series of MusicTech guides to Studio One three. We'll have you lot set to make a melody in 12 easy steps!

studio one 3

Welcome to a make new serial of tutorials on Studio One 3, the flagship Digital Audio Workstation (or DAW) from Presonus. This incredible music product software is bachelor for both Mac and Windows and comes in three versions: Studio Ane Prime, Artist and Professional. Prime is costless, Artist effectually £80/$120 and Prime number around £340/$480.

Understandably, the more you pay, the more features you go so, for case, the Prime and Creative person versions lack many of the virtual instruments and effects that you lot get with Professional. You also go more options to mix your music in different ways with Professional person, plus more than direct connectivity with music websites like Soundcloud.

Professional person as well has a lot more content to download and use – some 14GB of sounds, loops, hits and beats compared to just 1.5GB for Prime and Artist – so y'all really do get a lot more bang for your buck.

While Professional might offer you pretty much everything you will e'er demand, Artist is likewise a very practiced DAW option and you can often get it arranged free with Presonus hardware such as the company'due south great audio interface range. In our workshop we'll apace discover that, as you might expect, Studio One works very well with this Presonus hardware and using the two together frequently allows you lot to perform certain hardware and software functions not available in other DAW set-ups.

These special dedicated Studio I tutorials volition cover all iii versions of the software merely, occasionally, we might characteristic some functions only available in the Professional version just to showcase some of the most upward to appointment and peak-flight features.

Getting up and running

We're starting right at the commencement with this workshop and assuming that you lot take downloaded and installed the software on your machine. If not, head over to world wide web.presonus.com, register and download – you lot'll need a Mac running OSX 10.five or a PC running at to the lowest degree Windows seven, 30GB difficult bulldoze space and at least 4GB of retentivity (although 8GB of RAM is recommended).

And so, in this workshop we'll show you what you need to know when you first kicking up Studio One 3. We'll run through the showtime steps of getting the software working with your plug-ins (virtual instruments and effects) should yous already have some installed on your organisation. We'll also make sure that the software is playing sound out via to your hardware audio interface (or, if you don't have one, your computer speakers), and then bear witness you how to prepare for song cosmos.

Information technology's all in the tracks

Like nearly other DAWs, Studio One allows you to put songs together with different tracks – that is beats, vocals, guitars and and then on. Tracks inside DAWs and Studio One are either audio or MIDI/musical instrument type tracks.

With audio tracks you can load in and play regular sounds – drum loops, guitars, annihilation in fact. These could be the audio files that come with the software similar those loops and hits we that mentioned earlier which come with the bundled download content. Audio tracks tin can also be made with sound from the outside world – an audio-visual guitar, someone singing or playing piano – all recorded via an audio interface or built-in Mac microphone.

MIDI/instrument tracks are used to play and record virtual instruments within the DAW – similar virtual pianos, pulsate kits and guitars – or trigger external electronic keyboards and modules similar hardware synthesisers. MIDI/instrument tracks might trigger virtual instruments like the Mai Tai synth or Impact Drum Sampler (neither bachelor in the costless Prime version, sadly). Ideally you lot'll need a MIDI keyboard to play and tape the notes using these instruments, merely you can play these sounds via your computer keyboard which we'll prove you how to do later in this workshop.

We'll finish by getting both types of track upwards and running and so you'll be set up to play and record annihilation you like and, next time effectually, we'll start creating a tune In Studio One. Be sure to come up back and check Office 2 and, in the meanwhile, happy music making with Presonus Studio One!

Presonus Studio I Workshop – Getting up and running: Step-by-step

1. When you first run Studio One 3, it might take a while as it scans your system for plug-in instruments and effects. Keep an center on this as you might be asked to skip corrupted or missing ones.

ii. And so you go the start-upward screen with options to load an existing Song, create a new one or a new Project. You can and should configure your audio device now – click the tab below the Setup button.

three. Select whatever audio interface you lot have connected from the drop down Playback Device and Recording Device menus. If you don't have ane you lot can have the audio play through your calculator speaker or record with your built-in mic.

4. At this stage you'll probably be asked if yous want to download whatever content comes with your version of Studio Ane. You select this via the Presonus website. Yous can come back to download this later.

5.  Back at the master screen, create a new Project or Song. The Presonus Project area is used to put multiple finished songs together to export to CD or streaming, or used to master audio (make information technology sound more pro-end).

vi. Click Create a new Song. You lot can cull from templates of songs created for certain pieces of Presonus hardware, where the number of inputs and outputs within the software matches those on that hardware.

7. For now though nosotros'll just create an empty Song (first option). The surface area to the left (circled) is where we will add together tracks, the middle where our vocal comes together, the right is where we tin can add together instruments and audio.

viii. Add together tracks for your song via the drop down Tracks menu and Add Audio or Instrument Runway options. Sound tracks are for recording external sounds or adding audio on your calculator, Instrument tracks are for playing virtual instruments.

nine. We've created both types of track. Select the Instruments tab in the Browser which shows the instruments you lot take installed. Drag the Presonus Mai Tai synth onto track one. It is now defended to play and record that synth.

10. If you don't have a MIDI keyboard continued to play this synth, don't worry. Simply hit the Caps Lock push button and a mini keyboard appears that allows you to trigger the synth via your QWERTY keyboard. Very cool!

eleven. Now nosotros'll add some sound. We haven't downloaded our extras yet but have some audio on our computer already which the browser shows usa, and so we'll elevate that – a drum loop – to the first audio track we created.

12. Now simply click on Runway i and the white Keyboard tab (which turns orange) and you can now play the Mai Tai synth along with the drum loop (press space bar to play). Now y'all're ready to make a tune!