Topic by Jake Johnson

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Topic: Studio One as a DAW--any advantages?

Much seems to be made of this sequencer\recorder on KVR, and I  received their e-mail about their holiday sale today, but whenever I try to determine exactly what it does that no one else does, I get lost. Does it offer anything that Reaper or Cubase doesn't, for recording and editing? As Custral pointed out in another thread, Presonus will probably tie Notion to it in some way in the future, but I already have Notion, so there is no advantage for me there. Most of the time, I still use the free version of Mulab or a reduced version of Cubase, since they do everything that I need. But if there are strong advantages to Studio One, I would like to know.

(Notion is also on sale, at half price. A different thing entirely--the combined midi-score view is a pleasant way to work.)

Last edited by Jake Johnson (25-11-2013 15:22)

Reply by Ehudk

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Re: Studio One as a DAW--any advantages?

I bought the producer version in august and i can say this:
1. A full featured DAW for 99$
2. You get NI komplete elements
3. The big thing about studio one - its simple, very easy to use. You can drug and drop effects and instruments and the basic actions are very intuitive (especially if you're using cubase)

Pianoteq 5 Standard (D4, K2, Blüthner, YC5)

Reply by ChrisM

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Re: Studio One as a DAW--any advantages?

I have Studio One Producer as well, and like Ehudk, find it easy to use (that's one of it's selling points). According to various reviews, it appears that some competitors are making attempts to improve in this area. Perhaps it's not quite as loaded with features/effects/virtual instruments as others (some have been around for years). But it does do a lot of good stuff and I personally have not yet taken advantage of all its functionality. It also integrates mastering very well.

Reply by custral

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Re: Studio One as a DAW--any advantages?

Here's a vid on Rewiring NOTION into Studio One as Host. It's a Notion tute, notice, so presumably is integration's state-of-the-art (and may never get improved).

Looks dead simple; following mute of the NOTION Master output, the individual NOTION outputs are rewired into S1 inputs, you'd guess for remastering with whatever S1 has to offer.

And I was never pleased with NOTION's 'Export WAV' performance, you may recall, since that gave a marked degradation over what I heard via 'live' NOTION replay. Every chance S1 remixes will be better.

Maybe I should buy S1 right now. Think SO.

Reply by Jake Johnson

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Re: Studio One as a DAW--any advantages?

custral wrote:

Maybe I should buy S1 right now. Think SO.

Wait, wait. They have a demo version, I think, so you should be able to test it. I think I may have encouraged you to get Notion, which I also bought, although I have not had the chance to use it often. I don't want to bear more guilt.

Have you tried one of the basic versions of Cubase? It will have a "score" view, and the sound is good, and Steinberg after all invented the VSTI format. No need to connect anything--just record the midi file and open the score, or record while the score is visible. Cubase has been around for a long time, so people feel it's old-fashioned, and for a time they fell behind in updating to a sleeker interface, but that's been taken care of, now. I imagine that there is a demo version, too. Assuming that you do want a score view. Evil Dragon is of course right--Reaper is a great platform, many would say better than Cubase, and it is less expensive. The only limitation is the absence of a score.

Last edited by Jake Johnson (26-11-2013 06:32)

Reply by Luc Henrion

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Re: Studio One as a DAW--any advantages?

can you really work on a score in Cubase ? I find it so ugly looking... Until now I try to stick to a very old version of Logic (5.5) on PC that does it much, much better ! That would be the one and only reason I would buy a Mac: to be back on Logic...
Let's see wath Presonus will do with S1 + Notion, I'm curious.

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Reply by Jake Johnson

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Re: Studio One as a DAW--any advantages?

Just saw this Sound on Sound review of Studio One. It's from 2011, but it is talking about version 2, which seems to be the latest version: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec11/a...v2.htm#Top

Last edited by Jake Johnson (26-11-2013 16:42)

Reply by custral

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Re: Studio One as a DAW--any advantages?

Went and bought the full thing, what else, with a 50% discount on now? Thanks, BTW, for the heads-up.

As for Melodyne, I found in the past I could purchase it 2 ways: A) from Sweetwater at a huge price, plus huge shipping; B) as a much cheaper upgrade/download (thru Celemony website) from the limited Melodyne bundled with the Studio Artist which came with my AudioBox 44. Whether that chance still holds good (this was some months back), as well as would apply following a direct buy of Studio Artist, don't know.

Spent the day banging into can't-dos & cans to do with MIDI, hands on as always.

ADDED: I installed the 64-bit version, and found that the JBridge which was a success letting NOTION(64) host 32-bit VSTis, flopped when searched for in S1(64). Whether that means it *can't* be hosted in a hosted 32-bit NOTION, and would require an all-32bit hookup, remains to be found out. I believe that 64-bit brings no great advantage beside memory > 4 GB; but perhaps that all changed with VST3.

MORE: following a hint on the S1 Forum, set the shortcut properties for S1(64) to 'Run As Administrator', then reset the S1 'Blacklist' (which sets scanning-at-startup for VSTis to 'Ignore', for those locations which have crashed-out during scans in the past); now at next invocation of S1 the rescanned JBridged locations WORKED.

Simple. When you know how.

Last edited by custral (27-11-2013 08:01)

Reply by custral

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Re: Studio One as a DAW--any advantages?

First output posted here, Brahms' "Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann", 4 hands. The MIDI turned out to be 2-track, which let me give the lower player to a Pleyel FXP, and the higher player to a Bluthner, to difference the parts.

Not wholly different, since the sound-stages of the pianos overlap, differently. Bluthner runs from 6AM to 6PM, though mostly stays treble. And Pleyel runs 6AM to say 1PM, but mostly stays bass-ish. When one player's invading the other's space, you can pick him because the Bluthner FXP has the harder hammers.

Had to split the piece into parts A and B to fit the Posting Rules, and the MP3 is well lower quality than allowed. If anyone wants to hear Brahms' sharp little dissonances better, ask and I'll put FLACs on DropBox (Windows Media Player will play FLACs  and QuickTime may too.)

Reply by Jake Johnson

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Re: Studio One as a DAW--any advantages?

custral wrote:

Went and bought the full thing, what else, with a 50% discount on now? Thanks, BTW, for the heads-up.

As for Melodyne, I found in the past I could purchase it 2 ways: A) from Sweetwater at a huge price, plus huge shipping; B) as a much cheaper upgrade/download (thru Celemony website) from the limited Melodyne bundled with the Studio Artist which came with my AudioBox 44. Whether that chance still holds good (this was some months back), as well as would apply following a direct buy of Studio Artist, don't know.

Spent the day banging into can't-dos & cans to do with MIDI, hands on as always.

ADDED: I installed the 64-bit version, and found that the JBridge which was a success letting NOTION(64) host 32-bit VSTis, flopped when searched for in S1(64). Whether that means it *can't* be hosted in a hosted 32-bit NOTION, and would require an all-32bit hookup, remains to be found out. I believe that 64-bit brings no great advantage beside memory > 4 GB; but perhaps that all changed with VST3.

MORE: following a hint on the S1 Forum, set the shortcut properties for S1(64) to 'Run As Administrator', then reset the S1 'Blacklist' (which sets scanning-at-startup for VSTis to 'Ignore', for those locations which have crashed-out during scans in the past); now at next invocation of S1 the rescanned JBridged locations WORKED.

Simple. When you know how.


The people at Notion have put together a video about connecting Notion to StudioOne using Rewire. Don't know if this works better than jbridge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--QO4zk...Wo6w0JXZkJ

Reply by custral

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Re: Studio One as a DAW--any advantages?

That'll work, but the reasons to use JBridge are different, being where you've got a VSTi that's for 32-bit install ONLY, while you are working with a 64bit host. Main way I know of for that to interfere is the dll will lodge somewhere in the  Program Files\x86 folder and must be sought for at the location it lives (not the whole story, can't be, but it's part, and consequently a large part of JBridge's method is to resite the dll to a new directory in the Program Files folder, not the Program Files\x86). So these are different mechanisms, not alternatives.

Last edited by custral (27-11-2013 16:41)