Review: Presonus Studio One Professional 3

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!

Today we are reviewing a Daw, Presonus Studio One Professional 3!

Studio One is a Daw made by one of the most famous audio equipment producers in the world: Presonus, a company famous for its mixers, preamps, monitors and its audio interfaces, among the other things.

Studio One comes in 3 versions: Prime, Artist and Professional, and the differences in features among the three versions are listed HERE.

The basic version, Studio One Prime, it's FREE and has, like the other versions, unlimited tracks, buses and Fx Channels, but without the support to external Vst plugins (it has some bundled, though).   

There are also versions of the daw that comes bundled with the Presonus audio interfaces and mixers. 

This Daw is at the moment my main workstation because it offers more or less the same tools of any other high level Daw, but it does it in a faster, more comfortable and intuitive way.

The interface is elegant, graphically it's the most good looking on the market, and you can create large projects in a breeze, just dragging and dropping virtual instruments instead of having to route them, and in general it all feels faster and less complex.

Another thing I have appreciated a lot is the search browser, that lets you find easily what you need without navigating through endless menus, and this is especially useful when you have a lot of plugins or virtual instruments.

The version I am reviewing is the most complete available, and comes with 14 gb of samples, many virtual instruments, loops, the full array of plugins, the arranger track and scratchpad, and the support to 64bit (floating point) audio resolution, which is a pretty uncommon feature.

The latest update, the version 3.2, introduces some new feature, here are the most interesting:

- Vca Faders: similar to a bus track, it's a level control in which we can route other tracks, but unlike a group channel track, in this case when we change the level, all the automations are mantained, and so effect ratio applied to the tracks. 

- Console Shaper: a new plugin that allows us to set the "noise", the "drive" and the "crosstalk", which are characteristic of the old analog mixing boards, in our single tracks, groups or in the whole mix, so that we can choose what part of the mix to keep hi-quality and what may need some extra grit to sound the way we want.

Quoting the producers, here's how the console shaper works:

"The biggest news in version 3.2 is Mix Engine FX, a new plug-in paradigm exclusive to Studio One Professional that can modify or bypass and replace Studio One’s native mix engine. In contrast to conventional plug-ins that must be inserted independently on each channel, with limited or no interoperability, Mix Engine FX can process every channel routed through a bus, both individually at the source and at their summing point. Any bus, including the main stereo bus, can have its own Mix Engine FX assigned, allowing for limitless sonic possibilities.
Console Shaper, the first Mix Engine FX plug-in, uses State Space Modeling to re-create analog mixer system topology and componentry, turning Studio One’s 64-bit audio engine into an “analog” console with control over drive, noise, and true crosstalk across multiple channels. Console Shaper provides a compelling software alternative to expensive analog summing hardware while offering far more flexibility. Console emulation is only the beginning. PreSonus, Slate Digital, Softube, Acustica Audio, and other third-party developers are planning to release more Mix Engine FX in the coming months."

In conclusion, we suggest everyone to give this daw a try, downloading the free version on the Presonus website. 

Leave us a comment and tell us what you think!

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