Any Studio One Users?

[Brent Hahn]

I have a mixing client who wants his quarantined and DAW-less bass player to do overdubs. The client bought the bass player a cheap Presonus interface which comes with a free version of Studio One, which is brand new to me. Now it's my job to teach the bass player how to use it for this specific purpose.

I've written up a little tutorial. Any of y'all care to take a look at it and troubleshoot? I'd be grateful.

[ssjk]

Not an expert by any means, but I do use studio one 4 artist. Would love to take a look and will give feedback from a knowledgeable novice standpoint if you like.

I do think that overdubbing and/or adding a second track to mix with the first is within my skill set.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by ssjk

Not an expert by any means, but I do use studio one 4 artist. Would love to take a look and will give feedback from a knowledgeable novice standpoint if you like.

I do think that overdubbing and/or adding a second track to mix with the first is within my skill set.

Cool -- the process is supposed to be...

1. Client emails mp3 of song to bass player;
2. Bass player overdubs bass, maybe several times;
3. Bass player sends back split stereo WAV's with song left, bass right. Since I can't attach files on this forum, here's the text in its entirety:

Studio One Brief How-To

1. With your interface disconnected, boot Studio One. You’ll be on the Start page.

2. Connect the interface. Give the computer a moment to recognize it. Set the Mixer knob on the Presonus interface to 12:00.

3. Click “configure audio device” (bottom center). Your choices for both output and input should include your interface. Click them.

4. Click “new song” (top left). “Empty song” will highlight in the top center. Set Sample Rate to 48.0 kHz and Resolution to 24 bit. Click OK (bottom right).

5. A new page will pop up with your “empty song.” On the top menu bar, hold down “Song” and click “Import File.” Navigate to [client]’s song file, wherever it is, and select it. On a Mac you double-click it; not sure about Windows.

6. Another new page appears with the song displayed as a stereo track, top center. There will be a blown-up version of it down below; above it in the gray bar, click the X at the far right to get rid of it. At the bottom right of the resulting vast, black space, there will be a Zoom Bar directly above “Edit/Mix/Browse.” Slide the Zoom to the right until you can see the start of the song’s click track clearly.

7. Place your cursor in the black space below and slightly to the left of the start of the click. Click the cursor. A white cursor line will appear. On your keyboard, hit “y.” “Marker #2” will appear. Zoom back in a little and now place your cursor just past the end of the song, click, and hit “y” again. Marker #3.

8. At the bottom of the screen there’s a “Transport” section. The two single arrows at either end of that section toggle to the next Marker in that direction. Clicking in the black space (or the ruler above the tracks) puts the cursor anywhere you click. You’ll be doing these things a lot.

9. On the top bar, go to Track > Add Audio Track (mono). Double click on “Track 1” to rename the track. It should already be in Record-ready (the red button) and Input (the blue button next to it). At this point you should be able to play your bass and hear it both directly and with latency/slap. Toggle the Input button off, and the latency should go away. Set your bass input signal on the interface so it goes about halfway up the meter. More is not better.

10. At the bottom right, click Mix. Two faders for the song track and your first bass track will appear, along with a third Main fader to the right. Self-explanatory, I think.

11. Set your cursor to the start of the song (step 7) and hit the spacebar to start playing. Using a combo of the faders, the Mix knob on the interface, and the headphone output knob on the interface, get a blend you can tolerate, making sure that the blue Input button on the track is off. This will take some messing-around-with, I’m sure.

12. When you’re ready to try one, navigate to the marker you placed before the countoff (you did, right?), and go into record by hitting the non-obvious circle next to the Play button on the Transport. Play! To stop, hit the spacebar.

13. To hear it back, unmute the track. You’ll mute and unmute a lot. To get rid of it, do an Undo. On a Mac it’s command+Z, not sure on Windows.

14. To add tracks, see Step 9.

15. Time to mix. For now, it’ll be one bass track per mix, split left/right. No editing.

16. On the Mix screen, push the Pan sliders (directly above “O dB <C>”) for all the bass tracks all the way to the right, and pan the Song track to the left.

17. Mute all the bass tracks except one.

18. Go to Song > Export Mixdown

19. Set the destination for the files (little blue box under “Location”); name the file; set the format to Wave/24 bit/48.0 kHz.

20. For Export Range, select Between Selected Markers > Start #2, End #3.

21. Under Options, click Import to Track. This will put your mix on the timeline as well as at your destination. Good for checking your work, bad for clutter. But you can delete it once you’ve checked it.

22. Hit OK. This will render your mix and put it in a new track on the timeline. It will be in Input and Record Ready, which is stupid. Unclick those two things and Solo it (the “S” to the left of Record Ready) and play it. If all’s well you can delete that track and move on to the next mix. Or keep it if you don’t mind the clutter.

23. Your finished mixes will wind up in a folder auto-named “01” or “02” or some such thing. They’re now ready to send to [client].

[ssjk]

I’m happy to walk through your instructions as written, but if I understand the problem correctly there may be an easier way to approach it. A couple of questions first.

Are you doing the final mix?
Do you want the bass player doing things like adding compression, leveling volumes, adding effects, etc? (As opposed to doing it yourself so you can balance across all tracks)

If the answers are yes and no in that order, it may be easier to 1) have the bass player load the mp3 track of the song on his daw as you described 2) add one or more mono tracks to the song and record the bass there in as many separate versions as you like, and 3) export the raw stems for those tracks only and then send them to you to add to the mix.

Not clear why the bass player would need to mix down the new version of the song into a stereo track if you will then take the bass track from there to add to the mix. Unless you want the bass player to do a final or semifinal mix, of course.

[ssjk]

Looking again at your line 23, I infer that having the bass player do the final mix is in fact what you intend.

Should have read more closely. I’ll run through your instructions as written and get back to you. Probably tomorrow.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by ssjk

Not clear why the bass player would need to mix down the new version of the song into a stereo track if you will then take the bass track from there to add to the mix. Unless you want the bass player to do a final or semifinal mix, of course.

It's because our client-in-common, a singer-songwriter, will have to sync the bass player's track(s) up in his Pro Tools session, and this is an almost foolproof way for him to do it.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by ssjk

Looking again at your line 23, I infer that having the bass player do the final mix is in fact what you intend.

No, he's just contributing his bass tracks to the client's project, along with several other quarantined musicians. I've actually done a lot of this with people who are more studio- and DAW-savvy, but in this case I'm dealing with relative beginners. More work for me, but worth it because when the client gets all his tracks assembled he pays me to mix.

[ssjk]

I think what you have described is understandable for a novice, although some of your descriptions don’t match what I saw on StudioOne 4 Artist.

I downloaded StudioOne 5 Prime (the free version) and the same discrepancies are there in the default settings. It’s possible that whatever they provide with the AudioBox is different, but seems odd. It’s also possible that there are settings for this and I don’t know what they are.

Specifically:

Step 6: when I import a track it simply shows up as a track on the song. No new page, and no blown up version to delete.

Step 6: “seeing the start of the song’s click track” - I’m assuming the mix down being imported has an embedded click track and you are referring to the first click showing within that imported track. If you are importing a mix down PLUS a click track, that should be clearer.

FWIW, in StudioOne you don’t get a physical click track unless you render it (you do that by clicking on the metronome tools and selecting “render” on the top right of the pop up box).

Step 7: the default setting for placing the cursor on both of my versions does not not work as described. They may need to go to preferences/advanced/editing and check “locate when clicked in empty space”

Step 9: On both of my versions what you label “input” is shown as “monitor”

[Brent Hahn]

Yes, the song file will have a built in click. And good catch on ticking that preference in step 7, I left that out by mistake. And you’re probably right about input vs monitor — monitor is more accurate, although that button isn’t labeled with either. This is exactly the kind of feedback I’m looking for. Thanks so much!

[ssjk]

StudioOne likes to hide labels until you hover over the button. True also for that non obvious circle you reference in step 12, where it gives you the name and the keyboard shortcut if you hover.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by ssjk

StudioOne likes to hide labels until you hover over the button. True also for that non obvious circle you reference in step 12, where it gives you the name and the keyboard shortcut if you hover.

Gotcha, and it's a good way to do things in a tight space. But this bass player is used to the buttons on his microwave and blender which tell you what they do. It wouldn't occur to him to hover.

At any rate, thanks again for helping me out here!

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

Gotcha, and it's a good way to do things in a tight space. But this bass player is used to the buttons on his microwave and blender which tell you what they do. It wouldn't occur to him to hover.

At any rate, thanks again for helping me out here!

I have Studio One Pro version 4.6.2. something,,,, although PT is my main DAW.
Oo take with a grain of salt . And it may be just my being used to PT but in comparison S1 in Audio editing is not quite as intuitive and elegant (just IMO)

But just a couple more thoughts. I think all the S1 versions offer Drag and Drop
If so, on his version like PT , the Bass guy can simply drag the MP3 into the initial New Song Page window/Edit window ,, no need to go through the importing steps

Also like sskj said, just import or drag/drop into original song page window (is the default)
The blown up window/waveform on the bottom is a selection from clicking on (and highlighting) the Edit button right side in the bottom tool bar (at least in my version)