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But… does it really sound better?

I got an email from a user the other day who has just switched to Studio One after many years with Cubase. He wrote:

“This may be just my ears that are fooling me but Studio One seems a bit “clearer” in the sound it produces. I guess that is possible given the code is probably doing something to the sound even though I have the same PC/soundcard for both programs? Or am I totally off base here?”

I hear this all the time from people who switch – “Is it just me or does this software really sound better?” In fact that was exactly my own reaction the first couple of times I used it in my studio myself. And after a long time and a lot of testing my answer is “Yeah, it really does sound better”. It’s not just your ears deceiving you – I have done loads of blind tests (and so have some other people I know and trust) and every single time Studio One comes out sounding better than any other audio software. Period.

Why? I honestly have no idea. Part of it is certainly our 64-bit floating point audio engine. That definitely hugely improves the resolution, especially when you are running a lot of tracks and effects. I suspect there might be slightly more to it than that, but honestly I’m not smart enough to give you a fully scientific explanation. All I know as a producer is that after hearing my mixes in Studio One, everything else just sounds weak and wrong.

So it’s not just you. This thing really does sound better. I am happy to stake my reputation on that, and I know a lot of other people are happy to as well.

Freebie Friday – Togu Audio Line

This week’s Freebie Friday features the amazing Togu Audio Line. I’ve been using these plugs for forever and a day, and they really are blisteringly good. TAL have been making FX and virtual synths for quite some time, with great solid basic sounds, and remarkable stability and features for free plugins – they were even fully 64-bit far in advance of most of their commercial competitors, so if you are running the 64-bit version of Studio One these will all still work flawlessly without requiring a bit-bridge.

The first TAL plugin that attracted my attention was the TAL Bassline – a fairly perfect emulation of the classic Roland SH-101 analog monosynth. I used to have one of these back in the day, and it was damn fine bass synth; I wasn’t disappointed when I downloaded the TAL version, it pretty much nailed it right there.

Also really noteworthy in the analog emulation stakes is the TAL-U-No-62. This is another great analog emulation, this time of the Roland Juno 60 – including the original’s famous Chorus section. It’s a great little synth, and there are tons of cool presets to download. Highly recommended.

But the big daddy TAL has to be the TAL Noisemaker. Unlike the other synths, this isn’t an emulation of older hardware, it’s a completely new synth, and it’s the bomb. It follows the classic analog subtractive synthesis route, no flashy modern stuff, so it’s really easy to understand and program; and it sounds really good. It’s become one of my first go-to synths when I just want a good solid sound quick & easy.

There are a ton more great plugins on the TAL site, including Vocoder, Reverb etc. so check them out. They are all free, but the author is asking for donations via PayPal – so if you like them, do show your appreciation, even if it’s only a couple of bucks!

Freebie Friday – Plugin Alliance

Yes, I know it’s been a long time since my last update, but in my defence we were broadcasting live from NAMM in California so you got to see lots of me instead of just reading my thoughts during that. And since then I’ve been sort of busy moving to Ireland to help found the new PreSonus Europe Limited, so I didn’t even have Internet for a while there

But now I’m back online, in a new office, and life is grand, as they say here in Ireland. So on to this week’s Freebie Friday!

I know I mentioned Plugin Alliance before, but I am going to mention them again, because they have some great free plugins: Elysia Filter, SPL Free Ranger, Bx Cleansweep and Bx Solo. These are highly simplified versions of some of the most outstanding plugins available at any price, but even though they are simple, they sound great. so everyone should have them. And they have 64-bit versions now too, which as far as I concerned is a 100% necessity these days. I strongly recommend that you grab them from the PA website now. Would love to hear what other people think about them…

Studio One and StudioLive Put to Great Use

Check out this killer song and music video done by Hitherside. Studio One and the StudioLive mixer are featured, almost like bandmates.

Nearly NAMM time…

I think I got up this morning at something like 3.45 am. That’s 3.45 am. Otherwise known as “Holy ****, it’s what time in the morning?” Ah, the wonder of jet-lag…

Got to the booth reasonably early, but Jonathan and a few of the others still beat me to it, since I’d been spending some time working on stuff for Exchange. Yep, if you’ve already updated to Studio One 2.0.4 you already have this, and damn it is mighty fine. We originally wanted this in the 2.0 release but it’s a pretty complex ecosystem, so in the end we held it back until it was ready. Am very happy it’s finally here, because I’ve been dying to tell you guys all about it. I think this thing is going to be a monster, it means the software now has basically unlimited content available.

If you’ve looked in Exchange already you’ll see a couple of things I put together in my studio a while back and that I’ve been dying to release. Hopefully you guys will like them – if so, please do rate & review them on the Exchange web page, that’s going to become really important when there are thousands of things up there.

Not sure if I’ll manage to do a Freebie Friday this week, considering I will be on stage something like five times a day every day for the rest of this week. That’s rock & role… But if not, at least you guys will have your entire S1 browser full of free new soundsets and presets, and that should keep you going for a while.