Intended for beginners who don’t yet need the advanced features in Studio One™ Artist, Producer, and Professional, Studio One Free provides all of the recording and editing features needed for basic music production—and as its name implies, it’s free.

To use Studio One Free, download the Studio One installer by clicking on the link for your operating system below, install, and then click on Run the Free Version when the activation dialog comes up. You can then immediately use Studio One Free, no Internet connection or user account is required, no product key is involved, and Studio One Free will not time out.

It is also possible to start the 30-day Studio One Professional demo at any point and then return to running Studio One Free once the demo expires.

Please note that due to the nature of the product,
we do not offer technical support for Studio One Free

The KnowledgeBase, included PDF reference manual, Studio One Free FAQ found below, and Studio One Free section of the forums will serve as sources of community-based support for Studio One Free.

Download Studio One Free

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Features

Studio One Free includes the following features (See chart to compare versions):

  • Elegant single-window work environment
  • Powerful drag-and-drop functionality
  • Unlimited Audio and Instrument (MIDI) tracks
  • Unlimited FX channels
  • Two simultaneous inputs and outputs
  • Unlimited inserts and sends per channel
  • Single and multitrack comping
  • Multitrack MIDI editing
  • Track list with presets and mixing-console link
  • Track Transform (advanced freezing capability)
  • Content browser with search, user tabs, and preview player
  • Automatic delay compensation
  • Easy-to-use sidechain routing
  • Presence virtual instrument with 100+ presets
  • Most intuitive MIDI-mapping system available
  • Real-time audio timestretching and resampling
  • Compatible with any ASIO-, Windows Audio-, or Core Audio-compliant audio interface
  • Works with key commands from Pro Tools, Cubase, and Logic—or create your own key commands
  • 8 Native Effects audio-processing plug-ins:
    • Beat Delay – Tempo-Synchronized Delay
    • Channel Strip – Dynamics Processing and Equalizer
    • Chorus – Mono/Stereo Chorus
    • Flanger – Stereo/Mono Flanger
    • MixVerb – Mono/Stereo Reverb
    • Phaser – Stereo/Mono Phaser
    • Red Light Distortion – Distortion Processor
    • Tuner – Instrument Tuner

Frequently Asked Questions

A: Visit http://studioone.presonus.com/free and find the Download section on the page. Click on the link for your computer’s operating system to start the download. Once downloaded, double-click on the installer. In Windows, follow the on-screen instructions to install. In OSX, click and drag the Studio One application to the Applications folder to install.

Once installed, launch the application and then click on Run the Free Version in the Activation menu.

A: No technical support is provided for Studio One Free. The included reference manual PDF (found in the Help menu), extensive tutorial videos on our site, the Knowledge Base, and the Studio One Free section of the Forums serve as community-based support for Studio One Free.

A: No, Studio One Free does not allow the use of third party plug-ins. You should consider purchasing Studio One Producer or Professional if you would like to use your third party plug-ins.

A: Yes, Studio One Free comes with the Studio One Instruments Vol. 1 and Studio One Musicloops Sound Sets. To install this content, navigate to the Studio One/Studio One Installation menu and click on Install content from User Account, check the box for each Sound Set and click on Install. The content will then be downloaded and installed.

A: Refer to the comparison chart for complete details on the features included in Studio One Free.

A: As Studio One Free is completely free, this would be a normal purchase. Any version of Studio One can be purchased from one of the major music retailers, or directly from us in our Shop. Watch the News Feed on the Start Page of Studio One for occasional special offers on purchasing Studio One.

After purchasing Studio One Artist, Producer, or Professional, you will first need to create a user account. You can do this from within Studio One in the Studio One/Studio One Activation/Create New Account menu, or directly on this site. Then, an email will be sent to verify your email address- you must activate your user account using the link in this email before you can activate Studio One with your purchased Product Key.

Once your user account is activated, navigate to the Studio One/Studio One Activation/Activate or Upgrade/Activate Online menu, and enter your user account username and password, and then enter your Product Key, and click on Activate. Studio One will then restart as the version you just activated.

If the computer on which Studio One has been installed is not connected to the Internet, click on the Activate Offline link in the Activate Studio One menu, and make note of the Activation Code shown under step 3 in the instructions. Then, go to a computer with an internet connection, visit http://studioone.presonus.com/registration and log in to your account. Click on Software Registration link and enter your Product Key as printed on the Studio One package, or provided via email. Click on Submit and you will then be taken to your Software List, which should now have your Studio One product listed.

Next, click on the Activate link listed next to your Studio One product and enter the Activation Code as given in the Studio One/Studio One Activation/Activate or Upgrade/Offline Activation menu. You may list a computer name to help you keep track of your 5 allowed activations; for instance, if you intend to install Studio One on a desktop and laptop, you may choose to name the activations “DESKTOP” and “LAPTOP”.

You will then be given a link to download your User License file. Save this file to some external media (CD, thumb drive, etc), and then copy the file to the computer on which Studio One is installed. Finally, you may either locate the file in the Offline Activation menu, or simply drag and drop the file on top of the menu to activate Studio One.

A: If you want to play a virtual instrument in Studio One, you need to setup a Keyboard device in the Options/External Devices menu. In this menu, click on Add, and then select New Keyboard, or select your device from the list of predefined devices. Select a Receive From port for your device, check the box that says ‘Default Instrument Input’, then click on Ok.

Open the Browser by clicking on Browse in the lower-right corner of the Song page. Click on the Instruments tab of the Browser, and then drag and drop Presence from the Browser to the Arrangement. A new instrument track will be created and routed to an instance of Presence that you can play immediately. Note the Instrument track must be monitor enabled (the speaker icon on the track) for input from your Keyboard to be received on the track, which will happen by default when the track is selected.

You should also check out the Control Link chapter of the reference manual, found in the Help menu, to learn how to map knobs and faders from your MIDI controller to plug-ins in seconds.

A: Studio One can use almost any audio interface, including built-in computer sound cards. The audio device is selected automatically at startup, however it can be changed in the Studio One/Options/Audio Setup menu. Once a device is selected, create a New Song. Note, you may wish to use one of the templates on the left of the New Song menu to get started quickly.

If you create a new Empty Song, open the Song/Song Setup/Audio IO Setup menu. There are two tabs, labeled Inputs and Outputs, which contain a matrix that map your audio device’s inputs and outputs to input and output channels that Studio one will use. Studio One Free only allows stereo I/O, so the configuration options will be limited. By default, there should be a stereo input and two mono inputs using the first 2 inputs from your audio device, as well as a single stereo output that will be used as the main output for Studio One playback. When setup as desired, apply, and then close this menu.

Create an audio track by pressing [T] on the keyboard, choose Mono, and click Ok. The first mono input from the Audio I/O Setup menu will be selected for the track by default. Click on the Record Enable button, and you should see input. From here, simply click on Record in the Transport and you are rolling.

A: Open the Browser by clicking on Browse in the lower-right corner of the Song page. Click on the Effects tab of the Browser, and you will see the 8 effects listed that come with Studio One Free. To insert any of these effects on a channel, simply click and drag the effect from the Browser onto a Track in the Arrangement or a Channel in the Console.