Presonus Studio One: Reader Question

As many of you are starting to build your home studios you are having to make a choice of which recording software (or DAW) to go with. With so many great platforms available these days, and new ones launching almost every year it seems, it can be hard to pick one.

One of my readers, Jeff, asked me a question about Presonus’ brand new DAW, Studio One:

I’ve been reading your Blog for several months now and am preparing for my own studio. I know you are a ProTools guy, but I was wondering if you’ve tried Presonus Studio One, and if you have thoughts on this DAW.

Here are my thoughts

Presonus is a great company that makes some wonderful products for the home and professional studio. They are well known as of late for their audio interfaces and multi-channel preamps. I personally use (and wrote about) their digital mixing console for my band at church every week for practices, services, and live recording, and am very pleased.

Since launching their own recording software, Studio One, in 2009 I haven’t actually gotten my hands on it yet. But from what I’ve seen in development and since the release, it looks to be a fantastic option. Should YOU use it for your DAW? Here is the main thing to consider:

Do you already own a Presonus interface?

If so, then this could be a no brainer for you as Studio One integrates beautifully with Presonus hardware. Studio One comes in two main flavors, the Artist version (for $199) and the full version (for $399). The big difference between the two are the number of plugins that come bundled with it, plus the cool mastering features that come in the full version. In either case, Studio One offers a nice “self-contained” platform that should give you all you need to make quality recordings.

One thing to consider is that if you buy an interface from Presonus (even their $149 AudioBox USB) you’ll get Studio One Artist for free (a value of $199). Pretty sweet deal indeed! So if you own Presonus hardware, I think you’d be a fool not to at least try Studio One and see what you think of it!

Remember the big picture

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what platform you record on. No one is going to listen to your mix and say “Hey, sounds like this was recorded in Pro Tools…” (or Logic, Cubase, Studio One, etc). What DOES matter is your studio needs, your budget, and your creativity and drive to make great music. If Studio One happens to fit those needs and budget, then go with it and don’t look back!