Studio One Studio one 5 levels
- Thread starter Mr.Scary
- Start date
You're not missing anything. The sliders/faders in Studio One have no effect on recording levels. They are only for mixing on playback. To set your input levels into Studio One, you need to open the mixing console and click on the Inputs button, which brings up the input levels adjustment.
You can double click on the numerical settings and type them in, too. That's what I usually do.
Would that explain the problem I was having yesterday?
I was recording Backing Track, Vocals & Guitar all at once. IT sounded fine in my headphones, but when I listened to the playback you could barely hear my vocals. I used the "Within the track, drag the little box up" method to increase the vocal volume and it seemed to be ok.
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/z3jir44iulhe7p4/Life By The Drop-DB Version.mp3?dl=0
CaptainMoto
Blues Voyager
My 2 cents:
Papa is absolutely correct.
It's easy to get the input and output gain confused.
I'd like to think of working in a DAW as having three phases, Input, effects and output.
Gain at each of those steps is important so you have a strong enough signal to capture the sound but, not too much to distort it with clipping.
On the input side:
It starts with the instrument and vocal volume, mic placement and the preamp on your interface.
Before you begin recording, check the input gain on your interface, keep it just below clipping (red light).
That signal in now being sent to your DAW, so you need to check the input gain in the DAW as Papa demonstrated.
It is generally recommended that the DAW input should be around -18db.
Effects:
Next, If you're doing any effects like O/D, compression in your DAW, you need to make certain that you don't boost or cut the gain in an undesirable way. Watch for clipping on the faders.
Output:
Each fader is a separate channel sending its signal to the Main Out or stereo Bus.
At times you could have no individual fader showing clipping but the MAIN will be clipping because it's the accumulation of all channels.
You fix this by going back to each channel (track) slider and identifying the culprit.
If you use the main fader, that will remove the clipping but, it's cutting the entire session rather than fixing the problem.
@MikeS
That is very likely the situation you have there.
However, what you might have is a weak signal going to the DAW from your mic/interface.
Many mics like the SM58 & SM57 have very low output.
This generally requires the significant gain boost by the interface preamp.
Many interface preamps fall short of gain and consequently do not send a strong signal to the DAW.
There are a few ways to address this.
Think of this just like an electric guitar with volume knobs going into a pedal with volume knobs, then into an amp with gain & volume.............you need to be cognizant of every step of gain all thru the signal path.
1st try dialing up the gain on the interface preamp.
Go to the "input" view as Papa showed and try to make adjustments to the incoming gain there.
Yes, you can also raise the gain on the track as you did.
The best way though is to address this early in the signal path with enough gain to match the mic.
If the gain on your interface pre is not adequate you can add an inline preamp between the mic and your interface.
I have used these in that situation:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...ones-cl-1-cloudlifter-1-channel-mic-activator
If you want to explore that idea, there are less expensive units on the market, search for inline mic pre amps.
-
Papa is absolutely correct.
It's easy to get the input and output gain confused.
I'd like to think of working in a DAW as having three phases, Input, effects and output.
Gain at each of those steps is important so you have a strong enough signal to capture the sound but, not too much to distort it with clipping.
On the input side:
It starts with the instrument and vocal volume, mic placement and the preamp on your interface.
Before you begin recording, check the input gain on your interface, keep it just below clipping (red light).
That signal in now being sent to your DAW, so you need to check the input gain in the DAW as Papa demonstrated.
It is generally recommended that the DAW input should be around -18db.
Effects:
Next, If you're doing any effects like O/D, compression in your DAW, you need to make certain that you don't boost or cut the gain in an undesirable way. Watch for clipping on the faders.
Output:
Each fader is a separate channel sending its signal to the Main Out or stereo Bus.
At times you could have no individual fader showing clipping but the MAIN will be clipping because it's the accumulation of all channels.
You fix this by going back to each channel (track) slider and identifying the culprit.
If you use the main fader, that will remove the clipping but, it's cutting the entire session rather than fixing the problem.
@MikeS
That is very likely the situation you have there.
However, what you might have is a weak signal going to the DAW from your mic/interface.
Many mics like the SM58 & SM57 have very low output.
This generally requires the significant gain boost by the interface preamp.
Many interface preamps fall short of gain and consequently do not send a strong signal to the DAW.
There are a few ways to address this.
Think of this just like an electric guitar with volume knobs going into a pedal with volume knobs, then into an amp with gain & volume.............you need to be cognizant of every step of gain all thru the signal path.
1st try dialing up the gain on the interface preamp.
Go to the "input" view as Papa showed and try to make adjustments to the incoming gain there.
Yes, you can also raise the gain on the track as you did.
The best way though is to address this early in the signal path with enough gain to match the mic.
If the gain on your interface pre is not adequate you can add an inline preamp between the mic and your interface.
I have used these in that situation:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...ones-cl-1-cloudlifter-1-channel-mic-activator
If you want to explore that idea, there are less expensive units on the market, search for inline mic pre amps.
-
Last edited:
It probably does explain it. Here's why. Here is a capture of the input fields on my AR12. Yours should look about the same, except with 8 input channels showing. An AR16 would have 4 more channels showing.
This is your recording interface. The 8 inputs shown are directly tied to your computer via USB. On the path to your computer, they do not pass through anything on the mixer, except for the level trimmer up near the input jacks. The only level controls you have over these inputs is via the level trimmer in the AR8 and the input trimmer levels in Studio One. That's pretty much the end of the recording story for now.
Now, back to your mixer. If you have your headphones plugged in to the Headphone jack of your AR8, what you hear in those is controlled by the faders on the AR8. Again, the faders have no effect on what is being recorded, so, if you turn your faders up on the AR8 so you can hear your vocals and guitar (especially while playing a backing track that is on another channel), there will be disparity between what you hear during recording and what you hear on playback.
You can take this a step further. If you enable monitoring on your recorded track (the little half moon button next to your record arming button on both the channel and the mixer), it will pass what you are recording to the outputs of Studio One and into your mixer. That level IS controlled by the virtual fader in the Studio One mixer.
The Presonus Studio LIve AR series (both the USB and the C series) are rather unique beasts. They straddle the fence on what it is they do They are actually two separate devices in one box. This is what causes a lot of the confusion.
Device 1. Interface.
This is your computer interface. In theory, it is quite similar to any other interface (Focusrite Scarlett, Presonus Studio xxc Series). It is essentially a black box that accepts a mic/instrument/line input and digitizes it, then feeds it to your computer. Like any other interface, it has trimmer levels to set the proper input to the Analog to Digital converters. The AR8 accepts 8 channels of audio and digitizes them into 8 digital channels to your computer. LIkewise, the AR12 is 12in/12out and the AR16 is 16/16.
It also accepts digital signals back from your computer and converts them to analog, making them available on output jacks. You can feed those to a stereo system, a power amp or other powered speakers.
Device 2. Mixer.
This is largely what you see with a StudioLive AR series mixer. What it does isn't significantly different than any other mixer, Yamaha, Mackie, Behringer or others. It take mic/instrument/line level signals and allows processing of them into a paired output to your main output jacks, which can feed to a PA, power amp or powered monitor speakers. It has additional controls to support outputs to Aux outputs, an effects bus and to the built-in SD recorder (which records everything that appears on the Main Out jacks).
The AR series blurs the lines. With their "Super Channel" they bring the interface into contact with the mixer, allowing your computer audio to be included on the Super channel fader and into the main outputs and manipulate it like any other input. They also have a "mini-mixer" on the Super channel, allowing an audio input from a Bluetooth device, playback of the SD card recorder, RCA phono (unbalanced line level) inputs and a 1/8" stereo jack that can accept a wired connection from a cell phone or MP3 player. All of this is controlled by one fader on the AR series.
These two separate devices share the common inputs, but otherwise are usually independent of each other. This can be the hardest thing to get your head around when working with these and Presonus documentation doesn't really explain it in much depth.
There is one other mode that combines the two functions. This can also cause some confusion. It is a function that is common on lower priced mixer/interface combinations. It is the loopback mode. This is activated by pressing a button marked 1/2, which is found near the main output control fader. It takes the mixer output that goes to the analog Main Outputs and places a digital copy of the signal on the 1 and 2 inputs of the interface. It is referred to as the podcaster mode, because it allows you to use the mixer portion of the Studio LIve and send the output into your computer on a stereo pair. In this instance all faders on the Studio Live will control the output signal that is sent to the 1/2 input of the interface portion. All channel strips will control the audio. If you are livestreaming, this is the mode of operation you want. The mixer takes center stage and the interface fades into the background. To put it in perspective, it works as if you took the Analog Main output audio from your Studio Live and then fed it into a separate 2 channel interface.
Device 1. Interface.
This is your computer interface. In theory, it is quite similar to any other interface (Focusrite Scarlett, Presonus Studio xxc Series). It is essentially a black box that accepts a mic/instrument/line input and digitizes it, then feeds it to your computer. Like any other interface, it has trimmer levels to set the proper input to the Analog to Digital converters. The AR8 accepts 8 channels of audio and digitizes them into 8 digital channels to your computer. LIkewise, the AR12 is 12in/12out and the AR16 is 16/16.
It also accepts digital signals back from your computer and converts them to analog, making them available on output jacks. You can feed those to a stereo system, a power amp or other powered speakers.
Device 2. Mixer.
This is largely what you see with a StudioLive AR series mixer. What it does isn't significantly different than any other mixer, Yamaha, Mackie, Behringer or others. It take mic/instrument/line level signals and allows processing of them into a paired output to your main output jacks, which can feed to a PA, power amp or powered monitor speakers. It has additional controls to support outputs to Aux outputs, an effects bus and to the built-in SD recorder (which records everything that appears on the Main Out jacks).
The AR series blurs the lines. With their "Super Channel" they bring the interface into contact with the mixer, allowing your computer audio to be included on the Super channel fader and into the main outputs and manipulate it like any other input. They also have a "mini-mixer" on the Super channel, allowing an audio input from a Bluetooth device, playback of the SD card recorder, RCA phono (unbalanced line level) inputs and a 1/8" stereo jack that can accept a wired connection from a cell phone or MP3 player. All of this is controlled by one fader on the AR series.
These two separate devices share the common inputs, but otherwise are usually independent of each other. This can be the hardest thing to get your head around when working with these and Presonus documentation doesn't really explain it in much depth.
There is one other mode that combines the two functions. This can also cause some confusion. It is a function that is common on lower priced mixer/interface combinations. It is the loopback mode. This is activated by pressing a button marked 1/2, which is found near the main output control fader. It takes the mixer output that goes to the analog Main Outputs and places a digital copy of the signal on the 1 and 2 inputs of the interface. It is referred to as the podcaster mode, because it allows you to use the mixer portion of the Studio LIve and send the output into your computer on a stereo pair. In this instance all faders on the Studio Live will control the output signal that is sent to the 1/2 input of the interface portion. All channel strips will control the audio. If you are livestreaming, this is the mode of operation you want. The mixer takes center stage and the interface fades into the background. To put it in perspective, it works as if you took the Analog Main output audio from your Studio Live and then fed it into a separate 2 channel interface.
No, this is specific to the Presonus Studio Live AR-xxUSB and AR-xxC series mixers. I'm aware that @MikeS, @dvs, @Crossroads and I have these mixers. I don't believe anyone else in the forum has mentioned owning one.
dvs
Green Mountain Blues
Yes, I have an AR8-USB. Once I figured out the issues Paparaptor has explained so well in the post above I became extremely happy with it - both as a mixer and an interface. Until I understood all that, using the AR8 was confusing as heck. I must say that Lloyd's "two devices" post above is the clearest explanation of how it works that I've seen anywhere (and I spent a little time looking...).
I spent a lot of time looking and most of what I found was either really incomplete or it looked like whoever wrote the articles (or did the videos) didn't have a firm grasp on how it works.
Until I started livestreaming with it, I thought it was an unpredictable and confusing piece of gear. Once I homed in on the split personality of it, it got a whole lot easier to deal with and much more predictable in operation. Having said that, I think they provide great bang for the buck.
PapaBear
Guit Fiddlier
Sounds a bit like my second wife!
Which part? Didn't have a firm grasp on how it works or Best bang for the buck?
PapaBear
Guit Fiddlier
"unpredictable and confusing piece of.." Split personality of it"
CaptainMoto
Blues Voyager