Digital Audio Workstation Software for Mac or PC

Studio One Pro

Overview

For audio recording, mono and stereo tracks are available: there's no support for multi‑channel formats or surround mixing. Instrument tracks host virtual instruments, but also act as MIDI tracks for driving external hardware instruments or additional channels for multi‑part, multitimbral software instruments. Parameter automation is integrated into audio and instrument tracks, but you have the option of creating dedicated automation tracks too. These tie into any parameter on any other track, and are useful for when you want to make several automation parameters simultaneously visible and editable. They're also used to automate bus or output channels, which don't get track lanes of their own. Finally, there's a tempo track for handling tempo changes and time signatures.

Studio One records in Broadcast WAV format, at sample rates up to 192kHz, and resolutions of 16, 24 or 32 bits. Luckily, for the 192/32 crew, there's support for files bigger than 4GB. You can also import AIFF, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC audio, and MP3s are automatically converted to WAV.

Notable by its absence is any support for beat‑sliced formats such as Recycle. Instead, Studio One has serious time‑stretching chops: as long as an audio file has tempo metadata (which you can add manually if necessary) it can be played back at any tempo, and whole mixes can be slowed down or sped up just by altering the global tempo setting. Three time‑stretch algorithms — Drums, Solo and Sound — help to get good results from a range of material, as long as you don't try to slow playback down too much. I found that time‑stretch playback could cause significantly increased disk use on first playback at a new tempo, and some tracks were momentarily muted. Eventually, Studio One seemed to catch up, the drop-outs disappeared, disk use calmed down again, and order was restored. It'd be nice to see this happen a bit sooner, in due course.

Conventional splicing, duplicating, trimming and fading of audio is done by working with so‑called Audio Events. These can also be transposed and tuned (up to two octaves up or down), reversed and normalised individually, which is great for grungy drum treatments, making the most of pitched loops, and for those inevitable comedy vocal effects. If you record with Studio One's Loop mode enabled, you'll get an audio event that contains one take per record pass. There aren't any dedicated facilities for producing a comp from multiple takes, but it is possible to 'unpack' individual takes onto multiple new tracks, from where a comp can be made using the Split and Mute tools, or by copying and pasting. There's no doubt a full‑blown comp editor would be better still, and I wonder if that might at some point be introduced into the Edit view. At present, there's almost no advantage to editing audio events there rather than directly in the Arrange view.

Studio One in full flight. Here the Arrange view is surrounded by the Inspector (far left), Console (below, in its 'small' mode) and Browser (right). Pretty much everything takes place within this clean single‑window environment.

An edit view can replace the mixing Console in the lower half of the window. Here a MIDI part is being edited in a piano‑roll editor.

The Control Link feature ties controller keyboard knobs to plug‑in parameters and mixer controls in a quick and painless fashion, and saves the assignment behind the scenes ready for later use. Here I've set up my M‑Audio Oxygen 25 to control filter parameters on the ImpOSCar synth plug-in.

As well as solid support for VST (and, on the Mac, AU) plug‑ins, Studio One ships with a range of native effects and instruments, many of which are of remarkably good quality.

System Requirements and Installation

Studio One is a cross‑platform DAW, and to run it you need the following as a bare minimum:

• Mac: G4 1.25GHz or Intel Core Solo 1.5GHz processor, 1GB RAM, OS 10.4.11, 10.5.2 or higher.

• Windows: Intel Pentium 4 1.6GHz or AMD Athlon 64 (Turion) processor, 1GB RAM, Windows XP, Vista or 7.

You also need an Internet connection, a DVD‑ROM drive, and a monitor with a resolution no lower than 1024x768.

As for hard disk space required, that varies according to what you decide to install. The main application plus bundled instrument sounds and loops takes up just over 8GB. Installing the additional bundled software — Toontrack EZdrummer Lite, Native Instruments Guitar Rig LE and Kore Player — requires an additional 2.5GB.

After installation, on the first run, an automated on‑line process activates Studio One via a simple serial-number registration. The licence agreement allows for installation on more than one computer, but specifies that only one copy must be used at a time. It seems like a fair, unobtrusive system.

Features

• Refreshingly easy to use, quick to learn, but not short on flexibility.

• Efficient and stable.

• Mastering facilities are top‑class, and worthy of separate use.

• The Control Link MIDI controller feature is inspired.

• Good-quality bundled plug‑ins.

Windows®

• Windows 10 (64-bit only)

• Intel® Core™ i3/AMD A10 processor or better

• Minimum 4GB RAM / Recommended 8GB or more

• Internet connection (needed for installation, activation, and Cloud, Shop, and Exchange integration)

• Monitor with 1366 x768 resolution (high-dpi monitor recommended)

• Multi-touch enabled monitor is required for touch operation

Content storage:

• 40 GB free hard drive space (Studio One Professional)

• 20 GB free hard drive space (Studio One Artist)

macOS®

• macOS® 10.13 or higher (64-bit only)

• Intel® Core™ i3 or better

• Minimum 4GB RAM / Recommended 8GB or more

• Internet connection (needed for installation, activation, and Cloud, Shop, and Exchange integration)

• Monitor with 1366 x768 resolution (Retina display recommended)

• Multi-touch enabled monitor with TUIO support is required for touch operation

Content storage:

• 40 GB free hard drive space (Studio One Professional)

• 20 GB free hard drive space (Studio One Artist)

Studio One Remote for iPad

• iPad Pro®, iPad Air 2, iPad Air, iPad mini 4, iPad mini with Retina display, iPad (4th generation)

• iOS 10 or later

Studio One Remote for Android

• Android™ tablet running Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) or higher

• Minimum screen resolution of 1024x768

• Studio One Remote for Windows

• Compatible with Microsoft Surface 3 (and higher) and Surface Pro 2 (and higher)

• Windows® 10, or later (Windows RT not supported)

• 2 GB RAM minimum (4 GB RAM or more recommended). Tablet must be x86-compatible (not ARM-based).