For those of you who are new to using a Digital Audio Workstation or DAW, I have been using Studio One by PreSonus for over a year now and have found it to be very good indeed. There is a lot of functionality and free tools on board. It is very intuitive, and does not cost an absolute fortune. I have discovered many things on my journey of recording and it's taken me a while to figure out some of the short cuts. I have put what I have found in a document to share with others who might want to try it. You can get a free trial from the
PreSonus website. This also includes tips on recording punch and roll, where you can easily fix mistakes. It is a lot faster than keeping on recording and going back to edit and fix later. There is a learning curve but it is not steep!
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| My simple set-up |
Studio One Quick
Start for narration (for Windows XP)
Open Studio One
1/. Starting from
scratch
Click on ‘Create new
Song’ and a dialogue box opens with Empty
Song on left highlighted. On the right enter Song Title.
Choose where you want song to be saved in next box down.
Sample rate: 44.1
kHz
Resolution: 16 bit
Timebase: Seconds
Song Length: leave
at default
Tempo: leave at
default
Time Signiture:
leave at default
Make sure Stretch
audio files to Song tempo is unchecked
Click OK
2/. If you want to
save a Template
You cannot save a template until you have first created one!
Create a song and save it as a Template.
This will automatically create a folder within Studio for
Templates. You cannot make your own
folder or save an existing Template until this is done.
3/. Short Cuts
Short cuts are listed in the top bar: Studio One >
Keyboard Short cuts…
There are some handy number keypad shortcuts!
Number pad *: Record
Number pad -: wind time bar back
Number pad +: wind time bar forward
Number pad Enter: play
Number pad 0: stop
Spacebar: play and stop
I added Number Keypad 5 to make a new Mono Track
4/. To Start
Once Song is open, make a new track: Top bar - Track> add
new mono track
Click on the solid circle to activate record mode, and
playback is automatically opened at the same time. If you want speakers/headphones muted, click
the speaker button so it is no longer blue, or ‘M’ for mute.
Position white time bar at beginning if not already there.
Click the Record button on the bottom tool bar.
5/. Snap time bar
When editing you will find the white time bar will snap into
place which is not very handy for narration.
On the top tool bar under the shaded ‘Adaptive’ button, you will find a
small box with ‘Snap’ next to it. Click
on the box. If you open up the ‘Editor”
(F2) you will find the same button and will need to click there too.
6/. Punch and roll
On the bottom tool bar there are counters and to the right
of those are what look like thumb tracks or map pins. Click on the top ‘Auto Punch’ button for auto
punch! If you want to have some pre-roll,
then click the ‘Pre-roll’ button beneath.
Pre-roll can eliminate the click of a keyboard and give you a lead-in.
To select how much pre-roll you
have, to the right of these buttons is the Metronome. Click on the ‘Metronome
Setup’ button (the spanner/wrench) and under ‘Options’ choose number of
bars. Two bars is usually fine but you
might want more if you are just staring to learn this technique.
When punching and rolling with pre-roll,
place the white time bar where you want to cut in. Hit the record button. The time bar will jump back your set number
of bars and play. Listen along and jump
in at you chosen spot and keep going.
7/. Making Corrections
When I have made corrections, I have opened another track
below the ‘finished’ track. By cutting the ‘bad section’ so it is separated,
you can use the Mute tool to mute that segment, then record on the second track
you have opened. By using a separate track you do not record over what you
already have that is good. But if you do
go over you hear it when you get to the ‘okay’ and none muted section.
8/. Multiple takes
If you want to try multiple takes for a section this is
fairly painless. Using the ‘Loop Active’ button, you can keep re-recording
non-stop in that area until happy.
To create a
loop, hover mouse over the very thin light grey line above the time digits so
you get a ‘pencil’ icon as the cursor. Clicking once on the thin grey bar will
bring two lighter points. Dragging these
to the left and right creates your loop.
Click on
the Active Loop button on the bottom tool bar, immediately to the right of the
record button so it is lighten up blue.
Hit record.
Record until happy and stop.
If you
right click on that new recorded section you will see “Select take”. Beneath that will be a number of ‘takes’, the
most current being ‘checked’. Beneath that is “Unpack takes” and if you hover over
that, you can select “Unpack Takes to Tracks.” You can then mute each track,
listening to each in turn to decide which fits the best. This is an option, and is okay for small bits,
but can take up more time than you want to spend.
9/. Mixdown or create WAV
or FLAC file
When you mixdown it will automatically mixdown between the
loop and this needs to be set up. (See: 8/.
multiple takes)
Studio One automatically mixes down a mono track to stereo.
To this fix this:
Go to Song> Song Setup> Audio I/O Setup.
Go to the Outputs panel and click on 'Add (Mono)’. This will create ‘Sub 1’.
Click Okay.
You can now do one of two things. Make it the default, or just click okay to
exit.
If you made it default you are all set.
Go to top bar and click on Song > Export Mixdown which
opens a dialogue box.
Location
Choose where you want file to be saved. It will automatically save to a mixdown
folder within the song folder.
Filename:
FileNumber_BookTitle_Ch_Number_NarratorName
Publishing:
(depending on version): Do not publish
Format
(depending on version) Wave File, click
on arrow to get to FLAC
Resolution: 16 bit
Sample rate: 44.1
kHz
Export Range
Click circle for Between
Loop
Options
Output: Sub 1 (for the mono
mixdown) should be default if you made is so earlier. If not:
Click 'Main' with arrow.
Click the arrow to 'Sub 1' and highlight/chose it.
Check the ‘Close after export” box.
Then click OK to mixdown.
Once file is mixed down a folder will open with your file in it (for Windows
XP).
Have fun!
