PreSonus Studio One Tutorials Ep. 9: Tracks and Channels

Can you make one or more videos of how you setup or work with templates for songs and tracks? From what I can tell you can only have song templates but you cannot have track templates for instrument, audio, or midi tracks. I have been using Cubase and Reaper. What is your workflow for starting a song and creating tracks, buses, FX, Etc. and templates?

The way S1 works in this regard is unnecessarily complicated - just for the convenience of selecting a different channel? Multi-channel instruments should work like other DAWs, no need to break basic DAW usability standards which only makes the learning curve unnecessarily steeper.

Thanks, Gregor! I was adding multiple tracks to overlay different keyboard sounds, but then I had to manage all the tracks. To experiment with different combinations of instruments was as easy as turning different tracks on and off. But if I wanted to change the MIDI pattern, then I had to copy and paste from track to track and not make a mistake. Using multi-channels within a single track simplifies my workflow.

How do you add new instrument channels without adding tracks? For example I want to start a session with 8 synths setup but I just want one track so I can audition each of the 8 synths?

I like your analogy - the mixer channel for the instrument track being like the musician playing the notes in the instrument track. You said, the track/channel difference is less of an issue for audio channels because they contain audio. True! The analogy for audio tracks/channels would be that the tracks are tape recordings, and the mixer is the routing channels to get those recordings to the speakers.

[mind exploding gif]

The fact that S1 separates the track and channels like this is one of my favorite features and why in switched to Studio One. It especially comes in handy when it comes to bouncing.

I wonder if the behaviour of folder and bus for multi audio/midi tracks could be done for a 1 track multi-out vst ? In my case i've set à folder and bus for Drums, Guitars and bass(electric + synth). For audio track/channel (guitars for me) a get it i've got 1 folder connected to my bus idem for my bass with audio and a vst synth. But for drums i set a midi track in a bfd vst and use the multiout that create 1 channel per out from the drums vst to be able to process each pieces of the kit separately. But even if i've got 9 channel in the mix, in fact it's 1 track put in 1 folder connected to 1 bus. In that case if fold the bus or the drum folder only the first channel in mix get folded in the mix windows but not the remaining ones . Is there a thing i miss ? anyway thanks for this usefull tutorial.

Imho, but it seems silly to me, maybe one day I may understand why it's cool and stuff, but surely not now

The fact that bounced midi retains the midi information blew my mind! 🤯 Love it!

Excellent Gregor! Thanks! It just happened that I was messing around, trying to learn some new things about Studio One. I had several questions that came up during my session and this particular video answered all those questions. Much appreciated!

This was informative, but I have an instrument track but I can't get any sound out of the mixer. Notes "In" came from my MIDI keyboard. "Out" is Presence. "Channel" is just called Track 6, the same name as the track. When I play the track on Solo I see the volume lines move, both up in the track and down in the mixer channel. But there is no sound. In the mixer, the track's output is Main, same as every other track on this test song. What am I doing wrong? Gregor, I'm sure you're too busy to monitor these year-old comment strings, but does anyone here have a suggestion?

First Gregor I want to thank you for great videos. I am trying to use the folders to organize drum tracks but I accidently put a bass track in the drum folder and I see no way to remove it. I dont see an remove a track from the folder or UnPack folder option that would allow me to reselect the proper items.

i love studio one, but i think its convoluted, i hope someday they adopt a more intuitive way of operation, even simple actions take a deep understanding

Thank you! Jesus loves you

I'm using studio one using a umc1820 device, but only 2 channels are detected, it should be 8, how can I use 8 channels?

When describing MIDI I like to draw the comparison of an old player piano. The MIDI data is the paper roll with the holes punched on it. That then tells the piano what notes to play and the hammers & strings create the sound. Thats the MIDI instrument. The roll of paper does not make any sound.

I was confused as well.

Gregor, your videos are so helpful!! Thank you!!!

Hello. When i drag the Impact into an instrument it creates 5-7 channels in the mixer. How do i disable that. I want the arranger and the mixer to show the same. I like to have my drums on different tracks like all my other instruments. And i want them to on different channels to in the mixer.
Thanks for the tutorial by the way.

These series of "Tutorials" are not teaching how to implement the functions of studio one, just displaying the features. Please make a step by step tutorial of the DAW, otherwise don't call it a tutorial. But good effort dear! don't mean to criticize just need to learn the thing.

Why can't we pack instrument channels & multi-outs in folders? Especially since you all trashed the old way Scenes worked, managing the Console is much less efficient. With Scenes now toed to the Arranger, we can no longer use Scenes for visibility only.

Thanks for this explanation. This "feature" was really messing me up. I've been studying S1 for a week now, and this is the only thing I do not like. Putting all the drum midi notes on the same piano roll is the opposite of useful for me! I need to tweak and control every note, and when they are all on the same track, you can't do that without doing a selection process that just wastes time. I wish I could check a preference to make every instrument a 1:1 ratio to channels. Oh well.

For us oldies that dabbled with separate computer sequencer synced with an 8 track mixer audio recorder, the concept and tracks and channels really is a no-brainer....

Thanks for this! It's worth its weight in gold to me. Until seeing this I didn't realize that you can assign a single impact drum to its own channel. Magic!

Help me if you can; all odd number tracks, 1, 3, 5, 7 etc. recorded at -12, are only getting -24 levels. All even tracks, 2, 4, 6, 8 etc. recorded at -12 are getting -12 levels. Any idea on why? Thank you.

Questions/Problems.
* Opening a project i got message that 970 files are missing. With Search i found some missing files, it became 270, and these can't be found anywhere (i've searched all folders /sub..sub_subs/ in my big folder dedicated only for StudioOne, all back up /mirror/ folders on 2 external drives). It is an old and very extensive 'precious to me' project, and redicilous thing is, for example there is a guitar solo, i splitted it at some points to get rid of some noise when i was not playing, now the solo is there only in pieces; all channels are ripped off here and there. Plus other issues.

* Yes, as a rule i have a 25 minutes save; "use cached plug-in data on save"; "ask to copy external files when saving document" all on/checked. * I didn't change nor names, nor locations of working folders and files (though i have this project saved under different names as versions).

* What i did is: i replayed some important stuff and added two old stereo tracks of this project/song to blend left-overs on channels with old stereo mixes (with mistakes, unbalanced, but it is better something than nothing, there is no way i'd re-do everything due to circumstances and basically it is impossible to replicate the guitar/drums/real percussions with their previous settings, especially if i don't have some guitar or pedal or a keyboard anymore). I alligned everything nicely (time, buses, volume,..), corrected, blended everything nicely, and put vocals at the right level (up and with different settings, that's why mainly came back to this project), clicked "save". Logically, the DAW asked me "do i want to add these files", obviously, i clicked "yes" and...1475 files for each added stereo track started copying. In panic i pressed "cancel", but it was too late. Where these files are from, why?! Why stereo tracks came with so many files?

* But this is not all: i had plenty enough of memory space (workable 450-500GB free), now i am in the end of red zone with 78GB left. I went to media folder to look for duplicates: no duplicates, but there are about 6000 files there (and some of them are not from this project). Agh..

* But this is not all again: i started clearing up the space on pc and the more i delete or move ...the lesser space i get on computer...now it is 50GB.

* To free space and continue working i thought that i would mirror the path, create the same folders in external drive, link the project to media files there, But i am afraid to make things worse in this and other projects (especially considering that freeing the space now works for me the opposite way).

* What is wrong? How can i fix all that mess?

This is amazing. Being brand new to S1 and learning all this and other videos is fantastic. Coming over from other DAW's.
It feels more and more that S1 is the most user-friendly DAW.

S1 feels more human than any DAW there is. Because it's vere intuitive the way things can be done. It tends to thinks like a human would use and work and then S1 just does it..

Thank you very much. 😊

How do you split the keyboard to sound in track 1 from c0 to c24 and in track 2 from c25 to c61 for example… help please

A very insightful video ... thank you Gregor!!