What are your top Studio One feature and improvement requests? [Now with poll]

Reaper has a fantastic 'save track as template' feature that I'd love to see in S1. You can click any combination of tracks and instantly save them as a new template. Like that piccolo, contrabassoon and vuvuzela combi? Select those tracks and save them as a template. New project; select that new template and there they are.

If you use disabled/unloaded tracks in Reaper, you can close the original project down and open the next in a matter of seconds - almost like changing presets on a hardware rompler. I'd love to be able to do that in S1.

Gerbil said:

Reaper has a fantastic 'save track as template' feature that I'd love to see in S1. You can click any combination of tracks and instantly save them as a new template. Like that piccolo, contrabassoon and vuvuzela combi? Select those tracks and save them as a template. New project; select that new template and there they are.

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You can do that with the new track presets in S1 v6. Select multiple tracks and save them as a single preset.

Gerbil said:

Reaper has a fantastic 'save track as template' feature that I'd love to see in S1.

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Literally the reason I upgraded to V6 a month ago. I've been waiting for that since V2, about a decade ago. Took long enough

Not a whole lot anymore really. Different font styles and sizes, different colour options (the GUI is not Studio One's strong suit IMO)

We'll see where they go anyway. First time they didn't discount upgrades for existing users. It used to be 50% every year, BF, Christmas, Imsta Festa, etc. Then it became 30%. Now this year, 0% I thought it was rather weird as they discounted for Sphere members, new customers and crossgrade eligible customers (basically everyone but existing customers). Cubase will always be my ship to jump to anyway, worst case scenario, and I'm a happy S1 customer still, but things change as time goes on..

Pop Corn said:

First time they didn't discount upgrades for existing users.

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I'm on Sphere, but this no?

sundrowned said:

You can do that with the new track presets in S1 v6. Select multiple tracks and save them as a single preset.

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Something tells me I need to update!

Can we have that bar with the play button etc just as a black strip without the slanted bit, please

Search fields everywhere (outputs/inputs/sound variations etc).
Auto transform tool without the extra key command.
Sync point for audio and instrument events.
2nd video track.
The ability to pin tracks below or to global tracks.
Allow crosshair for tools to extend over global tracks.

Multi-channel, 5.1 and Dolby Atmos support.
Alas, I fear S1 will always be limited to stereo.

sundrowned said:

With the new ownership of S1 I thought it might be good to have a thread for this topic. In a lot of the recent S1 marketing there doesn't seem to be much focus on media/orchestral composing so don't want our views to go by the way side.

The recent update and Scoring Tools add-on by Lukas addressed quite a few issues for me. But the main things I'd like added/updated are:

Notation editor improvements
This feels slightly incomplete to me. It has a good base but with a few improvements it could be a really good notation editor and hybrid DAW/Notation workflow. Things that need improving:

1) Option for dynamics to control midi CC's.
(And to reflect that in the CC lanes. Currently there's only an option for dynamics to control velocity but it does it behind the scenes without being reflected in the velocity bars)

2) Independent notation and midi note length editing.
Currently there's no control over how the midi is reflected in notation. For example in a chord with slightly offset midi notes it might display those notes as different lengths in the notation view which creates a mess, when what you want in the notation view is a chord with the same note lengths. This is possible in cubase for example where midi note lengths and notation can be edited independently.

Cross-staff beaming would also be a good improvement but probably not as important for me as the above. I'm not looking for S1 to be a fully fledged notation editor, mainly just improving workflow.

Other improvements

3) CC automation lane save states and presets.
Currently automation lanes are global and not specific to each track. So if a lane is closed for a particular track they're closed for all tracks. And there's no preset system.

I think those are probably my top requests.

What are your top feature requests?

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Really would like to see your first two suggestions implemented, I already posted a request for that on the studio one forum, which got quite some likes, but unfortunately it didn't make it into the software until now.

samphony said:

Sync point for audio and instrument events.

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Is that a point within events that can be snapped to? Or what is that exactly?

sundrowned said:

Is that a point within events that can be snapped to? Or what is that exactly?

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Exactly. In Cubase/ Nuendo it is called Snap point. In Logic it is called Anchor.

Reposting from another thread:

I found the best way to evaluate any of these DAWs compared to the one(s) you're already using is you have to commit to setting up the new DAW as close to your ideal workflow as possible - and also ensure you adapt your workflow where necessary to fit into how the new DAW does it. After that, it's a more level playing field in that you are squeezing the maximum potential out of each DAW for your own style. Then, you can really see which DAW's annoyances and shortcomings (which they all have) are truly slowing you down and where the benefits are allowing you to compose / program / mix more effectively and efficiently. I particularly like to see where my workflow is improved once (ex. Sound Variations vs. Expression Maps - once you set it up for an instrument, you don't usually have to adjust it) and where it is improved over and over again (ex. Controller Lane Presets).

Having spent the past few days getting S1 v6 setup to take advantage of some new features (track presets, panning modes) and going back and forth between my setups in Logic and Cubase, I'm still finding that S1 lags behind for my particular workflow.

- As mentioned above, the lack of Controller Lane Presets or shortcut keys to quickly recall specific MIDI lanes means for every track I need to find and then add things like Expression, CC21 (vibrato), etc. Logic and Cubase allow for Controller Lane Presets and key commands to quickly recall these for each track.

- The keyboard modifier choices Presonus has made are rather poor. For example, in the piano roll, holding CMD will bring up the pencil tool - but it also triggers zooming in and out with a Magic Mouse. On Logic, CMD brings up the pencil tool and OPT is the zooming modifier. That way you never accidentally change your zoom state while editing MIDI.

- Similarly to the above, in CC data, holding CMD changes to the pencil tool, but if you hover over any single CC point, it changes back to the arrow - even with CMD held down. That means you cannot smoothly blend in changes in CC data starting from an existing point. You have to switch fully to the pencil tool and then switch back. Why the two pencil tools work differently here is anybody's guess.

- While you can show the Chord track in the piano roll, you can't modify it at all. So if you work with a full screen piano roll, you have to go back and forth to the arrange window to adjust the chord track. In Cubase, as you might expect, all global tracks can be modified from the editor windows.

- Note editing in the score editor requires a lot of extra clicks. For example, you cannot adjust the position of the notes in the score editor using key commands (like you can do in the piano roll). If you have a rest, you have to delete that completely if you want to change the length of the note. While really easy to read, the score editor is actually much less feature rich than the one in Logic or in Cubase (as much as I hate that one).

- The lack of screen sets / window layouts means I am not able to fully take advantage of my multiple monitors for different stages in the composition process. If I want the arrange window on my secondary one while the piano roll is full screen on my primary one, but then when mixing, have the mixer full screen on my primary one, or when editing, having the arrange window full screen on my primary one - I would have to reconfigure the windows each time. Both Cubase and Logic offer very powerful layout options here that can be recalled with key commands.

- Like many people, I have a Eucon control surface - because it is a cross-DAW protocol that actually works (unlike MackieControl). Unfortunately, my Artist Mix sits unusable in Studio One. And in MackieControl mode, Studio One's implementation doesn't enable auto-banking on track selection (which Logic's implementation does), so it is even slower to use a control surface.

- If you want to edit multiple parts at once (ex. a string section), you have to rely on the track list to select which part is editable at any one time - which means for a full string section (5 tracks), you have to make 4 clicks to disable everything except the first violins if you are trying to select multiple notes to move them (and then 4 clicks again to make all parts editable). If you want to use a lighter color scheme, Part Note Color mode will not have enough contrast to differentiate between the parts - even with really bold track / part colors (see example).



There are some really nice workflow aspects to S1 - the macro bar, the aforementioned track presets and Sound Variations, the browser, MixFX. This is why I needed to try and set it up as optimally as possible and write a few short pieces with it - while at the same time, writing similar things with Cubase and Logic - to really get a feel for where it was better and where it was worse for my particular workflow. Hopefully Presonus takes onboard some longstanding feedback from composers and continues to improve S1, because it could really become a common choice for the composer community outside of the big two.

I hope everyone who voices feedback here also creates and votes on feature request on the PreSonus website, as that is one of the best ways to make actual progress. I'd be happy to vote on your feature requests if you post the links here!

Pop Corn said:

the GUI is not Studio One's strong suit IMO

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Have you seen literally every other DAW?!
I know S1 is not perfect, but I have experienced so much worse, haha

Snarf said:

Have you seen literally every other DAW?!
I know S1 is not perfect, but I have experienced so much worse, haha

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You must not have used Logic, Cubase, Pro Tools, Ableton, or even DP then Presonus should fire their UX team.

About Track Presets in S1Pro 6 , watch this video :

1) add ability for shortcut button to reset the red clipper light

2) Ability to monitor RAM usage inside studio one

3) Double click presets automatically loads them as instrument tracks

4) Bug fix---fix the bug where the play marker disappears somewhat randomnly when on a Windows custom resolution setting. I've been asking them this for awhile and they haven't address it, even though they where able to duplicate this bug.

I have another one to add to the notation workflow improvements.

More notation symbols to connect to sound variations
Currently there are 50 symbols, which might sound like lot, but Synchron Strings Pro for example has over 100 articulation options. Custom text (or symbols) that can connect to sound variations would be good.

ALittleNightMusic said:

You must not have used Logic, Cubase, Pro Tools, Ableton, or even DP then Presonus should fire their UX team.

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Fire their UX team?! You might not like the way the interface looks, but from a UX perspective, it's so unbelievably consistent it deserves a Nobel Prize if there was one for this kinda stuff! I think you completely confuse looks with user experience.