Hey guys, in this video we’re going to be continuing on with our Presonus Studio One
tutorial series.
Last time we looked at getting the software installed on our computer and how to get everything
setup and running so we can start recording.
In this video, we’ll go over some of the basics of recording an audio track and making
edits to that track.
Let’s start by creating our first audio track.
We’re starting with the blank new project from our first video.
On the left side of the screen, right click and select add audio track.
If you’ll be recording one microphone, you should set it to mono.
If you have two microphones together for a stereo pair on an instrument, set it as stereo
to work with them together.
Now we need to set our input with the dropdown on this track.
This is where we’ll run into one of the first limitations of the Prime version of
Studio One, since we can only use 2 inputs from our audio interface, instead of the 16
that mine is normally able to record at once.
With the full version you can access all of these inputs at the same time.
If you only have an audio interface with one or two inputs, this isn’t an issue for you
at all.
But for those with more complicated audio interfaces, you may want to consider using
the full version, or choosing another free digital audio workstation.
Check out our video on the channel to learn about a few of those.
You may notice that we can only see two inputs right now.
We need to select Audio I/O setup and link our audio interface inputs to an input on
in Studio One by pairing them up on this grid.
Once these inputs are setup, press the Apply button.
You may also want to save them as default so they’re setup each time we go to record
from now on.
Now exit this menu.
To be able to record, press the white circle on the track.
This will arm the track for recording, and you’ll notice that the button turns red
telling us that it’s armed.
The track will stay armed until we press this button again.
When a track is armed for record, that track will record when we press the record button
on the project.
Only armed tracks will record, and unarmed tracks will just play back normally without
recording.
You’ll notice that as you press the arm button, you can hear the sound from that track
in your headphones, and that’s a great way to tell that it’s working and what it will
sound like when we record it.
If you want to disable that so you don’t hear it, press the button to the right that’s
lit up in blue.
The M button to the left is to mute the track.
Muted tracks won’t play when we play the project.
The S button is to solo the track.
Soloing means that only soloed tracks will play, and tracks that do not have the solo
button pressed will not play.
These two buttons allow you to quickly turn tracks on and off in the project and listen
to them on their own, without having to adjust the volume level on the track.
You’ll also see the level indicator in green that shows how loud the track is recording.
If the little red box shows up at the top, that means that the track is clipping.
You need to reduce the level and redo that recording, since clipping means it’s recorded
at too high of a level.
Try and set the level properly before recording to avoid this.
With the track armed, we can press the white circle in the bottom center of the screen
to start recording on our track.
You’ll see as we do this that a new clip is being created with that track, and there’s
little squiggles that represent the sound wave telling us how loud it is.
If we want to restart and delete that track, we can use the undo shortcut on the keyboard,
or we can right click and select delete.
You can also click the clip and press the delete key on the keyboard.
We’ll see now that there’s a line in the middle of the screen.
This represents where in time we are on the project, and it was initially at the beginning.
To get it back to the beginning, we can press the line with the left arrow at the bottom.
This is the button to the left of the stop button.
We can also click on the timeline to snap it to that point in time.
With the clip recorded, we can make a few edits.
One of the things you might want to do is trim the clip.
This can be used to remove the noise at the beginning and end of the clip without changing
the position in the song.
You want to be careful not to change the position if you recorded it with other tracks since
it won’t line up if you do that.
To trim a clip, hover over the edge of the clip, and then click and drag towards the
center of the clip.
Similarly, if you click and drag at the top edge of clip, you’ll get a fade at the beginning
or end to get a smooth fade in or out.
Clicking and dragging towards the center of the clip will allow you to move it in time
along the timeline.
Be careful if you do this as it can put the track out of sync.
To adjust the volume of the track, click and drag on the bar just below the track buttons
we looked at earlier.
Dragging to the left makes the track quieter and dragging to the right makes it louder.
Be careful if you turn it up too much.
This can cause the track to clip which will lead to some distortion.
To adjust the volume of an individual clip, drag the center square up or down.
Thanks for checking out this video on recording audio with Presonus Studio One.
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