Studio One 3 - Presence XT

[mobetta]

Can anyone who tried the included samples let us know how good they are?

Sounds quality might be subjective, but I'd very much like to know is it now the included content up to the samples from various dedicated samplers? Or at least close? Is it at least usable? Given that the previous content - samples/sounds - was not anywhere near the competition.

In a word, is it really possible to use only Presence XT in a production?

Thanks,

Not going to say it's better than 3rd party stuff, but it's WAAAAAYYYYY better than the previous version. More headroom, sound articulations, overall fatness and warmth is much better, you'll hear it immediately, especially in the strings and guitars.

i haven't used any of my other VSTS so far since i got S3, other than maschine for some loops. My 2 cents, anyway.

[AlesisVi61]

Just tried the demo and after 15 minutes,I couldn't stomach anymore and uninstalled it.

I should mention though,that I could not care a less...about the new functionality(as my primary interest in the update,is the Presence XT.)
Since the entire demo is less than 2GB,there is no way to gauge the quality of this sampler...which is utterly f**king retarded.

As for the Mai Tai synth...well,I was anxious & very excited at the prospect of trying it out(due to the Mojito synth being such a wonderfully warm sounding synth)...but upon combing through the Mai Tai,this turd is nothing of the sort.
Mai Tai is thin,brittle,too digital sounding and just friggin' weak...WTF??No kidding...Mai Tai sounds like a 25 year old Casio synth....f**king disgusting & utterly pathetic.
There are SO MANY better sounding FREEWARE synths out there..literally!

Again...with Presence XT....how the f**k...can I properly demo this sample player,when there is 13GB missing from the demo!?
Did I miss something here...is there an instrument file that I've overlooked??

The YouTube demo wasn't of much help either...because to my ears,only the bass & drums,sounded even remotely interesting to me.

The most compelling factor for this new upgrade for me,would be the improved scripting of Presence XT(particularly,the Kontakt 4 support)...but I can't see paying $150 for it...maybe I'll wait for a holiday sale....

[Integratron]

Sorry if I'm a tad off topic but I'm really disappointed with the pricing of the S3 upgrade. It looks like it's a rich mans DAW. Sorry, I can no longer afford to play with this gorgeous diamond-studded DAW... oh well... I guess I'll have to brush up on my Tracktion skills! lol

[LawrenceF]

Just tried the demo and after 15 minutes,I couldn't stomach anymore and uninstalled it.

I should mention though,that I could not care a less...about the new functionality(as my primary interest in the update,is the Presence XT.)
Since the entire demo is less than 2GB,there is no way to gauge the quality of [the new soundsets]...

Interesting. Do any "Core XT" sounds come with the demo or is it all only Artist Instrument sounds listed in the browser?

They should (agree) probably include a random collection of XT Core sounds for demo users, a special soundset with a mix of some of those sounds to demo. Other than that, I suppose you have to play the demos from the browser, from the store page, where you can stream some samples of the new sounds.

My general impression, if it helps, is that the XT Core soundsets, overall, are about a notch above the stock Kontakt 4 sounds in many ways, not all. The coverage is pretty good. The only thing they really missed coverage wise is orchestral percussion.

[LawrenceF]

In a word, is it really possible to use only Presence XT in a production?

It probably depends on who you ask, what they're producing and why, and what the expectations are. Is it possible to only use the Halion sounds that come with Cubase in a production? Same answer. Bitwig? Same answer.

While the new soundsets are certainly a vast improvement over what was there before, I don't think anyone is actually claiming that nobody will ever use 3rd party sounds anymore because of them.

They're "much better", a general expectation from what was viewed as a relatively poor offering in v2.

[AlesisVi61]

Interesting. Do any "Core XT" sounds come with the demo or is it all only Artist Instrument sounds listed in the browser?

They should (agree) probably include a random collection of XT Core sounds for demo users, a special soundset with a mix of some of those sounds to demo. Other than that, I suppose you have to play the demos from the browser, from the store page, where you can stream some samples of the new sounds.

My general impression, if it helps, is that the XT Core soundsets, overall, are about a notch above the stock Kontakt 4 sounds in many ways, not all. The coverage is pretty good. The only thing they really missed coverage wise is orchestral percussion.

Thanks for the info.Having at least the quality of Kontakt 4 sounds,is good enough for me.It would be nice to have some usable bread & butter sounds(since I no longer have my old NI K6 software.)

I think that if Mai Tai was as well crafted as Mojito was,then the cost of the upgrade would be worth every red cent.

[ImNotDedYet]

Interesting. Do any "Core XT" sounds come with the demo or is it all only Artist Instrument sounds listed in the browser?

They should (agree) probably include a random collection of XT Core sounds for demo users, a special soundset with a mix of some of those sounds to demo. Other than that, I suppose you have to play the demos from the browser, from the store page, where you can stream some samples of the new sounds.

My general impression, if it helps, is that the XT Core soundsets, overall, are about a notch above the stock Kontakt 4 sounds in many ways, not all. The coverage is pretty good. The only thing they really missed coverage wise is orchestral percussion.

Thanks for the info.Having at least the quality of Kontakt 4 sounds,is good enough for me.It would be nice to have some usable bread & butter sounds(since I no longer have my old NI K6 software.)

I think that if Mai Tai was as well crafted as Mojito was,then the cost of the upgrade would be worth every red cent.

I wouldn't say the quality is up there with say, Kontakt 4. I briefly ran through a number of samples the other day and was majorly unimpressed. The guitar sounds weren't bad, but for the most part, they were uninspiring - at least to me. But, keep in mind, Kontakt is a much more "open system" that has a lot of excellent third party soundsets. So, it's a bit of an unfair comparison because perhaps Presence XT is capable of some of the great sounding sounds that Kontakt offers, but no one has created any yet.

Is Presence XT usable? Sure, but it depends on the sound you're after. If you're after an absolute replica of a certain instrument, there are better options out there - at least for now. But truthfully, I've never understood why people want the most realistic sounding X instrument. You can get damn close and nothing else in your mix sounds like a real instrument, so why bother having to get the exact sound of instrument X?

[billcarroll]

It's pretty cool to be able to load EXS24 instruments in Presence XT. Works well here, although I have had to locate "missing" samples.

[24MTS]

Are there some free EXS libraries worth talking about? I don't know a thing about this format, to be honest. Except that is Logic.

[billcarroll]

Are there some free EXS libraries worth talking about? I don't know a thing about this format, to be honest. Except that is Logic.

Yes, there are a bunch of free ESX24 instruments to be found. just google "logic esx24 instruments".

In addition, if you own Logic you can access all of the stock ESX24 instruments from Studio One 3. I've set a tab in the studio One browser to point to the Logic Sampler Instruments for easy access.

ESX24 Sampler Instruments location:

Code: Select all

"/Library/Application Support/Logic/Sampler Instruments/"

When you open a Sampler instrument from Studio One v3, it will open in Presence XT. You'll probably get an error about missing samples, and you can just point it to the sample folder to find them.

EXS Factory Samples location:

Code: Select all

"/Library/Application Support/Logic/EXS Factory Samples/"

[murnau]

Hmm.. i have to ask: How is the import of the EXS24 instruments? Which values are retained after import? I can't imagine a 1:1 conversion.

[24MTS]

Nice. I do not have Logic, but I am interested in Studio One v3. Unlike many others, I am a one DAW man and I am planning to stick to S1 for a good while...

[LawrenceF]

I wouldn't say the quality is up there with say, Kontakt 4

Well, it depends. The guitars sound better to me, as do the Rhodes / Suitcase pianos and organs mostly to me. The strings are kind of a toss up, they're just different. So far I prefer K4 strings on some things and XT strings on other things and where K4 has an advantage there is the Ensembles. Brass in both is not what I'd call anything that would even pass for real brass but XT has some nice articulations, falls and things.

It compares favorably (where they tend to match up) with K4 to me. Kontakt obviously covers a lot more stuff than Presence XT though, especially the previously mentioned orchestral percussion.

A lot of it is subjective. People will certainly (already have) widely disagree about how good the sounds are or not. No real surprise there.

Truth be told, mmv as usual, I wouldn't buy any product just because I liked it's bundled sounds. In the scheme of things that's way down my list for buying workstations.

P.S. One thing to be aware of that's maybe not so true with Presence XT... I own both K4 and Mach 5 and a lot of the factory presets are really "hyped", processed, spread out wide. So much so that I often find myself reducing the stereo widths of a lot of it because most of the best sounds turn to relative shit in mono. Throw a phase meter on some of it and you'll see what I mean.

[AlesisVi61]

I wouldn't say the quality is up there with say, Kontakt 4

Well, it depends. The guitars sound better to me, as do the Rhodes / Suitcase pianos and organs mostly to me. The strings are kind of a toss up, they're just different. So far I prefer K4 strings on some things and XT strings on other things and where K4 has an advantage there is the Ensembles. Brass in both is not what I'd call anything that would even pass for real brass but XT has some nice articulations, falls and things.

It compares favorably (where they tend to match up) with K4 to me. Kontakt obviously covers a lot more stuff than Presence XT though, especially the previously mentioned orchestral percussion.

A lot of it is subjective. People will certainly (already have) widely disagree about how good the sounds are or not. No real surprise there.

Truth be told, mmv as usual, I wouldn't buy any product just because I liked it's bundled sounds. In the scheme of things that's way down my list for buying workstations.

P.S. One thing to be aware of that's maybe not so true with Presence XT... I own both K4 and Mach 5 and a lot of the factory presets are really "hyped", processed, spread out wide. So much so that I often find myself reducing the stereo widths of a lot of it because most of the best sounds turn to relative shit in mono. Throw a phase meter on some of it and you'll see what I mean.

So essentially,it's a crap-shoot and this upgrade is no reasonable alternative to Kontakt?I looked at Big Fish Audio's website and I don't see any instruments of theirs for the Kontakt 4 format.

I guess I'll have to take my chances and just buy Kontakt 5.I don't know what I'll do...if I get stuck with an installation issue,but as it is,I've wasted hundreds of dollars attempting to acquire usable sample libraries for Reason,Sampletank and Avid's Structure and it was all a complete bust.

I know at least one friend,who might be able to walk me through NI K5's installation process(should I run into a wall) and I have to learn to trouble-shoot NI's software...somehow.

[LawrenceF]

Yep. If you want Kontakt, buy Kontakt.

You should probably buy a DAW for everything else it does that Kontakt doesn't do, not because it's bundled sounds may or may not be subjectively equivalent in the view of some others. That is to say, it's a really great thing that they "upped" the instrument quality in v3, but that's just "added value" for people who might use those sounds and might have bought it anyway, not really (imo, mmv) even a top-10 reason to spend $400 on an audio workstation.

I mean, nobody (I hope) buys Cubase for it's bundled instruments, they buy it for everything else it does and any usable instruments are just a bonus.

On the other hand, another person on a budget who can't afford both S1 Pro & Kontakt or Halion might do very well with the Presence XT sounds. Most people actually aren't making records or competing with Dr. Dre.

If you're working and actually *need* great sounds, the top end of third party market blows all of it away.