Studio One 4 Vs Pro Tools
Nov 09, 2016 What I miss from Pro Tools. Now, while I do love Studio One, there are still some things that Pro Tools does better. Editing – While the editing in studio one is great, and keeps getting better, I still feel like the editing ability in Pro Tools is the best in the industry. It could be the fact I used Pro Tools for so many years.
- Studio One ® 4 was designed with ease of use at its core. For ten years now, it has seamlessly combined the time-tested and proven recording studio model with today’s beat- and loop-oriented production process—so you can bring musical ideas to sonic reality more quickly than ever before.
- Jul 19, 2018 From Pro Tools To Studio One 4 In this video, I demonstrate how to go about exporting an AAF from a Pro Tools 2018 Ultimate session - which can then be imported into PreSonus Studio One 4. In addition, we will also talk about a couple things to be aware of when working with AAF's in general.
Since the launch of Studio One 4, there's been a lot of talk about some of the new features and workflow improvements but there have also been some conversations from users who claim they have seen performance improvements in Studio One 4, citing faster load times and snappier overall performance. Is this true?
What Does PreSonus Say About The Performance Of Studio One 4?
We decided to check the PreSonus website to see if there were claims of Studio One 4 being faster or having speed improvements.
All the uses of the word 'fast' or 'speed' are used in the context of speeding up the workflow, not the computer, for example;
'Studio One 4 isn’t just about including a world-class drum instrument but also integrating it with an innovative, streamlined Drum Editor to edit drum parts as fast as you can think. Along with hundreds of preconfigured pitch name and mapping scripts available for free from PreSonus Exchange, the new Drum Editor is like an accelerator for drum editing.'
or;
'The step sequencer has served us well for over half a century; now it’s time for Studio One’s new Patterns to step into the future. Tight integration with instrument parts, automation, and Impact XT means that Patterns reinvent step sequencing as a seamless, fast, fun part of making music.'
So there do not seem to be any official claims of the software actually being faster when running on the same computer. However, we decided to test the claims of some users by running a number of tests.
Studio One 4 v Studio One 3 Speed Test
Test One - Startup Time
Studio One 4 Vs Pro Tools Online
This test was to see if launch time differed between Studio One 4 and Studio One 3. We ran a stop clock as soon as we launched the app and did this repeatedly to get an average time for Studio One to go from the first mouse click to the home screen.
GarageBand for MacOS comes with dozens and dozens of top notch virtual instruments for you to wrap your fingers around. That said, there will come a time when you want to broaden your sonic horizons with some new instrument sounds. Sounds for garageband.
The winner? Studio One 4 by about a second. Nothing to really claim as life-changing, what it means is that if you launched Studio One 4 ten times per day every day then you would save just under 2 hours per year.
Test Two - Session Opening Time
In this second test, we launched a Song from an open instance of Studio One. The song comprised about 30 audio tracks, virtual instruments, and plug-ins. The audio tracks has multiple edits and automation. We ran the test multiple times.
The winner? Studio One 4 by a few seconds, so again no clear winner in terms of time to open the sessions with either Studio One 4 or Studio One 3.
Studio One 4 Free Upgrade
Our test machine is a Mac Pro Late 2013 3.5 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5 with 32 GB 1866 MHz DDR3. Session are kept on an external G Tech Thunderbolt Drive.
Studio One 4 Performance
As you can see from our tests that any computer performance improvements in terms of speed seem to be anecdotal. Windows users may have seen a marked improvement in speed, if you are a Windows user and can try the same tests then we would be interested in hearing the results.
With all that said, Studio One 4 does feel snappier than previous versions, but we have nothing scientific to prove that. There's a lot of great reasons to upgrade to Studio One 4 with some new features and lots of workflow improvements, both will help you work faster.
But if you are still using Studio One 3 then rest assured that you still have a rock solid DAW with great performance.
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