StudioLive AR8, AR12 and AR16 Hybrid Mixers
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I have an AR12USB. I like the mixer. I do most of my larger jobs on a Behringer X32 rig or a Soundcraft UI24r, but I always carry the AR12USB as an emergency mixer.

During the Covid downtime, I am planning to produce some small ensemble live recordings that will go into streamed videos. Until now, I did my live recording either into on-board SD card (with the Soundcraft) or via a separate laptop running Waves TracksLive to the X32.

That has always been fine for capturing a concert and mixing offline later. However, for these small ensemble sessions, they will be more like a studio recording session, where musicians may want to do multiple takes or punch in/out. So I have been reconfiguring my laptop to run well with StudioOne V5.

StudioOne and the laptop are both working well now. I thought it would be good to use the AR12 for these sessions because it is compact, uncomplicated, and easy set-up I should never need more than 8 mics in these sessions. But I am seeing two rather significant problems in my testing, both related to the preamps on the AR12. The preamps are calibrated too low, period -- a flawed design. Even if I crank the gain all the way to max (which is unacceptably noisy), I can never get the channel to clip. I have tried a variety of dynamic and condenser mics and different XLR cables and they all have the same problem on every channel. I know this is not a problem with my unit because so many other people have reported the same issues with the AR series.

For the live sound, it is really tedious to get the gains set high enough to pass enough signal to the master bus without getting into the high-noise range. That is the first problem. The second problem is that even with reasonable gain, I wasn't seeing any waveform in the StudioOne tracks. I thought this was a StudioOne problem, but in fact, it was simply a case that the signal passing over USB was WAAAAY too low. If I normalize the recording, the wave forms appears as expected, but of course that means amplifying a lot of noise.

I can accommodate this problem by putting as +12dB boost on the INPUTS in StudioOne, but really, this should not be necessary, and still has the problem of amplifying noise.

I will use this setup on a test gig on Saturday to see what kind of quality I can get out of it, but I'm thinking this is probably just not a good solution. I have no idea why Presonus would have passed a product with such a major deficiency, but I didn't pay that much for this mixer, so I guess you get what you pay for.

=========================================

After that lengthy preamble, my real question is whether the preamps on the StudioLive 32SC are any better. I'd hate to drop a couple grand on that mixer just to find out it has the same deficiency.

Home studio:
Windows 10 Home 10.0.143393 64-bit
Intel Core I7 4 core 3.6 GHz 16 GB RAM
Studio One 5.0 Professional (and other DAWs)
Audiobox 1818VSL audio interface
Mobile studio:
Studio One 5.0 Professional
HP Pavillion 15-cs3079nr laptop Intel Core I5-1035G1 8GB, 1.29 GHz, 4 core
Presonus StudioLive AR12 USB as interface (Looking to upgrade)
User avatar
by SwitchBack on Thu Jul 23, 2020 11:40 am
Long story short: The preamps on the Series III mixers are a completely different beast compared to the AR preamps! :)
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by craigparmerlee on Thu Jul 23, 2020 11:47 am
SwitchBack wroteLong story short: The preamps on the Series III mixers are a completely different beast compared to the AR preamps! :)


How is the gain on the preamps? Can you easily push into the clipping territory without having to go full clockwise?

Have you run the Series III into a DAW? Does the gain come across to the DAW at a reasonable level?

Home studio:
Windows 10 Home 10.0.143393 64-bit
Intel Core I7 4 core 3.6 GHz 16 GB RAM
Studio One 5.0 Professional (and other DAWs)
Audiobox 1818VSL audio interface
Mobile studio:
Studio One 5.0 Professional
HP Pavillion 15-cs3079nr laptop Intel Core I5-1035G1 8GB, 1.29 GHz, 4 core
Presonus StudioLive AR12 USB as interface (Looking to upgrade)
User avatar
by SwitchBack on Thu Jul 23, 2020 1:28 pm
I don’t know about clipping as there’s more than just preamps in that story :) And you definitely don’t want to clip PreSonus mixer preamps to begin with. These preamps are clean right up to the cutoff, where some other manufacturers have their preamps distort (a ‘warmer’ sound but distortion nonetheless) well before the cutoff. A matter of design philosophy.

On paper the Series III preamps give you 5dB more gain which is close to twice as loud. But with the Series III preamps that’s low noise all the way to max due to the completely different preamp design. No problem at all to get a good strong signal on the meters in Studio One. (a good target level for digital recording is between -18 and -12dBFS on the meters).

The track graphics in Studio One at default (lowest) magnification have always been ‘unimpressive’, but with a little zoom (bottom right corner of the track window) this is easy to fix. Don’t normalize your tracks as that way too loud for many plug-ins. Between -12 and -18dBFS is good.

Hope this helps :)
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by craigparmerlee on Thu Jul 23, 2020 2:44 pm
Thanks. Just to be clear, initially I was getting NOTHING AT ALL on the S1 waveforms when connected to the AR12. I thought S1 was broken. Indeed, there were numerous problem reports with earlier S1 versions where waveforms wouldn't show up. But it simply wasn't getting enough signal to register. It sounds like the StudioLive III won't have that problem. I only wish there were a more lightweight unit in the StudioLive III series because that's as big and heavy as my X32 gear.

Maybe a better solution for me is to get a Studio 192 interface instead of using a mixer. It looks like one can control the Studio 192 with the UC Surface software on an Android, so that would handle what I need to do with live sound and would still be a compact setup.

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After researching further, with the Studio 192, I wouldn't even need to run UC Surface because everything I would need for live sound is in the Universal Control mixer. And further, about 90% of the Universal Control mixer features are actually integrated right into Studio One. This is looking like my best bet, and I'm sure the Studio 192 preamps would have plenty of gain. I've used that audio interface on a friend's system, but didn't realize the integration with S1 was so thorough.

Home studio:
Windows 10 Home 10.0.143393 64-bit
Intel Core I7 4 core 3.6 GHz 16 GB RAM
Studio One 5.0 Professional (and other DAWs)
Audiobox 1818VSL audio interface
Mobile studio:
Studio One 5.0 Professional
HP Pavillion 15-cs3079nr laptop Intel Core I5-1035G1 8GB, 1.29 GHz, 4 core
Presonus StudioLive AR12 USB as interface (Looking to upgrade)
User avatar
by craigparmerlee on Sun Jul 26, 2020 8:21 pm
Just to add some information for the benefit of others who have the same questions in the future, I did a live test yesterday. This was a small jazz combo that needed only 6 channels, so I used the AR12. I connected my laptop that has StudioOne V5 installed. This is actually a 2011 vintage Dell laptop that I have upgraded to be SSD-based running Windows 10. It has limited CPU and only 4GB RAM. My S1 setup had no plug-ins anywhere in order to minimize complications.

It actually worked perfectly. The tracking was all very clean. I had the inputs set to a +12 db gain (above the level set in the mixer) because it seemed like streams going across the USB were lower than the levels in the mixer. On reviewing the recordings, the trumpet was able to get into the distortion range in S1 with that +12dB. I don't think the trumpet ever clipped in the mixer, even though all my AR12 preamps were set to about 85%.

So I conclude:
  • I still think the AR12 preamps don't offer enough gain, but it is manageable
  • I think some boost is needed on the S1 end, but +12 dB is too much. I'll probably try +6 dB or maybe even +3
  • The sound quality of the recordings (ignoring the trumpet where it clipped, is actually quite good -- better than I expected.
  • For now I think I'll work with this setup a little more before putting money into a Studio 192.

Home studio:
Windows 10 Home 10.0.143393 64-bit
Intel Core I7 4 core 3.6 GHz 16 GB RAM
Studio One 5.0 Professional (and other DAWs)
Audiobox 1818VSL audio interface
Mobile studio:
Studio One 5.0 Professional
HP Pavillion 15-cs3079nr laptop Intel Core I5-1035G1 8GB, 1.29 GHz, 4 core
Presonus StudioLive AR12 USB as interface (Looking to upgrade)
User avatar
by Bbd on Sun Jul 26, 2020 8:31 pm
Great follow up.
Thanks you!
:+1

Bbd

OS: Win 10 x64 Home, Studio One Pro 6.x, Notion 6, Series III 24, Studio 192, Haswell CPU: i7 4790k @ 4.4GHz, RAM: 32GB, Faderport 8/16, Central Station +, PreSonus Sceptre S6, Eris 3.5, Temblor 10, ATOM, ATOM SQ

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