StudioLive 2442, 1642 and 1602 with Universal Control Ai, SL Remote & QMix
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I've been using an 8 input audio interface at this point but there are some notable downsides - monitoring latency, although it's fairly good being only 6 ms - but most importantly - lack of inputs.

I use Studio One 5 as my DAW.

I have a few synths, some of which are stereo, a sampler and an odd pedal as effects unit. As I can see 16.0.2 has just enough inputs (and outputs) to cover my needs and have a few spare ones left. And as I understand it has some built-in effects not unlike FatChannel ones in S1 that are quite flexible?

But most importantly how reliable is it? Does it still receive support? As I understand it will also integrate with S1 quite well? And can it be used as an audio interface?
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by wahlerstudios on Thu May 25, 2023 7:40 am
The SL 16.0.2 USB is the current model, the SL 16.0.2 (FireWire) has seen "end of service" already two years ago, Windows 11 does not support FireWire anymore and PreSonus has also stopped working on applications for FireWire, so it would make sense to look for the USB model. You can use the mixer as audio interface, which means recording tracks and playing tracks back to the mixer channels, but that's all there is. There is no further 'interaction' between hardware and software, except that you can 'insert' DAW processing per channel (a standard feature of all StudioLive mixers).

The SL 16.0.2 USB is an 'old' mixer, technically and it sounds as it sounds. If you would look for an alternative in the current range of StudioLive mixers, it would be a SL 32SC or it's predecessor SL 16. Both mixers allow to use DAW Mode, but only the blue SL 16 has all the scribble strips, buttons and encoders for DAW Mode. Unfortunately there is no option to use a rack mixer, because a 'controller' with faders and buttons is missing. The big difference between the 'classic' mixers and the Series III mixers is that the Series III mixers are fully recallable and therefore also fully controllable via UC Surface.
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by alalahaha on Thu May 25, 2023 12:57 pm
wahlerstudios wroteThe SL 16.0.2 USB is the current model, the SL 16.0.2 (FireWire) has seen "end of service" already two years ago, Windows 11 does not support FireWire anymore and PreSonus has also stopped working on applications for FireWire, so it would make sense to look for the USB model. You can use the mixer as audio interface, which means recording tracks and playing tracks back to the mixer channels, but that's all there is. There is no further 'interaction' between hardware and software, except that you can 'insert' DAW processing per channel (a standard feature of all StudioLive mixers).

The SL 16.0.2 USB is an 'old' mixer, technically and it sounds as it sounds. If you would look for an alternative in the current range of StudioLive mixers, it would be a SL 32SC or it's predecessor SL 16. Both mixers allow to use DAW Mode, but only the blue SL 16 has all the scribble strips, buttons and encoders for DAW Mode. Unfortunately there is no option to use a rack mixer, because a 'controller' with faders and buttons is missing. The big difference between the 'classic' mixers and the Series III mixers is that the Series III mixers are fully recallable and therefore also fully controllable via UC Surface.


Unfortunately SL32 wouldn't fit either space or budget limits I set for the thing. I'm mostly interested in a not so big digital mixer being a 'good enough' audio interface and a "router" bringing all my hardware together that also takes some processing work away from the DAW if possible at sub $1500 so DAW would be little more than a "tape machine" (I already use mostly S1's stock fx plugins and they are good, so was wondering if built-in effects for SL "classic" are comparable).

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