After the demise of another popular DAW (Cakewalk — Ed.) following its purchase by a well-known guitar manufacturer (Gibson — Ed.), users were worried that a similar fate might be in store for Studio One when PreSonus was acquired by Fender back in 2021 — and with this being the first major update since then these apprehensions seem quite understandable. However, as version 6 actually offers some impressive improvements I can confidently report that the sky didn’t fall, and that the good ship PreSonus is sailing on safely without a penguin in sight — let alone any icebergs.
Gaining popularity with each new version, the release of PreSonus’ Studio One 6 marks some interesting waypoints in the evolution of the DAW. To me, this release represents PreSonus putting its full weight behind Sphere, the subscription model of Studio One. Sphere was launched with v5, but had an underlying sense of PreSonus trying to gauge the reaction of the fanbase to fine-tune how Sphere might actually work. Now Sphere is the flagship of PreSonus’ software range, and with good reason, but more on this later.
With the exception of the rather clever Lyrics Track, the developers of this release have taken the refreshing approach of making innovative improvements to many of the DAW’s existing features, rather than trying to convince users that they’ve re-invented the DAW wheel.
LYRICS & VIDEO
Speaking of the Lyrics Track, this new feature is not merely words on the screen. They can be displayed in a window with a bouncing-ball cue for vocalists to follow, or they can sit linearly within a track, displaying in sync with the song. A text file can be placed in the Global Lyric Track or Melody Track Lyric Lane, and this feature can make locating lyric reference markers in the song a breeze.
Another of the more significant additions in this release is the introduction of Video Track. Studio One has supported video for some time, but this was only ever via a video player interface. Now there’s a dedicated video track that displays progressive thumbnails along the timeline, much like non-linear video editing software such as Sony’s Vegas.
Basic editing functions such as cut, paste, and delete are possible, and you can import as many clips as you like onto the track, but PreSonus is quick to point out that it’s not a full-featured video editor. With that said, users are still able to compose music or place voiceovers that are in sync with video, and can be exported in several popular codecs.
