PreSonus releases Studio One 4 with sampling, patterns, chords and drum editing

22 May 2018 by Robin Vincent | Approximate reading time: 2 Minutes

PreSonus Studio One 4 · Source: PreSonus

PreSonus Studio One 4 Chord · Source: PreSonus

PreSonus Studio One 4 Sampler One XT · Source: PreSonus

PreSonus Studio One 4 Impact XT · Source: PreSonus

PreSonus Studio One 4 Drum Editor · Source: PreSonus

Previous Next

Studio One gets a brand new version released today. There’s talk of loops and beat production, seamlessness and advanced virtual instruments. Let’s check out what’s new.

Studio One 4

It’s all better and faster and cleaner and all the usual things we associate with a full version update. But here are some of the new features that caught our eye:

Chord Track and Harmonic Editing – Taking a nod from Cubase PreSonus introduces a useful chord track. But this also includes a very interesting Chord Selector for building your chord progressions. Chords can be triggered or progressed via MIDI and you can apply chords from the Chord Track ontop existing tracks. This extends to audio tracks with Audio Harmonic Editing and re-harmonisation.
Sample One XT – The original inbuilt sampler gets an overhaul with a load of new features and improvements. Live sampling is, of course, the big one. It can sample from any input, send or output. You can now drag and drop samples from anywhere into the GUI and let Sample One do the auto-slicing and adjustments for you.
Impact XT – Following on from the sampler is this new version of the Impact drum machine. It’s taken on loop production as well as beat making. It has 8 banks of pads and per-sample editing.
Drum Editor – Another welcome Cubase throw-back is the drum editor. Basically, a piano roll that’s tailored towards percussion. So you get hits rather than notes. This is tightly integrated with Impact XT.
Drum and Melodic Patterns – Brings in Musical Patterns which are pattern or step-sequence style of programming and arranging.
Cross-platform file exchange – not exciting but very useful.

Well, there’s nothing not to like about all that. Some decent additions, new stuff, greatly expanded sampling and so creative opportunities in chord structure and step sequencing. We’re often underwhelmed by major DAW updates but this one doesn’t feel too shabby.

Studio One 4 is available now for £344.40 or £128.40 if you are an existing user.