Review: PreSonus StudioLive 16.0.2

Smaller digital consoles are becoming commonplace, but there is a lingering perception that digital mixers are for ‘serious’ gigs and aren’t the kind of workhorse console you’d reach for first, particularly if the channel count is perhaps a single lectern microphone and a laptop playback. Simple stuff, in other words.

The PreSonus 16.0.2 StudioLive mixer is narrowing the boundaries between what is deemed worth a digital console and the, “what the hell, it’s only one microphone” basic setup we often encounter. The StudioLive is small, relatively easy to operate and cost-efficient, and still offers many of the advantages of an expensive digital mixer. So what’s the hold-up? Why wouldn’t you be chucking all those cheap, analogue mixers in the bin?

The problem is still all about that dreaded concept of things being ‘intuitive’ [What part of any piece of electronic gear is ‘intuitive’ to a Kalahari Bushman, an Amish farmer, or your own great-grandmother? – Ed.]. Plonk any reasonable technician, be they sound, AV or – heaven forbid – lighting-oriented behind a small, analogue mixer and they’ll quickly figure out how to fudge some noise out of the FOH. Do the same with any digital console and things will get a bit messy. The challenge for digital console designers in the smaller format market is to make things easy to achieve and obvious to the untrained (and not so untrained) eye. That is, to make digital console technology accessible to everyday users. Has PreSonus managed this?

BIG LITTLE DESK

Some brass tacks stuff first. The 16.0.2 StudioLive (not to be confused with the older/bigger  16.4.2 or 24.4.2 StudioLives ) has 12 mono XLR preamp inputs and the last four of these channels are capable of taking stereo signals thanks to pairs of TRS balanced inputs. The last two channels also have unbalanced RCA connectors, too – nice touch. However you choose to look at the configuration you’ll always max out at 16 channels, but they’re a genuine 16 rather than the input count being somehow inflated by digital or optical ports. There are four auxiliary channels, which is a pleasant surprise on a compact console and even better you don’t sacrifice any of these to feed either of the two FX channels – they have their own signal chain. If you want four foldback sends, you’ve got ‘em. The built-in DSP, which provides a high-pass filter, noise gate, compressor, limiter and three-band parametric EQ, can be applied to everything: every  individual channel, or each of the aux buses and the master output. FX returns can be sent to the auxiliary channels (providing reverb in a foldback send for example) but not at separate levels – it’s either in all the aux sends or none – an issue which has caused some angst on the PreSonus forums. Some folks are never happy, but they may have a point on this occasion – among all the 16.0.2’s cleverness it’s an odd glitch. There is also a 31-band graphic equaliser that can be applied across the master outputs.

SLIGHTLY OBESE CHANNEL

The controls for all of these parameters come via a ‘fat channel’ that dominates the console’s real estate above the faders. Twelve rotary encoders handle most of the input values and double as sends levels for FX and auxiliary busses. It’s the standard approach to digital mixers with the one set of encoders all focused on the DSP parameters for the channel (or bus) you’ve selected. What’s different here is that PreSonus has opted to display values for each fat channel control using 16-bar vertical LED meters, rather than some kind of central, large LCD screen – there is a small LCD showing preset information, FX values and the like, but it’s certainly a ‘look close and squint’ LCD screen, not something you want to refer to in a hurry. The LED meters are another thing altogether. For example, the mid frequency range is shown spread between 260kHz and 3500kHz over 16 increments and the cut/gain level is plus or minus 15dB in 2dB steps (for those clever bastards doing the maths, don’t forget 0dB in the centre). These aren’t detent values, the EQ does sweep through the entire frequency spectrum (more on this later) and the gain is a constant variable as well. It’s only the LED bars that will eventually click over from one to the next. Likewise, all the compressor settings are shown alongside one of these 16-bar LED readouts, which is really only providing a rough idea of the value you’re choosing. Not good, when you’re fine-tuning a compressor.

In theory, and I suppose in practice, the system works fine. Especially when the meters were showing auxiliary or FX send levels for each channel, it worked great – and I’ve had my days of desperately trying to peer at an LCD screen in bright daylight, so any improvement on that gets a big thumbs-up. But I struggled to relate to these LED readouts when it came to the DSP tweaking. My eyeballs weren’t instantly getting information that made sense – if that makes sense. I had to look closely to decipher just what the pretty green LED bars meant… not happy.

The good news is that I had a means to completely ignore the LED displays anyway. Good news that makes me grumpy, though.