It’s a striking, good-looking surface with a clean, ordered look about it that made me want to get my hands on the faders and start getting audio flowing.
On first unpacking the StudioLive 24 I was drawn to its extremely sleek, low-profile appearance the front edge of this console is much lower than many and I found it very comfortable to operate the faders when sitting behind it. On the StudioLive 24 the first 16 input faders sit to the left of the master fader section and the remaining eight to the right depending on the fader mode these right-hand faders can be selected as DCA masters, aux inputs or mix/effect masters, but no matter what fader view is currently selected pressing the ‘inputs’ button over on the left side will always return the faders to their default input-channel assignment, a bit like a ‘home’ button.Īt this stage it would be fair to say that the StudioLive 24 has a whole host of capabilities other than as a basic digital mixer, and I will cover the main features that appealed to me during my time with this console. The surface layout is neat and well-spaced despite there being a generous number of illuminated buttons, all clearly labelled with their respective functions. An upgraded ‘Fat Channel’ provides comprehensive and powerful signal processing, a choice of internal effects and additional routing options such as multiple matrix mixes. The StudioLive 24 includes a 38-in/38-out USB recording and playback interface, AVB networking capability and direct onboard recording to SD card. The StudioLive 24 is a 24-input, stereo output console with 24 mic input channels (plus one for the talkback mic), four fixed subgroups and a stereo output bus on the analogue output side there are, in addition to the main stereo outputs, no fewer than 16 outputs that can be configured to deliver audio in a number of ways via the internal ‘FlexMix’ options. The third-generation StudioLive 24 has 25 touch-sensitive motorised faders and 25 fully recallable preamps that employ PreSonus’ established XMAX input circuitry. The StudioLive Series III has inherited the clear, logical and easy-on-the-eye approach of the previous AI models in the series, and if you favour a more hardware‑oriented approach using banks of dedicated, clearly labelled buttons, as opposed to a screen-based menu approach, then this console should very much appeal to you. Writing a brief review of current digital mixers is a bit of a challenge, as they are all so feature-rich these days however, when you strip away all the various bells and whistles, you do actually have to mix on them, whether for a live show or in a recording situation (or sometimes both at the same time) so the surface workflow and layout are just as important to me as the list of impressive tricks they can perform.
The name ‘StudioLive’ says everything about the design philosophy and target market of these consoles they are perhaps more focused on studio integration than some of their purely live‑sound rivals, and have an advanced level of integration with PreSonus’s own Studio One DAW application.
The Series III models (available in 16, 24 and 32-channel versions) make good on that and a lot more besides, and the StudioLive desks are now pushing for attention in this increasingly crowded market. This wasn’t a particular issue for users migrating across from the analogue mixer world, but it did restrict the modern workflow expected of a typical fully digital console. The PreSonus StudioLive mixing consoles have always been interesting products, and whilst they have consistently delivered good audio performance and a pretty comprehensive feature set, they have stuck to their ‘analogue-like’ non‑motorised faders.
STUDIOLIVE 32 SERIES III UPDATE
This major update to PreSonus’ popular multi-purpose mixers endows them with a host of new features - including, for the first time, motorised faders!