 | |  | | | PreSonus StudioLive 16.4.2 16-Channel Digital Mixer w/ FireWire I/O | | | | | | | |
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| | Features | 16 channel performance and recording digital mixer"CAPTURE" multi-track recording software100mm long throw faders16 class A XMAX microphone preamplifiers16 inputs, 6 auxiliary mixes, 4 subgroups
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| | Description | StudioLive is the most powerful and flexible sixteen-channel digital mixer the world has seen. Loaded with sixteen high headroom XMAX microphone preamplifiers, built-in 32x18 FireWire recording and playback engine, 'Fat-Channel' processing with 4-band EQ's, compressors, limiters and gates, DSP effects, six aux buses, four sub-groups, extensive LED metering, mixer save and recall, channel-strip save/recall/copy/paste, talkback and more, breaking new boundaries for music performance and production. | |
| | Product Details | | Product Length: | 28.0 inches | | Product Width: | 24.0 inches | | Product Height: | 12.0 inches | | Product Weight: | 23.0 pounds | | Package Length: | 27.4 inches | | Package Width: | 22.1 inches | | Package Height: | 12.1 inches | | Package Weight: | 38.45 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 10 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 10 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 found the following review helpful:
 Amazing sound, easy to use, great features Nov 06, 2009
By D. Wendel
I bought the StudioLive about a month ago and have been playing with it since then in preparation for winter concert season. The first thing I did was connect a mic to every input and test the gain, routing, and outputs for every channel. Everything worked flawlessly, sounded great, and was easy to do.
Sound Quality
The sound quality on this is amazing. I've been working with Mackie mixers and the low-end A&H one, and the sound is cleaner (absolutely no audible noise even at very high gain). Some people might be worried that the digital EQ would be harsh, but believe me, this sounds just as "analog" as the analog boards I use, and it's actually more precise and more flexible. The quality of the compressor is also great. I've previously only used kind of low-end compressors, and this blows them out of the water. The tone is not colored at all, and I don't hear any weird digital artifacts. I've also pushed the compressor up to limiting, and it's a very smooth sound, not harsh and fuzzy like most digital limiters I've used.
Ease of Use
I love the simplicity and power of the FAT channel. It's great to be able to set up one channel, copy it to all the others, and tweak from there. Routing is also a piece of cake, and the FX interface is intuitive. Overall I think this is very well designed for use in live situations where adjustments have to be immediate.
Features
This is the only board anywhere near this price range that does everything I want - great, clean preamps and mixing; flexible, powerful, sweet-sounding EQ; excellent dynamics processing on every channel (and even the buses!); crystal-clear A/D for recording, with built-in firewire; recording pre or post FAT channel; analog direct outs on every channel right after the preamp; built-in effects that actually sound good.
I think it would be hard to find a live mixer with better sound than this for anywhere near this price. You might be able to find slightly better compression and FX on outboard gear, but it would cost at least $100/channel, and be a pain to patch together in live settings. Not only that, but patch bays and cables add noise that this mixer doesn't have. Plus, this takes no setup time (turn it on, recall settings, go) and is a lot easier to transport (even though the SKB case for this thing is HUGE!). So really I think this is a huge win.
I'm replacing a 16ch mixer, two 8U racks of outboard gear, 2 insert snakes and 2 patch snakes, and an A/D computer interface (E-MU 1616M) with this one piece of equipment that sounds better, cost less in total, and is 100x easier to setup and use. To me, that says 5 stars any day.
7 of 7 found the following review helpful:
Amazing board for the money! Mar 30, 2010
By Trent Perkins
I was looking for a board that acted like an analog board live (in terms of IO) and yet had the abilities to record and had the power to fully process signals without having to buy additional racks of effects. This board delivers all of that and more!
Up front though, you need to know that if you want to record audio via FireWire on your laptop, you will very likely need to get one of the recommended FireWire Expresscards that have a TI Chipset even if your computer has built-in FireWire (I ended up getting the Startech EC13942). As soon as I started using that, my audio interface issues went away, and I was able to record multiple tracks like a champ.
In addition to the Firewire interface (from which you can both send audio to be recorded or recieve audio from the computer (or do both at the same time to include using the computer for additional processing of a channel if you can keep latency low enough to be tolerable), the 16.4.2 also sends all of the analog direct outs via 2 DB-25 Jacks that you could then record on a digital Hard Disk Recorder (like the Alesis HD-24) as a backup.
For live sound, this thing is AMAZING! Not only does every input channel have a fat channel (for which I was very grateful to have gates, compressors and the High pass filter available as needed), but the fat channel is also available on all of the outputs. This was a lifesaver when I discovered I had a horrible low end resonance issue on the stage and I was able to notch that frequency out of all of the monitors using the Hi-Q feature on the low mid band. The EQ is very good and the Hi-Q feature is effective, but if you can save your pennies, you might want to spring for the 24.4.2 which has a four band fully parametric EQ. In addition, whereas the 16.4.2 has a stereo 31 band EQ on the mains (which is also very handy and pretty easy to use), the 24.4.2 has up to four 31 band EQs that can be assigned where needed.
Since you can store all of of your scenes to memory, you can use the same board even for multiple bands at the same gig. But if you should need more channels, these can be daisy-chained. To put things in perspective, you could daisy chain two 24.4.2s together for a total of 48 channels for less than $7,000, and you would be able to do things that the $25,000 Yamaha M7CL would be struggling to keep up with (especially in the recording department without a whole lot of additional cards added)
One con is that I was unable to get the Capture software to work, but that was not an issue for me since I recorded direct to Cubase anyway.
One last thing to note is that this does NOT have flying faders (although you can store and recall fader settings should you so desire). So it is NOT the board you would want to use as a computer interface in your studio. But for a live board from which you can record some pristine tracks simultaneously, this thing cannot be beat for the money.
17 of 22 found the following review helpful:
 The Good and The Bad Jul 01, 2009
By Vic
"Backwoodsman"
Bought the StudioLive 3 months ago.
The Good.
After running an Alesis 32 analog board for 10 years, decided to go digital. I also owned 2 firepods, and the HP4, made by Presonus. I was impressed by their clean sound, so after researching the just released StudioLive, it seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. The price was great. The Tech support had always been very good. It had almost all the requirements I was looking for, so I bought it.
The Bad.
It performed and recorded exactly as described, and expected. But, as soon as I turned it on it knocked out almost all radio stations in the house, causing distortion (white noise), even up to 100' outside the house. Including the portable radio. I took it to my son's house 7 miles away and it did the same thing. This was without any mics or externals plugged in. Only the power cord. Amazon even sent me another unit to try. (Thanks Amazon). It did the same thing. I have called Tech support several times over the past 3 months. They say engineering is working on it, but so far, have been unable to find a solution.
I really like the StudioLive, and have decided to live with the problem, as it does not effect the recording, which is excellent. However, it is very annoying for others not to be able to play the radio when the StudioLive is on. Hopefully they will find a solution soon.
6 of 7 found the following review helpful:
 Worse than behringer Mar 07, 2011
By Jared Mcdonald
Buying one of these mixers is a real gamble on your part. You might get a good one. You might not. I got a bad one. It had bugs at first, but after a few days of 'use' it completely locked up and will not pass audio. My guess is that presonus knows exactly what the problems with these boards are, but they continue to sell them to people. If you get a bad one, it will be a pain in the rear to try and rectify the situation. Countless hours with tech support. You may have to ship it back to your dealer or ship it back to Presonus for repair or replacement. Don't just take my word for it, go to the presonus forums and read through all of the problems. It is true that every electronic device has issues now and then, but if you are like me and your reputation rides on your ability to provide sound for people who are paying you, this 'toy' is not for you. It is simply not reliable. In my book, presonus was always better than cheapo brands like behringer, but now, they are on the same page.
12 of 16 found the following review helpful:
 Presonus Tech Support and Studio Live Mixer Problems Dec 29, 2009
By Bruce Livingston
"Blind Eye'd Lucy Studios"
Presonus Studio Live Review
Presonus did a good job designing this mixer and as live mixers go I'm sure it would be nice. However this mixer is advertised as a device that is supposed to work with computers via fire wire. In my case the Studio Live failed miserably. In addition... working with Presonus Technical Support was very disappointing and very time consuming. In the first place don't think you can call them and expect to get on the phone with anyone in a timely manner, expect to wait a long time. They only take calls Monday - Friday from 8-5 central time and are closed on holidays... (A voice message saying they are closed the day after thanksgiving would've been nice ....it just rings and rings) After much calling and emailing the technicians responded to my emails and messages at a snails pace. I did get a voice mail box one time... This person was in the accounting department. The technicians only have a hand full of suggestions and really appear to be grasping for straws. I tried to setup the SL on two Windows PCs and a Mac. Once the setup was complete I was able to see the feeds from the SL in my recording software. However, once the computers were re-started the SL connection went away and was never to be seen again. I had a second SL delivered and had the exact same results. I exhausted every technical procedure that Presonus had (which wasn't much) and I was never able to make this work. Presonus support pretty much bailed at this point so I setup an outside computer resource with a remote connection to my Studio PC to see if they could isolate the problem... all to no avail. Bottom line... As far as I can tell the SL driver for their Universal Controller does not work with a good many chip sets and fire wire environments. I gave it three weeks of my time and effort, tried two PCs and a MAC before I moved on to the Mackie Onyx 1640i. If you want to wait for Presonus to get their act together on the fire wire side then buy this mixer, but... you may be waiting a long time.
Sorry Presonus... the truth hurts.
See all 10 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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