PreSonus 24R Review

Milton Watts, Salt Lake City, UT

2/7/2018

Thanks to Performance Audio and the local PreSonus rep I was able to take a PreSonus StudioLive 24R Series III for a test drive. My primary need is for something portable that I can take to small venues, quickly set up and then run from a good position in the house. I’m most often doing sound for an A’Capella band, but do a range of other gigs from small groups to musicals with some home studio work on the side. The 24R looked like a good fit for me, but I wanted to make sure it would work as advertised before investing. This review focuses mostly on overall functionality. I didn't have time to do in-depth testing of sound quality, but my quick tests did not raise any major concerns.

Hardware Tested

• • 13-inch 2016 MacBook Pro with two Thunderbolt 3 ports running macOS 10.13.3

    • Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter (USB 3.0, HDMI, Power).

    • ITD ITANDA 4K Thunderbolt 3 to Mini DP Adapter

    • Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter

    • Apple Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

• StudioLive 24R Series III stage box and rack mixer

  • HP Elite Book running Windows 10 Pro vs. 1703

  • NetGear AC1200 wireless router

  • Samsung Galaxy S7

Software Tested

• • PreSonus UC Surface Universal Control 2.5.2 (Mac and Windows)

  • PreSonus Capture 2. Multi-track recording software

  • PreSonus Studio One 3 Professional Demo vs. 3.5.5

  • PreSonus QMix (Android OS)

  • PreSonus QMix-UC (Android OS)

  • Figure 53 QLab 4.1.3

USB Connection

Using USB to connect to the 24R I did not have any issues recording 24 channels at once. With this configuration I was able to use 3 monitors running UC Surface, Capture and QLab all at the same time. I could run backing tracks from the Mac, while doing a live mix for PA and simultaneously recording the individual channels for post-mix or virtual sound checks. It was a little tricky patching the backing tracks through the 24R and back into Capture, but the flexibility is there to do it. Note: Q-Lab needs a Pro license to talk to anything other than channels 1 and 2.

The Apple Core Audio drivers had no problems allowing all three apps to interface with the same device. The same setup also worked with PreSonus’ Studio One 3 software, but you do have to upgrade to the $99 version to get more than stereo out. It was useful to keep UC Surface running with Studio One 3 as I was playing with different patching options. The only downside I saw with USB is that you have to be within about 10 meters of the board to run USB without investing in extenders.

Ethernet Control and AVB

Things got more complicated when I tried to use Ethernet Control and the AVB bus. The setup that worked best for UC Surface was to use a Wifi Router with a single Cat 5 connection from the 24R to a router and then go WiFi for the link to the control computer. I successfully connected via WiFi with a PC, my Mac and a couple of Android phones simultaneously. The Androids used QMix and QMix-UC. I could control the 24R from any of them, seeing the results on all screens with never more than a 1 second lag. This would work fine in small venues, but it gets dicy when you have a thousand cell phones all trying to connect to WiFi during a show. I was also able to run UC Surface by connecting either my Mac or PC to the router with a 2nd Cat 5 cable. With the Mac I had to first convert from Thunderbolt C to Thunderbolt 2 and then use a separate adapter to convert Thunderbolt 2 to Ethernet. Several notices warned that the direct-to-ethernet Thunderbolt C adapters do not work. I did not try them. The PC would not let me use WiFi and Ethernet at the same time. As soon as the Ethernet was plugged in it stopped using its own WiFi. The Mac was happy to run both simultaneously.

A big frustration I found with using Ethernet is that I had to power down the 24R after making any changes to my network in order for UC Surface to recognize the 24R. Hot-swapping does not work, and it appears that power sequencing is also a requirement; the 24R has to be the last thing connected. If you temporarily lose router power, you can’t just reconnect it, you have to cycle power on the mixer before you can regain control. Other systems I’ve used are more forgiving. Hopefully there is something that can be done in the firmware to fix this.

As stated in the manual and literature, you cannot send audio over the Ethernet Control port. Less obvious is the fact that you cannot (yet) control the mixer over the AVB port. In order to get both control and audio without using USB you have to have two separate ethernet connections or do AVB over ethernet and control of WiFi. I was successful at getting both AVB and Ethernet Control working on the Mac by direct-connecting my Mac Ethernet adapter to the AVB port on the 24R, and then running the control signal to a WiFi router and making the 2nd connection to the Mac using WiFi. In this configuration I was able to run Capture and UI Control simultaneously. I couldn’t get this configuration working on a Windows 10 PC since Windows does not support AVB without dedicated adapters.

Software

UC Surface control software worked reasonably well, but needs some fixes before I would choose to use it in a live situation. The biggest issue was not being able to hide unused channels. Most of the shows I do involve fewer than 12 channels and would fit nicely on a compact screen if unused channels could be hidden. The Group-Master/VCA implementation does allow filtered views with reduced fader count, but it hides all elements that aren’t part of the selected VCA. I would like to be able to see VCA Group-masters while non-grouped channels are also visible.

Navigation between pages is clumsy. In UI Control the button bars are chopped into small pieces and spread all over the screen. Several frequently used controls take 2-3 clicks to reach. A static button-bar across the top would be an easy fix.

Mouse control of the faders was generally acceptable. If you clicked above or below the current fader setting it didn’t jump to meet the mouse as other interfaces I’ve used do, it simply tracked motion as the mouse moved. That said, the overall interface seemed better suited for multi-touch screens. Unfortunately I did not have the luxury to test that option.

QMix-UC for Android gives access to all the controls in UC Surface, but needs to have better scaling of the screen elements. On a small screen the faders are too narrow to be selected. I don’t expect to be able to control 30 faders on a small screen at once, but that is the only option you get.

QMix for Android is a clever stripped-down app that gives users the ability to control their own monitor mix. UC Control determines which device controls which Aux mix. On the app, one screen allows the user to select which channels constitute their sound. The unselected channels are considered to be “the band”. On the main screen you simply control the relative volume of your sound to the band. A master volume control would have been addition, but the App is works as is.

Capture is simple and effective. It allows multi-track recording, simple editing and multi-track playback. The interface is basic, but usable. I would not use it as a substitute for a DAW.

I didn’t spend much time using Studio One 3 software. Coming from a Pro Tools background there is a learning curve, but it seems reasonable enough to be usable and I didn’t see any show stoppers. It definitely worked better with USB than AVB.

Summary

Overall the hardware is functional. The USB connection works great. Requiring two separate interfaces for control and audio is a significant drawback when using AVB. In a live situation I’d probably use Capture on a dedicated computer on stage while using a second computer connected via WiFi or Ethernet in the house to do the live mix.

For now I’m going to wait and watch before buying. The hardware is tempting, but the control software needs a few improvements. Hopefully PreSonus is listening.