Questions & Answers

Ability to link plugin/insert parameters across grouped tracks!

+167 votes
6,686 views
asked Jan 31, 2018 in Look and Feel by williammikkelson (290 points)
This is the one thing keeping me from switching to Studio One from Pro Tools. In Pro Tools when you group tracks together it gives you an option to also include plugin parameters into the group. So for instance if you have 6 Background Vocal tracks and they all have an SSL Channel strip plugin on insert A you can group the plugin parameters on insert A across ALL those BGV tracks. How I tweak the SSL Channel strip on the BGV 1 track will ALSO apply to the SSL Channel Strip plugins on the BGV 5 through 6 tracks.

Pro Tools also allows you to select WHICH inserts will be grouped. So you could link parameters on inserts A through E in the group but NOT parameters on Inserts H through J so that only certain plugins will be linked together and others will not.

Pro Tools also allows you to optionally link the Bypass state of plugins across groups by insert as well. LOVE THAT.

This is a HUGE timesaver in mixing and it saves you from having to tweak a plugin on one track in solo and then copy and paste that plugin to all the other tracks in the group. And if you want to change the parameters than you have to RE-COPY the plugin across all the channels. Its a real pain.

27 Answers

+22 votes
answered May 21, 2018 by AlexTinsley (925,270 points)
 
Best answer

Thank you for the feature request. 

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+2 votes
answered Jan 31, 2018 by connorholcombe (2,430 points)
Not an exact match to what you're saying, but one quick and easy work around would be adding a bus for those channels (highlight all 6 vocal channels and click 'add bus for selected channels') and adding all effects you wanted 'grouped' to the bus, all those you don't want 'grouped' on the channel itself.

I acknowledge this isn't a perfect solution as you don't have complete control over the order of your plugins, it requires adding a bus which is sometimes trouble you don't want to deal with, etc. but I find this works well for me when I'm in that position!
+11 votes
answered Aug 8, 2018 by 01010110 (980 points)
Fully agree. I really miss this feature. It is also available in Cubase and I'm pretty sure I've seen it been used in other DAWs as well. It sure is a time saver.
+8 votes
answered Dec 1, 2019 by robertgray3 (42,830 points)
I really do miss this part of Pro Tools
+8 votes
answered Dec 5, 2019 by hanneskelch (520 points)
oh god yess. this is unbelievably annoying. I wanted to switch to studio one from PT and this is one of the things why I am still on the fence about it.
+8 votes
answered Jan 23, 2020 by emilianobrescacin (960 points)
Completely agree! This one of the few things i'm missing in S1.
+10 votes
answered Aug 25, 2020 by harmensipkema (640 points)
Yes! Yes! Yes! Coming from PT this is one of the reasons to go back to it. Mixing big vocal stacks and so on is really so much faster if you can adjust the compressor and what not on each of the individual tracks by adjusting just one of ‘em.

I’m guessing it’s quite a bit of work to implement and then to make it interface in a consistent way to the GUI of the rest of S1 but it is so worth it imho. This is the stuff that I (and other professionals) actually need.
+7 votes
answered Aug 29, 2021 by rubenmorales1 (580 points)
This would be an epic feature, that way you don't have to copy the plugin once you edit a parameter. You'll be able to hear the changes simultaneously if you have for example one track hard panned to the left and the other to the right. PLEASE PreSonus make this Wonderfull feature a reality.
+5 votes
answered Oct 30, 2021 by toddmarshall3 (260 points)
This will help a lot in LIVE DAW Mixing. I've just switched the DAW all the way to PT because of LIVE Auto tuning for multiple mics. one simple feature made me to buy another whole DAW subscription
+5 votes
answered Nov 23, 2021 by stevedaymusic (960 points)
Devs, it's my opinion that this needs to happen in the next major release of Studio One.  I had to Google how to link inserts in Studio One and found this feature request page.
+5 votes
answered Jan 25, 2022 by mikesupina (6,560 points)

Yes!!! Please! +1000!!!!

I know you could add a bus quickly, but that unnecessarily adds another track to the mix window. The option to have plugin parameters be linked is a really great and VERY useful feature! smiley

What the OP said about linking specific inserts together is great too, and goes along with two other feature requests I put in:

https://answers.presonus.com/73052/click-plugins-once-to-open-them

https://answers.presonus.com/73051/shift-click-plugins-to-open-multiple-plugins-at-once

+5 votes
answered Feb 10, 2022 by Daw Stew (12,600 points)
Definitely need this.
+4 votes
answered May 9, 2022 by mikesupina (6,560 points)
edited May 9, 2022 by mikesupina
Yes please times 1000. This would also require having insert slots like Pro Tools or Logic, which is also better for organization. They don’t have to be labeled “insert a, b, c” etc.; you could just make them “insert 1, insert 2, insert 3” etc. just as long as it’s implemented so that if you wanted say ALL of your SSL channel plugins on “insert 3”, they would all be on the same horizontal line. Great for organization; great for grouping.

Edit: ALSO, I would recommend being able to group plugins in a way that you can select the parameters to group. In Pro Tools, you can group the parameters, and the bypass state. I know Studio One is pretty comprehensive when it comes to “undo”, macros, plugin automation, etc., so I would suggest taking it a step further and allow to even group by specific parameters, similar to how you can select parameters for plugin automation. If you can get so in depth as to automate a plugin’s specific parameter, you can group specific insert’s parameters. Maybe a “select all” checkbox for all parameters; otherwise, nothing is selected and you can just choose specific parameters via a checkbox. Raise the bar, Presonus!!! :)
+3 votes
answered May 29, 2022 by franckmariani (3,310 points)
This feature is really important
+3 votes
answered Jun 3, 2022 by NoiseCoalition (1,330 points)
Definitely miss this feature coming from cubase!
+3 votes
answered Jun 10, 2022 by gofinger (290 points)
I can't believe I'm still dealing with this. Please add this feature.
+3 votes
answered Jun 14, 2022 by creekside (220 points)
agreed!  would love to have this.
+2 votes
answered Oct 1, 2022 by gofinger (290 points)
Is this still an item that is missing? It’s hard to keep up and be relevant without this kind of workflow. Being able to link plugins is critical for SIMPLE routing and avoiding unnecessary busing. Is this something that is included with S1 6??
+2 votes
answered Oct 1, 2022 by randallrash (1,160 points)
edited Apr 26, 2023 by randallrash
I completely agree that this feature needs to be added into the grouped tracks section. When re-amping di guitar with amp sims ( ampire , helix native, Amplitube, guitar rig ext ). It’s very helpful in other DAWS like Pro Tools to adjust the stereo ( hard left and hard right) tracks together instead of adjusting independently and copying over the plugins and hoping it sounds like you think it will. It takes the guess work and time wasted out of the equation. Please add this feature as a option in grouped tracks Presonus .

Furthermore with atmos coming up in importance it’s very necessary to be able to adjust global effects across a mix going into Atmos rendering. This feature would begin to address this…
+1 vote
answered Jun 9, 2023 by chrisshare (360 points)
Please can we have this!
+1 vote
answered Jul 10, 2023 by caramiafrederick (3,500 points)
LUNA also have this feature.
+1 vote
answered Aug 19, 2023 by juandavidartalrangel (1,290 points)
2023 and we are still in need of this feature! I hope they include it soon. For example, I want to sidechain comp several tracks for an EDM track, but I need to export separate stems from specifics buses not just one bus with everything, but having to set up the same everytime is a little annoying
+1 vote
answered Sep 20, 2023 by MarcoSlik (240 points)
Yes. This missing functionality keeps me from moving to Studio One.
Would be ideal to control the rootkey and scale for vocal tuning in a live broadcast mix.
+1 vote
answered Oct 7, 2023 by stuartmaxwell (4,180 points)
edited Oct 7, 2023 by stuartmaxwell
For Atmos mixing and 'faking' a master bus compressor (by send everything to a bus with no output then sidechain a compressor on every channel) this is now needed even more.

Apparently this is a common trick used by some of the big name Atmos mixers out there ...

Workaround for now could be to use fuse audio labs VCS-1 channel strip, as this has the function. Would be better to have the possibility of doing this with any plugin though.
+1 vote
answered Dec 1, 2023 by lieuweroonder (460 points)
I flirted with LUNA because of that feature. Luna is like a baby compared to studio one! So much more functionality in studio one, yet this is still not incorporated. Would be really really great if this was possible in the near future.
+1 vote
answered Jan 3 by nikolatomov (700 points)
I would love that
+1 vote
answered Apr 30 by JeremyHissong (190 points)
Some responses here suggest that setting up a bus solves this problem. This is not correct. While setting up a bus can create a similar result in some situations, in most vocal production situations it does NOT do the same thing, and a bus cannot be used in the way these comments suggest.

A basic example: imagine you have a stack of 20 vocals. Each voice in the stack must be tuned individually, because some tracks might be slightly flat while others might be slightly sharp. As a result it's very common to put an instance of Auto-Tune on each individual track in the stack to make sure it's in tune. You can't put all the tracks all into a bus and add a single Auto-Tune instance to the bus, because if you did that then the Auto-Tune would only be responding to the summed signal of all the voices, rather than ensuring that each individual track is in tune the way we'd want.

In Pro Tools, you can just create a group that links the plugin parameters in the stack of vocal tracks, and then when you change the key/scale on one of the Auto-Tune instances, it is automatically applies the parameter updates to all the other plugin instances in the group of tracks. This feature is a hugely important feature in modern vocal production workflows that involve lots of stacks of voices, and it's not currently possible in Studio One. As a result, I unfortunately have to stick with Pro Tools until we're able to link plugin/insert parameters in Studio One.
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