Using Drones in Presonus Studio One Pro

I recently bought Studio One Pro, which is a really great DAW, but the info I found online indicated that you couldn't sync it or have a Master / Slave relationship.

Fortunately I got it to work before I found out it couldn't be done.

These are the steps I used for anyone interested.

Note – The Synfire project and the Studio One project have to have the same file name.

A – Open Studio One and create a Drone Project. Add “Transport” to one track.

     (On Studio One, this will also load a drone - You will see a Tab to choose it for editing)

     EDIT - Studio One 3 no longer loads a drone with the Transport. More importantly, the Transport has to be set to "WRITE" mode. Set the text that says "Auto Off" to "WRITE"  -  END

 B – Add more tracks with Drones as needed, and set Drones for Remote Playback.

       Do Not add plug-ins to the Drones yet.

 C – Save the Studio One “Your Drone Song” but Leave Studio One open.

1 – Synfire. Open or create a project, and (Re)Save the Synfire file as “Your Drone Song”, and close Synfire.

 2 – Re-save the Studio One File, but leave it open.

3 – Re-open Synfire by double-clicking on “Your Drone Song”.

     On upper right side of screen Click on Sync – (arrow on right edge of screen). 

     Check Rewire Transport Sync and Rewire Tempo.

4 – Select or add an instrument track.

     Click the Instr. Tab and select Sound.

     Click the Sound Assignment Drop-Down arrow

     You should see a list of Studio One Drone ports.

5 – Select a Drone and click the “Load a Plug-in” box. 

      Do Not load patches – This is done in the DAW

6 – Click the Icon to Right of Device Descriptions.

     Rename the Port - Edit Device Descriptions, etc in Synfire

7 – Switch to Studio One  and click Editor on the Drone to load patches into the plug-in

Remember Synfire is Always first

Save Synfire first – Then DAW.

Close Synfire first – Then DAW.

Open Synfire first – Then DAW.

I hope this is helpful.