That's fighting talk, but does the reality live up to the hype? Environment Presonus's marketing pitches Studio One as 'a welcome alternative to the intimidating, bloated offerings currently considered the standards”, and an application that 'makes audio recording, MIDI sequencing and audio mastering ridiculously simple right out of the box”.

A feature‑limited version of Studio One is bundled with Presonus's audio interfaces to give customers added value, but it's also a free‑standing product that will work with a broad range of audio hardware, so you don't have to own Presonus hardware to get an invite to the party. It was co‑developed with Kristal Labs in Hamburg, a company founded by two former Steinberg programmers. Studio One is their first major software product, and was released towards the end of 2009. Presonus are a Louisiana‑based company probably best known for their range of cost‑effective audio interfaces, processors and mic preamps.

Pretty much everything takes place within this clean single‑window environment. Here the Arrange view is surrounded by the Inspector (far left), Console (below, in its 'small' mode) and Browser (right). But if we were offered an alternative that was affordable, simple to use and ultra‑reliable, would we switch? Presonus certainly hope so.

Most of us are already committed to a DAW package.