PreSonus ioStation 24c £258 PC MAC

Fancy an interface and controller for any DAW in one smart box for a bargain price? Time to take the train arriving at this ioStation…

PreSonus’ ioStation 24c was announced back at January’s NAMM show as an all-in-one control surface and audio interface, but we didn’t realise quite how low the street price for this one-box production unit would be. Around £250 for what is touted to be a high-end interface plus a controller for all major DAWs with a motorised fader – albeit just the one – sounds like incredible value on paper, so let’s see just how it shapes up.

Two-in-on

You could quite easily think of ioStation 24c as an amalgamation of PreSonus’s FaderPort and the company’s Studio 24c 2-in, 2-out audio interface. In fact you don’t even have to try and conjure up a Frankenstein image of the two units joined at the hip – ioStation 24c is literally a one-fader FaderPort with identical controls, with an interface around the back with audio controls running down the right of the front panel. Importantly, though, the fully loaded PreSonus FaderPort and Studio 24c interface will cost well over £500 together. If you can manage with just one motorised fader – and the thinking is that you can tackle tasks like automation one channel at a time – then ioStation 24c looks like a huge bargain.

Out of the box, the unit nicely angled for desktop use. You’ll possibly want to attach the supplied rubber feet to stop slipping on said desk, but we found its weight kept it in place during our tests without them.