Which SDHC Card should be used with StudioLive Series III Consoles? – Knowledge Base | PreSonus

Reviewed Nov 30, 2020

The StudioLive Series III features an SDHC Card slot for recording up to 34 tracks (Inputs Channels 1-32 plus a Stereo assignable track for the Main Mix, Aux Mixes, etc.).

For Multitrack Recording to SDHC card, the most important thing to consider is card performance. The fastest SDHC cards you can get will have a Speed Class rating of Class 10 U3, and to start, this is what we recommend for multi-track recording.

While we officially recommend Class 10 U3 rated SDHC Cards for recording as a rule of thumb, there is unfortunately no way to simply recommend a particular Speed Class rating to go by that will guarantee the ability to record all channels, as we’ve found that even cards from different manufacturers with the same Speed Class rating can perform differently when it comes to multi-track recording (the SDHC Speed Class system is primarily a rating for Video recording, which is one large file, as opposed to multi-track Audio recording, which is many large files at once).

Since qualifying cards by Speed Class rating alone is not enough to ensure they will reliably record the maximum track count possible on a fresh format, we've decided to qualify a short list of cards that are affordable, and that we know perform well for multi-track recording. See this link for a list of recommended cards.

Things to note:

SDXC cards (those bigger than 32 gigs) are default formatted exFat, and will NOT work with the mixer unless you reformat them Fat32.
The SDcard .org formatter will NOT format an SDXC card as Fat32. It only formats to spec, and the spec for SDXC is exFat. Neither will Windows. You would have to use a third party utility or a Mac.
NOTE: because Fat32 is not the spec filesystem for SDXC cards, an SDXC card formatted as Fat32 can't be officially supported, so your mileage may vary.

It's also important to note that the Series III mixer hardware supports SDHC UHS-I. It may be possible to use UHS-II cards with the Series III mixer, but you will not benefit from the additional bus speed of UHS-II. See here for more info on SD Bus Speed.

(Source: SD Association website)

For more information on speed ratings and classes of SD Cards, refer to this great resource page from the SD Association on Speed Classes.

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