PreSonus 1810C Studio hookup with Johannus

I am in the process of hooking up a 1810C in order to play HW V through my passive Johannus organ remote speakers. Do I really need to download the Universal Control and Studio One Artist software on to my iMac to do what I want to do? I will be recording with the HW system. I have 8 channels on the organ but see that I can only use 6 channels on the 1810C. I think that would mean some of my speakers can't function but I am fine with that. Is that a reasonable assumption? My local Rogers (now Global so also Johannus) dealer showed me how to plug into the speaker amps in the organ so I think that end is correct. The 1810C is advertised as 8 channels out but two are for microphones or something so I don't think they can be used for what I want. Comments?

I also get the idea from reading comments in this forum that my electronic organ speakers will not perform as well as active studio monitors would. Please give thoughts on this. Obviously my intent is to lessen the impact on my finances if I can get my current system to function including my 15" sub.

Thanks in advance for any help here.

Player10

Much has to do with your expectations. Playing HW thru the Johannus audio system won't sound all that much better than did the Johannus organ. The audio system (amplifier, speakers) in most cases is the "weak link". Pre-packaged organ manufacturers optimize all the components (including the audio system) to maximise the result versus cost. I know of several who bought Hauptwerk software that were disappointed in the results. but the reason was due to their using mediocre to poor audio systems. Once they upgraded to a better audio system, doing nothing else, they couldn't believe how much better the sound was.

Rgds,
Ed

The 1810C is advertised as 8 channels out but two are for microphones or something so I don't think they can be used for what I want. Comments?

Probably, the two other outputs are on the S/PDIF out. Using this would need an additional digital to analogue converter, but reasonably cheap items are readily available. I use one for sending the subwoofer signal(s).

Nick

You do need Universal Control, since that program is where the sample rate is set, hardware firmware is updated, and unused inputs can be muted.

You may want Studio One if you are planning to record HW midi data and edit it. You may also want to route audio through it if you need equalization for your Rogers' audio system. You could also add compression for your audio recordings if you plan to publish audio recordings online..

Studio one is totally optional. That’s a separate daw that is simply bundled with your hardware but doesn’t actually have anything to do with it. (It is a nice daw though.)

All of your answers are much appreciated. I don't have need of the options outlined by randall for Studio One so I will proceed without it as suggested by Romanos. I will evaluate the end result using by J speakers. Ed's point is well taken but maybe I will be able to live with what I hear. I wanted to try out my current setup before diving into more ebay shopping.

Thanks ALL!

player10