Fender and PreSonus supercharge music creation apps on Snapdragon

Devices with Snapdragon Let Musicians to Create, Record, and Remix on the Road

Matthias helped build Studio One from the ground up, and as such, understands exactly what musicians need from their tools. His take on Snapdragon performance is confidently optimistic: “As a Windows user for many years, I’m really happy there is now an efficient solution—and I’m excited to see our software work on it.”

Both of these iconic apps have now been reimagined for mobile environments, bringing the studio experience to devices powered by Snapdragon and empowering musicians to create, refine, and produce wherever inspiration strikes.

With this optimization, musicians of all skill levels get access to studio-grade production software that travels light, runs quietly, and outlasts most jam sessions.

Orchestrating the Transition to Windows on Snapdragon Across a Six-Month Sprint

Transitioning Studio One, a mature and feature-rich digital audio workstation (DAW) with several million lines of proprietary C++ code, to run natively on Windows on Snapdragon was both a complex and streamlined engineering achievement. The PreSonus development team approached the initiative with a disciplined roadmap, leveraging their full control over the codebase, extensive use of portable development practices, and deep familiarity with cross-platform compilation for systems based on Snapdragon.

Development was primarily conducted in Visual Studio and VS Code, using the Microsoft C++ Compiler (MSVC) and the Clang toolchain for performance-critical components. All project configurations were defined in CMake, which enabled scalable, multi-platform builds and simplified the targeting of Snapdragon X Series hardware. The team also drew on their experience optimizing DSP code for mobile platforms, adapting these routines to ensure full vectorization and runtime performance on Snapdragon.

To minimize architectural divergence and maximize efficiency, signal processing code was isolated and selectively compiled with Clang to fine-tune instruction-level optimization. This included SIMD-heavy routines for audio processing, while maintaining abstraction layers to avoid entanglement with x86-specific intrinsics like AVX or SSE.

Auditing Dependencies and Porting for Compatibility

Much of the core application compiled cleanly, aided by previous investments in portable architecture. However, third-party libraries introduced complexity. The team performed a comprehensive audit of all dependencies, ranging from audio encoders and licensing middleware to UI toolkits and plugin frameworks, to ensure compatibility with native Windows builds on devices with Snapdragon. For libraries not natively compatible, the PreSonus team either adapted source manually, sourced builds from vendors, or, in rare cases, left non-critical components emulated to maintain functionality.

One example was Ne10, an open-source signal processing library originally developed for Snapdragon. Although Ne10 hadn’t been updated to support modern Windows toolchains, the team ported and modified it to ensure compatibility with the Microsoft compiler. This move preserved performance while eliminating a potential blocker.

This methodical, modular approach allowed PreSonus to deliver a high-performance native build of Studio One without compromising stability, feature parity, or developer experience. It laid the groundwork for ongoing innovation on Snapdragon platforms.

From proof-of-concept to full release, the porting process took about six months.

This included integration testing on Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 powered by Snapdragon, as well as validation across Asus and Lenovo systems. Rather than relying on intermediate execution layers or emulation, the team committed to building a fully native version from the start, prioritizing performance, reliability, and future-proofing for developers.

"We've been cooking it for roughly six months before the initial release of Fender Studio in May, followed by native Snapdragon compatibility with Studio One 7.2 in June", says Matthias. “We didn’t want to take shortcuts or make compromises in quality. Everything had to run clean, smooth, and fast. Just like our users expect.”

Performance benchmarks

Matthias’ team compared the export duration of the "Rhythm of the Night" demo song in Studio One 7.2 on a Surface Pro 11 with Snapdragon X Elite:

Where Windows on Snapdragon is 1.4x faster than the emulated x64 version. And this example demonstrates the speed of building Studio One from source:

 Where Snapdragon performance is close to desktop performance.

Positive Early Feedback for Snapdragon Performance from Fender Fans

For PreSonus, optimizing Studio One for Snapdragon was a strategic upgrade. The move from legacy x86-based laptops to Windows Copilot+ PCs powered by Snapdragon (and built on the Qualcomm Oryon CPU) brought immediate and measurable improvements in performance, power efficiency, and responsiveness.

“Compiling the Studio One code base on the Surface Laptop or Surface Pro is nearly as fast as on desktop CPUs, and twice as fast compared to the previous Surface devices,” says Matthias Juwan. That kind of performance uplift translates to real-world creative benefits like shorter build times, smoother audio playback, and more reliable session handling under heavy plugin loads.

These advantages are due in part to the highly efficient Qualcomm Oryon CPU architecture, which delivers desktop-class multi-threaded performance while enabling fanless designs and all-day battery life. The Snapdragon X Series also provides seamless support for high-speed I/O, including USB4 and Thunderbolt, which are critical for audio hardware integration.

PreSonus had long fielded requests from users asking for a mobile-native version of their software. Now that Studio One and Fender Studio are live on Snapdragon, those users are finally getting what they’ve been asking for: a true “studio-in-a-backpack".

“Users who had been asking for this are happy,” says Matthias. “We’re looking forward to broader feedback as more people get their hands on it.”

Future remixes with NPU Acceleration

Fender and PreSonus are actively exploring how to leverage Neural Processing Units (NPUs) in upcoming releases of their music creation apps. Their current AI-powered features (e.g. stem separation and chord detection) already help users perform complex sound production tasks. By offloading these capabilities to the Qualcomm Hexagon NPU, they aim to achieve real-time performance, lower latency, and greater battery efficiency during similarly AI-assisted tasks. Matthias Juwan shared that they are also considering extending NPU optimization to other PreSonus software like Notion, their score-based composition tool.

The engineering team is working closely with Qualcomm Technologies and evaluating Windows ML as a high-level API to access NPU acceleration on Copilot+ PCs based on Snapdragon. This integration could unlock a new class of on-device AI features, including intelligent mixing, adaptive audio mastering, and contextual recommendations based on musical structure.

Additionally, the team is preparing the PreSonus Hub, used to manage plugins and hardware, to support native Windows on Snapdragon builds, laying the groundwork for broader ecosystem compatibility and high-performance applications. As he puts it, "Developers and musicians both need fast, reliable, and efficient devices to realize their creative goals. The underlying technology should support the creative process and not slow it down or get in the way.”

Next Steps: Optimize Your Own Apps for Snapdragon

Whether you're optimizing a full-featured DAW or crafting lightweight creative tools, Windows PCs powered by Snapdragon offer a high-performance, energy-efficient platform for next-gen development.

Explore Windows on Snapdragon

Windows Compilation Documentation

Further Developer Resources

Porting Your Apps to Windows on Snapdragon
This blog covers how to easily optimize your applications from x86 to native applications powered by the Snapdragon X Series platform.

Windows on Snapdragon Developer Toolkit
Everything you need to start building and optimizing apps for Windows PCs powered by Snapdragon.

Qualcomm Neural Processing SDK for Windows (NN SDK)
Enables developers to run AI models on the Hexagon NPU for efficient, on-device inference. PreSonus is working with this SDK to accelerate features like stem separation and chord detection.

Snapdragon Profiler
A performance analysis tool to monitor CPU, GPU, memory, and power usage across Snapdragon platforms.

Snapdragon Power Optimization SDK
Helps developers fine-tune energy efficiency for sustained mobile performance. Useful for apps like Studio One that prioritize long battery life.

FAQ

Q: How difficult is it to recompile a complex application like a DAW for Windows on Snapdragon?

A: For PreSonus Studio One, the process was straightforward thanks to full control over their C++ codebase and the use of portable tools like CMake. The majority of engineering effort focused on auditing and adapting third-party libraries for compatibility.

To ensure optimal performance on devices with Snapdragon, the team used profiling and debugging tools like Qualcomm Profiler and Qualcomm Visual Studio Remote Debugger. These helped validate native performance across CPU-intensive DSP routines and isolate any bottlenecks early. Qualcomm Technologies’ growing toolchain ecosystem, combined with native support in MSVC and Clang, made it easier to target high-efficiency builds from day one.

Q: Why did PreSonus and Fender choose to release a native version instead of relying on emulation?

A: Native builds deliver superior performance, power efficiency, and a better developer environment.

Q: What benefits do  laptops powered by Snapdragon offer musicians on the move?

A: Laptops with Snapdragon combine desktop-class performance with ultra-portable form factors. They offer longer battery life, silent operation, and enough processing power for high-track-count DAW sessions with seamless playback.

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