Users of Both Sonar X3 Producer & Studio One 2 Professional

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Some of these comments will make sense once you get to the next DAW

Sonar:
*Much better audio engine performance
*There's been improvement, but it's still highly unstable (random crashes, long list of bugs, etc.)
*Easily corrupted project files
*Great PRV
*Great Undo history
*Lacks realtime non-destructive MIDI features
*Console view is too big to be useful
*Can't route VSTi output to audio track input - limited routing
*Comping still isn't quite there, though much better in X3 than X2 (though worse than version 8.5)
*Lots of automation options
*Smart Tools and Smart Options sometimes are frustratingly too smart (think HAL 3000. Example: like comping, in an effort to simplify things Cakewalk messed with all the Snap to Grid settings - this used to be extremely clear, now, less so)
*Smooth tempo changes
*Lots of instruments and effects - I think it's gimmicky, but I've got a ton of money invested in 3rd party effects so not for me.
*Pro-Channel is a closed format system. Seems intentionally designed to make it difficult to ever migrate away from Sonar.
*Copycats other DAW features without implementing them well (Skylight+multidock, Matrix view, Step Sequencer view)
*Audio Snap was great for tempo mapping, and somehow again became more complicated with version 2.0, but it should still work

Studio One:
*Stable
*Poor Undo History
*Poor CPU performance
*Very good PRV
*Realtime, non-destructive MIDI features (needs more humanize options IMO)
*Well sized Console View
*Console View and Track View (channel names, order) do not stay in sync
*Better Browser tab and multidock than Sonar
*No good way to tempo map from a live performance
*Excellent comping
*Lacks smooth automation curves
*Lacks smooth tempo changes
*Decent amount of instruments and effects
*Excellent project versioning
*Very easy to use workflow

All in all, there's pros and cons to each. I think both are heading in the right direction (which I wouldn't have said about Cakewalk/Sonar one year ago), but I think at this point, Studio One is building off of a much better foundation. I'm also confident that when Studio One builds or adds a feature in the future, it will work right the first time. Cakewalk on the other hand, can take multiple passes at the same feature, which in the end, eats up more development time than doing it right the first time. Not to mention the lost credibility among their user base.

Most importantly though: Sonar is still just too unstable for me. Keep an eye on both forums about stability issues. Every day, there's new posts in the Sonar forums about crashes, corrupted projects, etc. The Studio One forums are relatively silent in comparison. The severity of the reported issues are vastly different too. While you can't judge off of forum posts alone, that's also been my personal experience with both DAW's.

At this point, I still think Sonar 8.5 is a better DAW than X3E. If you could give me Sonar 8.5 plus a handful of the features introduced since, in a stable package, I'd have my ideal DAW. But, after years of stability issues, the botched X2 release (which I bought against my better judgement), I switched to Studio One. The biggest frustration for me in Studio One has been the Undo History, but that's something I can live with. It's been absolutely solid in terms of stability, whereas I've fought Sonar for over 10 years across multiple DAW's, interfaces, etc.

[Musical Gym]

Some of these comments will make sense once you get to the next DAW

Sonar:
*Much better audio engine performance
*There's been improvement, but it's still highly unstable (random crashes, long list of bugs, etc.)
*Easily corrupted project files
*Great PRV
*Great Undo history
*Lacks realtime non-destructive MIDI features
*Console view is too big to be useful
*Can't route VSTi output to audio track input - limited routing
*Comping still isn't quite there, though much better in X3 than X2 (though worse than version 8.5)
*Lots of automation options
*Smart Tools and Smart Options sometimes are frustratingly too smart (think HAL 3000. Example: like comping, in an effort to simplify things Cakewalk messed with all the Snap to Grid settings - this used to be extremely clear, now, less so)
*Smooth tempo changes
*Lots of instruments and effects - I think it's gimmicky, but I've got a ton of money invested in 3rd party effects so not for me.
*Pro-Channel is a closed format system. Seems intentionally designed to make it difficult to ever migrate away from Sonar.
*Copycats other DAW features without implementing them well (Skylight+multidock, Matrix view, Step Sequencer view)
*Audio Snap was great for tempo mapping, and somehow again became more complicated with version 2.0, but it should still work

Studio One:
*Stable
*Poor Undo History
*Poor CPU performance
*Very good PRV
*Realtime, non-destructive MIDI features (needs more humanize options IMO)
*Well sized Console View
*Console View and Track View (channel names, order) do not stay in sync
*Better Browser tab and multidock than Sonar
*No good way to tempo map from a live performance
*Excellent comping
*Lacks smooth automation curves
*Lacks smooth tempo changes
*Decent amount of instruments and effects
*Excellent project versioning
*Very easy to use workflow

All in all, there's pros and cons to each. I think both are heading in the right direction (which I wouldn't have said about Cakewalk/Sonar one year ago), but I think at this point, Studio One is building off of a much better foundation. I'm also confident that when Studio One builds or adds a feature in the future, it will work right the first time. Cakewalk on the other hand, can take multiple passes at the same feature, which in the end, eats up more development time than doing it right the first time. Not to mention the lost credibility among their user base.

Most importantly though: Sonar is still just too unstable for me. Keep an eye on both forums about stability issues. Every day, there's new posts in the Sonar forums about crashes, corrupted projects, etc. The Studio One forums are relatively silent in comparison. The severity of the reported issues are vastly different too. While you can't judge off of forum posts alone, that's also been my personal experience with both DAW's.

At this point, I still think Sonar 8.5 is a better DAW than X3E. If you could give me Sonar 8.5 plus a handful of the features introduced since, in a stable package, I'd have my ideal DAW. But, after years of stability issues, the botched X2 release (which I bought against my better judgement), I switched to Studio One. The biggest frustration for me in Studio One has been the Undo History, but that's something I can live with. It's been absolutely solid in terms of stability, whereas I've fought Sonar for over 10 years across multiple DAW's, interfaces, etc.

Thanks much for comparison. I think I'll probably focus on S1 and possibly upgrade later to Sonar X depending on future improvements/enhancements.

[LawrenceF]

The problem here is that so many people have had corrupt projects as a result of something going wrong during an autosave (I'm one of them), that hardcore users on their own forums (i.e. the fanboys) will often say, "disable autosave."

I'm not sure that's an accurate representation of their intent.

What i mean by that is that people actually would say that, "just disable autosave", but not because they were fanboys or they were getting corrupted files, but because autosave was f'ing slow and just turning it off and getting used to hitting CTRL+S every few minutes was a workable approach, and turning it off removed the potential annoyance of being interrupted mid-edit by it, because it was so damn slow.

Two things...

1. A recent update dramatically improved save and autosave speed so it's much less likely now that you'll be interrupted or annoyed mid-edit by an auto save... and...

2. A permanently corrupted Studio One song file is very close to being a unicorn because the song file is a simple zip file that can be opened up and directly edited and recovered or fixed, with minimal effort, which is always better than permanently losing a corrupted binary song file that doesn't allow doing that.

Unzip any song file with 7-Zip or something, it's just folders with xml files in it.

Hope some of that helps.

P.S. For future reference....

- The last ten autosaves are now automatically archived into the versions list

Which means that if for some reason you do get a corrupted song (never happened to me personally) your last 10 autosaves are in the backup version list anyway, so you can just go there and get right back to work. It obviously requires being up to date, not still using 2.6.0 or something, to have access to some things that pop up on minor updates.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

2. A permanently corrupted Studio One song file is very close to being a unicorn because the song file is a simple zip file that can be opened up and directly edited and recovered or fixed, with minimal effort, which is always better than permanently losing a corrupted binary song file that doesn't allow doing that.

Unzip any song file with 7-Zip or something, it's just folders with xml files in it.

Hope some of that helps.

That is great information. Did not know that. Makes me like Studio One even more. I also heard Reaper project files are just simple ASCII text files, so also easy to recover if something goes wrong. One of my suggestions to a Cakewalk Project Manager was that they create a new file format similar to Reaper's. Just too many corrupted projects.

Regarding auto saves in Sonar, there may be a lot of reasons to turn off autosaving, but I've seen corrupted projects being listed as a reason on a number of occasions.

[LawrenceF]

There could have been some corner case situation when autosave kicked in that caused an issue. I do recall something like that happening to me in the past, not a song file corruption but me doing something like maybe editing song metadata or something, not completely sure, but autosave kicked in and locked up the entire app, had to force quit.

I think it kicked in right when a dialog was opening or something and (I suppose) maybe created a conflict, no clue. But i did lose all song edits I had done after the last save.

That was a good while back though. Can't say I've had any issue with it lately or other than that... aside from it being annoyingly slow until that update.

It's software, "shit happens". Just not "often" is a good thing, or the wish, bad stuff happening.

[LawrenceF]

Let me add this one thing, just for informational purposes....

Auto Save, afaik, is (or was, dunno, haven't checked lately) a temp backup, it didn't even actually write to the song file afaik, so i'm not sure how it could corrupt the song file. It makes a temporary and separate *.bak file or something, and whenever you manually save the song, that temp file would get deleted and the song file would get updated.

If you crash you can recover your last autosaved changes by opening that backup file, not by opening the song file. I assume it's maybe done that way to protect the song file, only actually write to it when you literally fire save.

I also think those two files, the real song file and the auto saved temp backup file, may even be in two completely different folders, IIRC.

So... with that in mind ... I have no clue how auto save could corrupt a song file that it was never even writing to.

With this latest change to archive those to versions, it may not behave exactly that way now, I didn't check to see if the new archive is a copy of the temp file or it just stopped writing the temp file now that it creates "versions". In either case, it's still probably not actually writing to the song file, but just making a new file.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Let me add this one thing, just for informational purposes....

Auto Save, afaik, is (or was, dunno, haven't checked lately) a temp backup, it didn't even actually write to the song file afaik, so i'm not sure how it could corrupt the song file. It makes a temporary and separate *.bak file or something, and whenever you manually save the song, that temp file would get deleted and the song file would get updated.

If you crash you can recover your last autosaved changes by opening that backup file, not by opening the song file. I assume it's maybe done that way to protect the song file, only actually write to it when you literally fire save.

I also think those two files, the real song file and the auto saved temp backup file, may even be in two completely different folders, IIRC.

So... with that in mind ... I have no clue how auto save could corrupt a song file that it was never even writing to.

Perhaps autosave isn't causing the corruption, but the two often come up hand in hand. Example:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/m/tm.aspx?m=1119752

Do a search on "corrupt project" on the Cakewalk forums...scary high number of hits. Not sure how they haven't done more to address that yet. Unless they just think it's normal to have corrupt project files every now and then.

[LawrenceF]

I wasn't talking about Sonar there, I was talking about S1's autosave, that it doesn't actually save to, overwrite, the working song file, afaik.

OTOH, I have no personal clue how Sonar's auto save works so i'll certainly take your word for that.

I actually thought the initial comment was about S1's auto save corrupting songs. If that was about Sonar, oops... everything i said previously about that is irrelevant.

If so, my bad, sorry for the confusion.

[EnGee]

For me the advantages of S1 over Sonar are:

1. I can sell it if I want.
2. Windows and Mac
3. Unified (the same) style for all plugins with nice design and colour.
4. Fits in 1366x768 laptop resolution (excellent usage for the space)
5. Shows details of cpu performance and plugins usage.
6. Most important!! it is cheap when there is discount. Full version for about $200?! and you can sell it?! That's amazing.

Sonar's advantages:
1. Pro Channel (amazing quality)
2. Important Midi tools in the inspector + Midi effects.
3. Thing are more comfortable to the eyes due to bigger GUI in general
4. Step Sequencer and Matrix for extending the workflow
5. Instruments and plugins are more useful, like Session Drummers, Z3ta, Rapture, Dimension, True Pianos, Addictive Drums, and other plugins like the Nomad Factory Blue Tubes which are amazing
6. Windows focus and management are easier

I sold S1 but still feel good about it. I bought Sonar and I feel better with it. So for me, S1 is a very good DAW but Sonar for me is better.
Now, my workflow is almost always start with Midi. Audio is just in the mixing stages (or when using samples). I use mostly Live now! which I bought after Sonar. I had the idea (since a long time) that Live is just for DJs and dance music. When I bought intro first (then Standard) I realised how wrong I was. For me now, Live and FL Studio (and Bitwig) are for Midi more than Audio (Guitar, traditional takes ..etc) while S1 and Sonar are more for Audio.

So, in the end choose your DAW wisely depending on your Style/Workflow/other tools you have. Then invest to learn it well

[pwal]

For me the advantages of S1 over Sonar are:

1. I can sell it if I want.

really?

2. Windows and Mac

not bothered about mac, windows user here

3. Unified (the same) style for all plugins with nice design and colour.

it definitely beats the "rag bag" of UIs cakewalk have released over the years, but presonus have plenty of time to wander away from the unified UI, we shall see

4. Fits in 1366x768 laptop resolution (excellent usage for the space)

the UI scales really well

5. Shows details of cpu performance and plugins usage.

helps identify troublemakers

6. Most important!! it is cheap when there is discount. Full version for about $200?! and you can sell it?! That's amazing.

bang for buck, good for new users

Sonar's advantages:
1. Pro Channel (amazing quality)

i have a bunch of high-end VSTs already - pro-channel seems to be a DAW-DLC offering to me

2. Important Midi tools in the inspector + Midi effects.

the whole midi implementation in sonar is a bit flaky imo

3. Thing are more comfortable to the eyes due to bigger GUI in general

i can't see the whole console on a single screen - not being able to see everything without scrolling does not endear it to me

4. Step Sequencer and Matrix for extending the workflow

i have live for that (i got live after they abandoned p5)

5. Instruments and plugins are more useful, like Session Drummers, Z3ta, Rapture, Dimension, True Pianos, Addictive Drums, and other plugins like the Nomad Factory Blue Tubes which are amazing

already have zillions of 3rd party instruments and fx

6. Windows focus and management are easier

i was quite happen with the standard ctrl-tab for changing child-windows

I sold S1 but still feel good about it. I bought Sonar and I feel better with it. So for me, S1 is a very good DAW but Sonar for me is better.
Now, my workflow is almost always start with Midi. Audio is just in the mixing stages (or when using samples). I use mostly Live now! which I bought after Sonar. I had the idea (since a long time) that Live is just for DJs and dance music. When I bought intro first (then Standard) I realised how wrong I was. For me now, Live and FL Studio (and Bitwig) are for Midi more than Audio (Guitar, traditional takes ..etc) while S1 and Sonar are more for Audio.

So, in the end choose your DAW wisely depending on your Style/Workflow/other tools you have. Then invest to learn it well

yeah, i used sonar since pa-6, and the new GUI on top of all the ol' bugs just tipped it for me - s1 does what i need it to do, and the "learning x1 is like learning a new app" excuse actually was the best tip they could've given me
my concern is that sonar it version 20+ and the new stuff bolted onto the old code base just doesn't give me a good feeling, house of cards and all that
whatever, each to their own, i'm sure plenty of sonar users are perfectly happy

[EnGee]

For me the advantages of S1 over Sonar are:

1. I can sell it if I want.

really?

Yes.

Sonar's advantages:
1. Pro Channel (amazing quality)

i have a bunch of high-end VSTs already - pro-channel seems to be a DAW-DLC offering to me

Still, I find it a very nice idea. Buy what you need and it would be integrated in the mixer. If I choose to upgrade to the Producer edition from Studio, this would be the main reason.

2. Important Midi tools in the inspector + Midi effects.

the whole midi implementation in sonar is a bit flaky imo

They are still better than S1 IMO. For example, I remember randomising the velocity in S1 wasn't that easy. In Sonar, you have the Velocity plugin.
Anyway, I prefer working in Live's Midi now. There are some nice things in Live that I couldn't find in Sonar, like Shift + Arrow (one octave up or down for the note) ...etc. Also, there is no Piano roll shortcuts for Sonar in the help file

3. Thing are more comfortable to the eyes due to bigger GUI in general

i can't see the whole console on a single screen - not being able to see everything without scrolling does not endear it to me

This is true if you have many modules in the Pro Channel. It is also true for the Console if you have less than 1920x1080 resolution (I chose S1 over Sonar because of this when I had 1366x768 laptop), But with the Full HD resolution, it is really a nice fit

4. Step Sequencer and Matrix for extending the workflow

i have live for that (i got live after they abandoned p5)

I also have Live, but I don't use ReWire. I prefer to work in one DAW at a time. IMO the step sequencer/matrix are very useful tools and I use them always when making music in Sonar.

yeah, i used sonar since pa-6, and the new GUI on top of all the ol' bugs just tipped it for me - s1 does what i need it to do, and the "learning x1 is like learning a new app" excuse actually was the best tip they could've given me
my concern is that sonar it version 20+ and the new stuff bolted onto the old code base just doesn't give me a good feeling, house of cards and all that
whatever, each to their own, i'm sure plenty of sonar users are perfectly happy

I think it depends on the management. Now, it seems better under Gibson, but we will see which direction it would take. I guess it will have more Guitar stuff! But I hope they either re release Project 5 or enhance the Midi workflow in Sonar. Anyway, it is not my primary DAW for now.

[auron]

I would choose Studio One because of the better workflow . There is something going on with the Dealers in Europe i think, Thomann is the first big european dealer that took every Version of Sonar X3 out of their delivery program . Not really a good sign . Where as Studio One is staying there as usual.

[CTStump]

I would choose Studio One because of the better workflow . There is something going on with the Dealers in Europe i think, Thomann is the first big european dealer that took every Version of Sonar X3 out of their delivery program . Not really a good sign . Where as Studio One is staying there as usual.

This may be due to Cakewalk's electronic delivery system, Cakewalk's online webstore is the place to go for that if one can't find it through their preferred provider.

I myself really hate to see this mode of delivery taking this route I mean every ad you see for software has a picture of a box on it, but alas, no box, I prefer disc's and a manual being the old fart that I am but all software is heading this way.

[AROSSA [Cakewalk]]

I would choose Studio One because of the better workflow . There is something going on with the Dealers in Europe i think, Thomann is the first big european dealer that took every Version of Sonar X3 out of their delivery program . Not really a good sign . Where as Studio One is staying there as usual.

That's not correct. Due to a distribution change in Europe from Roland to Gibson, there has been a lag in getting some international distributors set-up. Thomann sold out of stock and is just getting set-up with boxed versions as we speak. This should be available soon. Same with Music Store and DV247.com.

[vintagevibe]

I usually bite my lip when the choruses start for ... well... "everything Cubase has midi wise because we all need it really bad and nobody can make music without it" ... ... because (as you suggest) the solution to that is midi plugin inserts, which (afaict, anyway) most of those cool things in Cubase actually are, midi plugins. Beat Designer and all that other stuff.

Time Warp, Note Expression and VST Expression are powerful tools that, after using them, I would never want to live without. These are not MIDI plugin inserts. You seem to be blowing off Cubase without really knowing much about it.