Orion

Synapse Audio has discontinued Orion. It is no longer available for sale or download. So stated in their Forum post of July 1, 2016.

Orion 8 is my favorite DAW, for me the best DAW.

Mine too! I'm still using it with most pleasure.

Back in the day, Orion was going up against Ableton Live head to head and I was deciding on which host to choose and settled with Orion, because it was user friendly, yet professional for it's day. I also liked the classic style mixers and the large space for layout of VSTi's. And although a criticism of Orion by Computer Magazine was that you had to switch back and forth between the main view and piano roll, I liked it better that way because there was less clutter. The other main competitor back then was Fruity Loops, but I liked Orion's step sequencer better and that it had it's own built in Drum Rack. The other main competitor of course was Cubase, but I hated messing with MIDI. With Orion, you can load Kontakt for example and it will automatically set the MIDI parameters.

But sadly, Orion lies in the VST Host Museum of a bygone era. However, it still remains my main sequencer to this day. I use it alongside Cockos Reaper, which makes a great multi-track mixer. They really work well together.

No Longer Available=free?

If you can find it.

Which you can.

Tried it again on a company PC and wow it has a fast and fun workflow. The lack of many modern features is almost a workflow feature in itself.
It's a bit sluggish when redrawing the UI though. Can't remember it used to be like this. Is this because of incompatibilities with modern Windows and/or with optimizations on older CPUs, or was it always like this? Sluggish repainting and some tearing when opening/closing windows.
It also has some problems with many multi channel VSTIs. Stereo channels is mono and vice versa.

Orion is a great DAW with a really fast workflow which life was cut way to short :(
Lot of nostalgia also ❤️.