Which Step Sequencer Should I Use?

Hello,

As I am sitting here messing about with Drumazon, I am sitting here wondering, i can use either the step sequencer inside DRUMAZON which is pretty neat because it emulates a Roland 909, however, is there any benefit to using Sonar's Step Sequencer instead and just use Drumazon's sounds mapped out to different keys and let Cakewalk's Step Sequencer do the work?   

The one advantage I can think of is- what if I want to use a different drum synth later on.   I won't be able to easily drag the notes, correct?  Or is there a way and Im not seeing it.

Any thoughts on this?   or did i answer my own question?
Thank you all,
Adam

You can switch back and forth between the step sequencer and piano roll view, and even preserve things like timing offsets when you switch between the two. This is something I really got into when doing the Step Sequencer chapter in my Sonar X1 Advanced Workshop video.
 
To me, the Step Sequencer is "training wheels" to get thoughts down fast, but at some point it always ends up as piano roll data.

For synths I'm thinking arpeggiators built in, if better than Sonars own?

Otherwise no reason that I can see if host is having step sequencer(and that is what you want).

I would avoid internal stuff in plugins unless a good reason. Plugins with sequencer need to pick tempo from host all the time and I'm suspicious how well that works.

I've used Drumazon (though not for quite a while), but never bothered with it's internal sequencer - too much messing about saving patterns etc. Sure, Drumazon emulates how the hardware worked, but I'd rather work with Sonar's SS or PRV where I can see every note in a pattern, adjust notes to the millesecond if I want to, and all the related CC parameters are there at a glance.

By the way - the SS has a few irritating bugs to do with what happens to MIDI CCs if you unlink clips or convert a MIDI clip to SS, but it has one useful trick - each note can be set with a probability of whether if gets played or not which makes putting a little (albeit more or less unpredictable) variety into patterns easier.

I agree, sometimes the sequencers/arps built into synths are more useful and easier to program. I use the arps and sequencers in my hardware synths all the time and I'm in the queue for a Doepfer Dark Energy once they catch up with demand.

I just happen to find it easier to program complex drum sequences in Sonar than in my hardware - partly to automate parameters the hardware can't and partly because I don't have to keep a long list of which pattern is which and where it goes in the song. I find it easier to lay the patterns out graphically and chain them in order graphically with everything visible at a glance.

Soanr is also more flexible than a 16-step drum sequencer if I want to use things like triplets. Though having said that, sometimes using an 808/909 style sequencer can be creatively interesting in itself. It's nice to have the choice of which tool to use.