After spending the last two days with Studio One, and liking it for the most part, I switched back to Mixcraft this afternoon to give it another go. This time I discovered a few new things that upped my estimation of this DAW.
One thing I didn't like initially was the lack of an fx bin in the track header. But surprise! It's an option. You can reorder the plugins, move or duplicate them from track to track, and click them to open the effect - just like I'm used to. Oddly, the one thing they
forgot to include in the fx bin was bypass buttons.
I like the way you can apply automation nodes to multiple tracks at once. S1 can do that, too, but not quite as elegantly.
The PRV, as I've said before, feels comfortably familiar, even if not perfect (but
so close). I still like the way S1 lets you plant a note and set its velocity in one move. I wish velocities could be adjusted in the main PRV pane like SONAR does. It's annoying that you can't actually close the PRV / Mixer window (click on the X button and they just revert to being docked to the main window).
Another feature that'll take SONAR users very little effort to figure out is the step sequencer (they call it the Step Editor).
I like plugin collections, which are comparable to plugin categories in SONAR. They are user-definable, so you can organize them any way you like. Create a collection of FabFilter plugins, a collection of compressors, a collection of vocal effects, or a collection of effects you only use on Tuesdays. These appear at the top of the effect selector menu, right under Recently Used.
But sadly, in the end I was once again reminded of why I shut down Mixcraft the other day in frustration: there does not appear to be any way to display/edit multiple MIDI tracks in the PRV (or in the score editor). If anyone knows how to do this, I'd love to hear about it, because without such a feature this DAW can be of no use to me.