Demo downloaded and installed without much drama (except I found my Korg Legacy collection has lost it authorization yet again ). Only one plugin failed to scan but this did not cause any issues.
 
Setting up MIDI inputs threw me at first but was quickly resolved with A RTFM.
 
I am sadly lacking any creative inspiration at the moment so I hope to get a basic feel for the workflow in the next couple of days, looks like a different approach with instrument tracks as opposed to Audio and MIDI tracks which will take a bit of getting used to.
 

I've just spent the last two hours in SO3 working with a simple drum part in BFD3. So far, I can't find anything that I couldn't do in SO3. For the most part, the biggest thing that I missed was the "Smart Tool" as having to remember to select the various tools (and remember what they do) slowed me down a bit. Other than that, I'm pretty impressed. All my VST's scanned, and I was able to easily setup my S88 (including a working Mackie mode).
 
Midi editing is much closer to Sonar than what I found with Reaper. Happy so far...
 
Regards,
Dan

There is a smart tool as of version 3.2 in SO. I'm not sure exactly of all it can do. 

I would say that Reaper's midi editing is at least or better than in Sonar. You can set it up to open only the selected clips (item) , you can set it up to see the whole track in the midi editor like in Sonar, to have one single midi editor per project or per track. You can customize your toolbars to have whatever you need handy. Also for me the possibility to play multiple instruments on the same track is a plus where you can play them together or separately. Automation is much faster and automation items is unbeatable too. Also there are a multitude of  "Actions" that you can combine and create your own custom actions.
 There is a little bit of work to set it up but once you understand the basics of how is working is really easy and extremely flexible.  Also watch Kenny Gioia's videos on youtube  and you will be up and running in no time.  

In addition to starting something from scratch, a better way to evaluate many features is to download a demo song (from the start screen), and work around the GUI. Scratch Pads and the Arranger Track will not get justice if making a song from scratch during the demo period - with a demo song you can start messing with those immediately.
 
There are hot spots similar to the smart tool within SONAR, but they also do not equate 1 for 1. Additionally, they also have hot keys you can press and hold to shift tool functions (dependent on view you are working in). MIDI implementation is a bit different in some respects, but PreSonus also made it clear that they have proprietary "MIDI" internally to bypass limitations of MIDI alone. I am not a heavy MIDI user, so cannot speak in great depth to what pitfalls lie in that area (I also do not use Kontakt).
 
The niggle I still have is no track templates as they are implemented in SONAR.

For the black Friday price of 199.00, S1 Pro may be my answer for a tonight purchase....

Well looks like Gibson has committed PR suicide as far as DAW's go!

When I was familiarising myself with Studio One Pro a few months back, I found a really good Eli Krantzberg video on Groove 3 where he creates a song from start to finish. It's called First Song with Studio One 3.

It's good because he covers a lot of the elements that you will use all the time including shortcuts, instruments and features of the software. I actually re created the song he made as I went following his video.

https://www.groove3.com/t...Song-with-Studio-One-3

I certainly found that it got me up to speed quickly. To be clear, I was at the point of switching from Sonar to S1Pro happily using version 3.3. Then version 3.5 came along and made it completely unstable and unusable for me. I will be revisiting and maybe completely reinstalling it in the coming days. Fingers crossed.

ZincTrumpet
When I was familiarising myself with Studio One Pro a few months back, I found a really good Eli Krantzberg video on Groove 3 where he creates a song from start to finish. It's called First Song with Studio One 3.

It's good because he covers a lot of the elements that you will use all the time including shortcuts, instruments and features of the software. I actually re created the song he made as I went following his video.

https://www.groove3.com/t...Song-with-Studio-One-3

I certainly found that it got me up to speed quickly. To be clear, I was at the point of switching from Sonar to S1Pro happily using version 3.3. Then version 3.5 came along and made it completely unstable and unusable for me. I will be revisiting and maybe completely reinstalling it in the coming days. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for that, however, it is a pretty straightforward DAW. Another hour or two, and some memorizing of new shortcuts, and I'll be okay. Already have a basic song project for experimentation. Next will be porting my midi "idea" projects over. That won't be nearly as much fun, lol...
 
Dan

synkrotron
 
Studio One 3 Pro treats send effects "channels" and busses as different things it seems, so I am referring to actual busses here, same as I would do in SONAR.

Kinda..sorta. I think they do that for the sake of organization. If you are creating a bus for the purpose of being an fx bus, you can go that route and save yourself a sec on labeling. In fact, busses made using the create fx bus option work as regular busses with the only default difference I could find is the default behavior during muting and soloing. Tgis is great news for Studio One Prime users since this allows you to create busses despite that not truly being a feature of prime.