djwayne
 Then try coming back 6 months later to rework the song and try to re-create your special sound...almost impossible.
 

 
Wrong. All you do is simply make a note in your DAW somewhere as to what sound you used and where it was stored.  Then in fact when you pull it up it will sound identical.
 
I am not against presets either. Yes many will sound great and be perfect for the job at hand so then use them for sure. In those cases it is very easy to note where they live. Even if they are in a bank somewhere that is not normally in your machine.
 
I also have Sonic Projects too BTW and it is a killer instrument. I have owned many real Oberheims in my day and I really know how they sound and this is amazing in its sound.  The Arturia Matrix 12 is also pretty excellent too.
 

Many of my hardware instruments have editors available. That can actually run not inside Studio One but along side it.  So editing patches is actually pretty easy in this mode.  There is an amazing editor for the Kurzweil PC3K too which has a pretty nice GUI. JV2080 has a nice editor too. The editors cover every single aspect of the machine. Probably more so that what Cubase might provide. Not sure.
 
I still like editing patches on the machine itself.  Especially the JD800 which has a huge front panel and allows you to edit even while it is being sequenced. Something I find is invaluable for fine tune patches within your music.
 
Great to see you like making patches too.  Layering is also something that is very powerful.  Once you start to layer say three or 4 really nice synths with big polyphonic patches on them then you start getting into some amazing territory.  Instrument definitions won't cut a layer either.  The only way really is to make notes in your DAW about the 3 or 4 patches that are used in the layer,  where they are and how loud each one might be. 
 

I still have the JV-1080 with expansion cards, JV-880, Emu Vintage Keys, Proteus One,and Proteus Two. I don't miss all those midi and audio cables one bit. I even eliminated a mixing board when I switched to virtual synths and sample programs. Everything is wired inside my computer. No muss, no fuss. My workflow is so much easier to deal with now. They were great back in the day, but virtual instruments and sample programs have come a long way over the years.

Assuming that those who prefer having the ability to fully define their MIDI instruments do not program their own sounds is a logical fallacy. 
 
It also wrong to assume that Instrument Definitions are static both Sonar and Cubase support multiple definitions for each instrument making it easy to send SYSEX banks to an instrument and load the definitions associated with the sounds. 
 
Personally I would not want start pressing buttons on a hardware module to find a sound to capture an idea just as I would not want to be limited to a preset sound for that idea once captured. I like being able to search for sounds within the DAW and I'm prepared to spend some time maintaining my definitions so that I can benefit from this function.
 
If Studio One had been the only option available to replace Sonar then I would have had to change this aspect of my workflow BUT it is not the only option and I went for an option that supports instrument definitions. Of course there was a lot more to my choice but, like others, I made a choice based on what mattered to me and not what mattered to others and definitely not based on their opinions.

That's the cool thing about music, you're free to do whatever you want....some people choose acoustic guitars, some people choose electrics, they're both right. Whatever floats your boat.

djwayne
I still have the JV-1080 with expansion cards, JV-880, Emu Vintage Keys, Proteus One,and Proteus Two. I don't miss all those midi and audio cables one bit. I even eliminated a mixing board when I switched to virtual synths and sample programs. Everything is wired inside my computer. No muss, no fuss. My workflow is so much easier to deal with now. They were great back in the day, but virtual instruments and sample programs have come a long way over the years.

 
I had all those too but in the end I ended up with a JV2080 with a bunch of expansions in.  The front panel is much better and it holds 8 expansions as opposed to 4 in the JV1080. Navigating presets is a breeze too on the JV2080.
I agree with you on virtual instruments. I have probably well over 150 of them now. Most of them going into territory the hardware cannot even imagine.
 
I also use Roland JD800 and a Kawai K5000W which is also one weird sound synth. Have not quite heard anything like it actually in the virtual world either. I still have a big Emu sampler too, E5000 Ultra.  All those Proteus sound banks are available for it and they all load up and sound great. You can edit the sounds though and the effects also sound pretty nice too.
 
The editors I mentioned also allow you to send sounds and search them from your computer.  That is the way around it.  Studio One does not handle SYSEX but an editor running in tandem with it will.  Because the editor is addressing the synth directly and not through Studio One.  The editors have all the memory patches listed and will act like instrument definitions. 
 
What the hardware is great for though is creating a wall of sound over midi while your DAW does not even break a sweat. If I put all my hardware into multi timbral mode I could get something like 100 layers of music all playing at once! 
 
Studio One also has rock solid timing over external midi as well. Especially through an 8 MIDI output port device. Cubase and Logic are also excellent in this regard too.
 

100 layers at once....yes I used to do all that kind of stuff too, Spent hours and hours setting it all up. Now with Studio One and my Virtual instruments, I can set up 6 tracks in minutes and end up with a full orchestra song.......here's an example....https://soundcloud.com/dj...oves-somebody-sometime

So to summarize:
If you have external multitimbral midi devices and you want to layout tracks using those devices you need to per track:

Have the MSB, LSB and Program Change:
To use the patch bank # it is MSB*128 + LSB, this is entered per track along with the program change #

To switch program change using midi automation in the track you need:
100/128 * MSB for the MSB parameter
LSB Value
Program Change Value

This is not the process (that's another thread ha) but just the data you need for every bank/program change.

I believe I am correct else I just wasted a week.

soens
...you can switch patch voices within the same Bank as often as you like, in the same track. AFAIK, Sonar cannot do that.

 
Sonar CAN do this too. I forgot about the Insert Bank/Patch Change, which can change bank AND patch changes as often as you want. It's a bit more tedious entering each change thru a menu driven dialog box, but it's there making Sonar better than DAWs not using Instrument Definitions. 
 
Cubase uses controller nodes to make PRV voice changes, which is better but for some reason it had trouble selecting the actual voice I told it to select.

rbrodbec
So to summarize:
If you have external multitimbral midi devices and you want to layout tracks using those devices you need to per track:

Have the MSB, LSB and Program Change:
To use the patch bank # it is MSB*128 + LSB, this is entered per track along with the program change #

To switch program change using midi automation in the track you need:
100/128 * MSB for the MSB parameter
LSB Value
Program Change Value

This is not the process (that's another thread ha) but just the data you need for every bank/program change.

I believe I am correct else I just wasted a week.

Depends on your device. My SQ1 doesn't use MSB/LSB. It has 2 internal banks and 2 card banks, 124-127.
In SO3 I have to check Program and set Bank to 0, Prog. to 124, and insert a controller node in the PRV to set the voice#.
 
Or I can set Bank to 0 and Prog. to the voice# and change the SQ1's bank (124-127) manually from the SQ1. Sonar can change all of these settings on it's own.