BobF
I've spent quite a bit of time trying different DAW software over the last 18 mos.  My short list came down to Studio One and Reaper, with Reaper being my current favorite.  There is always the possibility that SO4 will change things, but I'm pretty much with Reaper.
 
An important distinction is included plugs/content.  If you need a phat bundle, then Reaper isn't a good choice.  I happen to have a great selection of VST/i, so I don't need the bundle.  YMMV
 
 

 
 I love that comment.  There are DAWs despite having a small exe file will still bloat your C drive. 

Kev999

sharke
...when I'm working with FX automation envelopes in Sonar, oftentimes the tooltip feedback that I get from moving nodes does not relate to the actual parameter in any meaningful way. Let's say I'm automating the filter cutoff on The Drop plugin. When I'm moving nodes around, Sonar gives feedback for this parameter as a percentage of its range. What use is that if I need to move a node to, say, 1.5kHz?...

 
This is something that I've always found inconvenient. I submitted a feature request about it as long ago as 2009, but that was ignored.

The staff view was ignored for a long time and many fled to Cubase. 

kitekrazy1

Kev999

sharke
...when I'm working with FX automation envelopes in Sonar, oftentimes the tooltip feedback that I get from moving nodes does not relate to the actual parameter in any meaningful way. Let's say I'm automating the filter cutoff on The Drop plugin. When I'm moving nodes around, Sonar gives feedback for this parameter as a percentage of its range. What use is that if I need to move a node to, say, 1.5kHz?...

 
This is something that I've always found inconvenient. I submitted a feature request about it as long ago as 2009, but that was ignored.

The staff view was ignored for a long time and many fled to Cubase. 

An interesting aside re: staff view, sonar vs cubase: While it's true that the requests to improve staff view were not answered, sonar's staff view was still very good. not as actual notation, of course, but as an editing tool. Cubase's staff view is actually pretty good as notation, but is unusable for me as an editing tool, because of this one fact: you cannot scroll-select notes across measures. You can only select the notes that you see in the view. If you try to go further, you get stopped the right edge of the view. The only way to do it is to go single instrument view. but then, you lose the advantage of having multiple instruments in the view, so you can copy paste and so on. Incredible that such a  high-end DAW would do this. This one thing stopped me from going to Cubase.

michael diemer

kitekrazy1
The staff view was ignored for a long time and many fled to Cubase. 

An interesting aside re: staff view, sonar vs cubase: While it's true that the requests to improve staff view were not answered, sonar's staff view was still very good. not as actual notation, of course, but as an editing tool. Cubase's staff view is actually pretty good as notation, but is unusable for me as an editing tool, because of this one fact: you cannot scroll-select notes across measures. You can only select the notes that you see in the view. If you try to go further, you get stopped the right edge of the view. The only way to do it is to go single instrument view. but then, you lose the advantage of having multiple instruments in the view, so you can copy paste and so on. Incredible that such a  high-end DAW would do this. This one thing stopped me from going to Cubase.

 
I agree that Sonar's staff view is reasonably good, despite all the criticism that it receives. But I don't find it useful for editing. I use it for displaying several instruments together, to provide an overview of the arrangement and interplay between the different instruments. I tend use use it in conjuction with PRV, i.e. viewing (zoomed out) in the SV window while editing (zoomed in) in the PRV window.

There was always the suspicion that they simply didn't know how the code worked for Staff View, which ties in with Sharke's comment abut the old code causing bugs.  It took a decade before seeking the help of Overture's developer, but Gibson put a stop to that.
 
EDIT: Named the wrong Notation software (Thanks Abacab) which I own ss I really shouldn't have.

I hope that Studio One can integrate a staff view into the base S1 program.  I have added the Notion 6 crossgrade to S1, but it is still a separate notation program.  For a quick view of the arrangement in the DAW it is great to be able to view the piano roll and the notation view at the same time, as can be done in Sonar.

Kamikaze
 
It took a decade before seeking the help of Ovation's developer, but Gibson put a stop to that.

I believe you may be referring to SonicScores Overture.
http://forum.cakewalk.com...-Updated-m3699129.aspx