Picked Studio One 3 Pro up from audiodeluxe for £130 (also grabbed Notion 6 while I was there for less than £50). Spent a day or so tinkering and I'm really enjoying it. The 'arranger' functionality is fantastic for my workflow and the Hi-DPI setting on my 4k monitor is a breath of fresh air. Also their native low-latency monitoring works better on my system than Sonar's low-latency stuff.

It's different and, after nearly twenty years in Sonar (and a lot of lurking in this forum - just realised this will be my first post. I'm a genuine Sonar Plat user, not a Presonus shill, scouts honour!) it's going to take a lot of getting used to. I'll be finishing a couple of projects off in Sonar and I get a twinge of regret every time I open it, I'm going to miss the old beast.

I've converted a couple of Sonar projects over to Studio One and, so far, I really like working in it. I've had zero issues and their midi implementation is actually way better than the rumors suggest. I'd say if you work in the box and don't need advanced midi stuff like note expressions (in Cubase), you'll be fine. However, if you use hardware synths and like how Sonar can show patch names and basically integrate with external hardware, Cubase is likely the better solution. None of that is available in Studio One. You can still sync external synths, but all patch management has to be done on the synth itself. Also, I'm pretty sure you can't sync S1 to an external synth, though you can sync the synth to S1, if that makes sense.
 
Regards,
Dan

No Track templates

For my future DAW I am torn between Studio One Pro and Cubase Pro. Those two are probably the most on par with Sonar, but just don't seem to have the stuff I really loved about Sonar. It really brings it back home just how great Sonar was! Currently, I am not really liking Studio One that much. It seems a bit immature but looks like it holds a lot of promise for the future for sure. I have got it to work with my ancient M-audio Projectmix which is a bonus. I haven't used Cubase for many years so I need to wait for them to release the demo before I can make any decisions. I plan on continuing to use Sonar, but will invest in my next DAW while there is a good crossgrade opportunity on.

Essentials:
No Track templates
No Step Sequencer

Can manage:
No Gain Knob
No Matrix View
No Event Editor
Mix Recall


Yet to find anything similar to:
Groove clip
Clip property information in Sonar Inspector window. 
Special copy paste
Link Clips.
Waveform preview for instrument tracks.
Alt+click a bus track to select all tracks routed to that bus. 
64bit double precession engine during export
Upsampling?

I will miss track templates if I end up with S1, however, I can probably get around that using a project template that has AD drums multi-out tracks.  That's really the only track template I need.  I will miss the gain knob as well, but I think I saw a Joe Gilder video where there is a fairly easy way to adjust gain (plug-in maybe?)

I jumped the gun a bought Studio One at Audio Deluxe for $168. I'm going through the learning curve through trial and error, videos and reading the manual. I'll get the hang of it eventually! I like it so far and it will do what I was doing with Sonar albeit in a different look and feel. Reminds me of  Native Instruments which makes sense since they're both German companies. 

Ouch, I want me some groove clip functionality in studio one!
 
I'm bombing through the s1 demo and so far so good. I'd demo cubase if there was one.
 
At this point I really would pick if I knew which company was going to be around the longest - presonus or Yamaha.
 
 
 

pwalpwal

tenfoot
Giving Studio One a try and am a tad confused. Does anyone know where I might find the equivalent of Sonar's midi list view?

if you mean the event list view, there isn't one (yet)

Ahh - thanks. I am not as confused as I thought. Loving it right up until it comes time to edit midi cc's that control my outboard gear then.

Trying to understand something.    In S1 are you able to go into MIDI and adjust the notes  (time and velocity)?   Or is that not possible with S1?
 
And has anyone tried Mixbus?