I wonder what the situation is in Australia?

Greg, thank you for the offer and especially for answering questions here. 
 
My question involved music notation, what we call Staff View in SONAR. 
 
You have a page that says the Artist and Elements use "Basic" notation, whereas the Pro version uses "Professional" notation.  I have been unable to locate any further info that explains the distinction.  Is there a link?
 
The comparison page I refer to is here:  https://www.steinberg.net...cubase/comparison.html

JClosed
1. MIDI editing in Cubase is one of the main reasons I "jumped ship" earlier this year. It's really good, but you have to learn some new things and adapt to another work-flow. That said, it was easy for me to make the jump from Sonar. With the new Cubase 9.5 you can even pick up a MIDI clip and drop it into an sampler track, to create a audio loop that can be edited like any audio clip.
 
2. I do not use loops very often, but I recall you can indeed audition/preview the loops in time with the project.
 
3. For me the performance is good. Comparable with Sonar. And the program is rock-stable on my computer. But, like it's often the case, it all depends on good and stable hardware of course.
 
Hope this helps.

@Closed - Thanks a lot for taking your time to answer my questions! Great to hear that performance and stability is good and that MIDI editing is great! And indeed, the Cubase Sampler track looks very interesting and useful. :)
 
I'm very curious to try the demo once it's out!

riojazz
Greg, thank you for the offer and especially for answering questions here. 
 
My question involved music notation, what we call Staff View in SONAR. 
 
You have a page that says the Artist and Elements use "Basic" notation, whereas the Pro version uses "Professional" notation.  I have been unable to locate any further info that explains the distinction.  Is there a link?
 
The comparison page I refer to is here:  https://www.steinberg.net...cubase/comparison.html

Good question.
Btw I'm not hitting my goal of getting new DAW and getting on with things......
I guess I'll be waiting to see more misc questions answered and what cross grade pricing specials may arise.
😊 stuck being pragmatic I suppose.

Greg Ondo
My name is Greg Ondo and I have represented Steinberg products for over 25 years in the United States.  

Dear Greg, is there any way that non-US and non-European customers can access the special competitive cross grade (download) for Sonar users? I've just placed an order through Sweetwater and they had to cancel it, saying they were not allowed to sell Cubase outside the US. Same thing happened to a Canadian customer. Thanks!

Shambler
I tried ordering from Sweetwater but my order was declined because they said the program is geo-tagged and won't activate in the UK.

Looks like it's Thoman or direct from Steinberg if you are in the UK.

Same experience with Sweetwater. At least you have the the option to order from Europe. No chance for us who live outside EU or US.

Is there a USA box set with elicenser crossgrade? All I've seen is the download version requiring a separate elicenser sale.

Well, I bit the bullet and got the crossgrade. I'd been considering getting Cubase last year but found it too expensive and instead upgraded to Sonar Platinum from 8.5 because Cakewalk gave a great upgrade discount at the time. This is significantly less expensive than it was when I was shopping around before, so I'm happy about it. It works fine on my computer. I ordered the crossgrade from Sweetwater and picked up an elicenser from the local Guitar Center, and within a few hours of my order I was up and running.
 
There's obviously a ton to learn about how Cubase works. Basic recording is just different enough from the Sonar workflow that I found myself very frustrated last night when just trying to record and listen back to a vocal track (and frankly that was super easy to do in my quick demo of Studio One, so if your highest priority is to get a DAW that's immediately intuitive to work with and you don't want to mess around with a bunch of settings, I'd probably recommend Studio One).
 
But I'm excited about all the features that come with Cubase. I don't consider it bloat just because it's complex. 

Joe_A

riojazz
Greg, thank you for the offer and especially for answering questions here. 
 
My question involved music notation, what we call Staff View in SONAR. 
 
You have a page that says the Artist and Elements use "Basic" notation, whereas the Pro version uses "Professional" notation.  I have been unable to locate any further info that explains the distinction.  Is there a link?
 
The comparison page I refer to is here:  https://www.steinberg.net...cubase/comparison.html

Good question.
Btw I'm not hitting my goal of getting new DAW and getting on with things......
I guess I'll be waiting to see more misc questions answered and what cross grade pricing specials may arise.
😊 stuck being pragmatic I suppose.

If you look through the cubase manual youll see that pro is indeed far more advanced. with artist, you can only have 4 bars in the view without scrolling. with pro, you can have more. it is closer to real notation than any other daws notation.

I've had Cubase 9.5 now for only several days. It's really good. I hadn't planned on moving out of Sonar. It's been a steady set of welcome surprises to see how Cubase works. I like it. Various things have turned out to be improvements to the Sonar workflow. I had Sonar figured out really well, and with the help of available tutorials (there are a lot) on YouTube and Groove3 it's possible to come up to speed fairly quickly. Sometimes change is good - even if you did not plan for it.