I have both Sonar X1 and Studio One V2 - and Sonar is fatter! (Just joking.)

I recently bought Studio One, and I was starting to use it in stead of Sonar X1. But then I required the services of Danny for a mix, so i transferred the project to Sonar X1. And immediately found that the PC is a real asset.

Now I use Studio One mainly for three things:
- Correcting timing, Audio Bend seems so much more intuitive then Audio Snap
- Correcting pitch, Melodyne integration is really a great thing to have
- Mastering, I like the project page a lot for my workflow
But Sonar X1 is still my main tool for the actual mixing.

And with a bit of planning, I only have to move the tracks back and forth, once or twice.

I use many DAWS.
SONAR X1D Expanded
Studio One v2 Pro
Pro Tools 9HD
Reaper 4
Adobe Audition CS5.5
Sound Forge 10 Pro

I stick mostly to SONAR and Studio One but with every update S1 is getting closer to having all my attention.

  Hmmm... I tried Studio One, and while it has it's nice touches, it did not exited me that much.. Sure -like I said- it has some nice bells and all that stuff, but nothing really standing out in comparisation with other DAW's. To be honest - In my opinion Cubase 6.5 is better than Studio One (if you really insist to compare other DAW's) 

Don't I use another DAW besides Sonar X1?

Sure I do... but only as a kind of "add-on" to X1.

  I am using Ableton Live (and sometimes Project 5 v2.5) as an addition to X1, because I think the matrix is not sufficient to met my needs. For creating and editing (especially MIDI editing) clips X1 is still behind Ableton Live in my opinion. However - X1 beats Ableton in things like recording, mixing and mastering.  For me the combination Live 8, Sonar X1 (and sometimes Project 5) and Audacity (as sound wave editor) covers about 99% of the work I do..   

And about "a lot of other artist's using Studio One"? Why should I care about that? I want to use something that works for ME, and I do not care what has be said to work for other people. Sure - I will accept advise, but judging something by the "a lot of others use it" criteria is something I have left behind a long time ago. That saved me a lot of money 

Anyway - I think Sonar X1 is stable enough and offers good enough all-round elements. I have no need for Studio One (that would be a kind of replacement is stead of a add-on like Live).

"Now I use Studio One mainly for three things... - Mastering, I like the project page a lot for my workflow" What I like most is that Studio One Pro can export your master as a DDP image (with ISRC codes). You can transfer that file straight to CD factories and all the fuss with burning and sending an errorless physical master disk is avoided.

I took a job in July-August that requires me to learn, use, and teach Presonus Studio One. I recieved the voucher for the full version and I installed it so I can prepare for this summer job...

Now more than ever I can see that the differences from DAW to DAW are in the feel of the app. What tools are available and where are they located, the overall "style" in the GUI and layout, etc...

The sound qualities are pretty much the same across the board.

Personally, I really dislike having to learn Studio One. It is a decent DAW of course, every DAW is decent and functions well. If they didn't, they would be out of business. But man, when I come back to SONAR X1, it feels like home. Comfortable, familiar, and absolutely fantastic!

I tried Reaper 4 as well. Way back in the day I was working with Cubase 4sx. And I even tracked in Pro Tools 8 once.

For me personally based on "style" and "feel" (because sound quality is on par across them all), I would rate as follows...

1. SONAR X1
2. Reaper 4
3. Studio One
4. Cubase
5. Pro Tools

Thats just me. Everyone will have different needs or whatever. Just sharing one mans opinion. And by the way, I work in a DAW everday and I depend on the income I make from it. It is not my main income, but it is a supplementary income that is neccesary to pay the bills, feed the kids, buy gasoline, etc...

-Charles

It's funny,   Studio 1 is something I would not mind checking out,  but it is short in features and makes it a total non-starter for me.

The ironic part is there is no staff view or scoring to picture (things everyone claims are major Sonar short comings.)  I can't even consider a DAW without those.  I really think Cake is making a mistake by not upgrading these areas.

I hope the bakers notice this...    

That is exactly why I picked up studio one 2. 


In the end I missed X1 because I could not be arsed with another learning curve.


After multiple failed audio interfaces, I picked up a Roland quad capture since it's the same company.  I'm happier but the gremlins are still there in X1.

You can only be told your computer is a piece of crap so long before you get to the point of troubleshooting where you try the demo of something else. And low and behold, when that something else works near flawlessly, you start asking yourself, why am I torturing myself with this other software that just doesn't seem to play nice with me? I'm not even going to blame it on Sonar, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it could be some unresolvable anomaly on my pc. Unfortunately for Cakewalk, the solution ended up being that I move on rather than dump out another 3 grand on another pc and audio interface in hopes their software may work with it.

Bub

syntheticpop

Why haven't X1'rs abandon ship and sail with Studio One?

That's exactly what I did. I just never posted the typical 'I'm gone, X1 sucks' goodbye thread, mainly because I don't believe it sucks. I think it has compatibility and stability problems, but no, it doesn't suck. And I'm still waiting to see what happens with the next patch, or what kind of deal I'm offered for the next upgrade. At that point I'll see how they approach the problems X1 has had up till this point and see how they claim to have addressed them at the time of the next upgrade.

You can only be told your computer is a piece of crap so long before you get to the point of troubleshooting where you try the demo of something else. And low and behold, when that something else works near flawlessly, you start asking yourself, why am I torturing myself with this other software that just doesn't seem to play nice with me? I'm not even going to blame it on Sonar, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it could be some unresolvable anomaly on my pc. Unfortunately for Cakewalk, the solution ended up being that I move on rather than dump out another 3 grand on another pc and audio interface in hopes their software may work with it.

I still have projects I'm finishing in X1, and I still like opening up my old completed projects and tinkering with the mixes from time to time, but anything new I'm working on will be S1.

At some point I had to stop worrying about crashes and workarounds and actually make some music ... so that's what I did.

i'm using s1 more than x1, as it crashes (a lot) less (indeed, never for me), and i'm currently trying to find some reason to install x1 on my new x64 system...

The Crossgrade is $299 for the Professional edition - not a bad price if you ask me. If it can do some things and some things better than X1 then it's worth the plunge. Not looking at it as a X1 replacement but as a extra tool set to use with what I'm already comfortable with. Sylvan, thanks for chiming in - I'll take what you mentioned into consideration. Perhaps all I need is a good pitch correction program to match Studio Ones and a mastering suite if I don't prefer X1's. As for the audio snap, lets hope there will be some improvements in the next major update or upgrade.