Brando
Yes I think Presonus have been mining our Features and Ideas Forum (hopefully) as much as Cakewalk have been. LOL (?)

Well, any DAW vendor would be crazy not to keep close tabs on the competition, and what better way than to monitor the feature requests forum?  What's disappointing is that Cakewalk, Steinberg, et. al. then often turn around and completely ignore innovations and developments of their competitors.
 
I just watched a Groove 3 video on the S3 extended FX chains.  Wow!  What an inspired and powerful feature.  The S1 team has set the bar really high in this area.
 
Fortunately for me, the S1 tempo capabilities are really primitive compared to Cubase, so I don't have to suffer through the agony of "should I switch?" internal debates.  Money considerations aside, learning a DAW is *way* too much effort to make such a decision lightly.  But I hope the Cubase product designers are paying close attention to the S1 FX chain feature.  I would assume all of you SONAR guys are hoping the same thing of the CW team.

Seems I'm missing something...and not in defense of Cakwalk either.  But the multi FX chain and multi instruments dealies in Studio 1 v3... although you can't set them up the same in Sonar, I'm able to create the same result...albeit with some more mouse clicks or whatever if need be.   
The multi instrument dates back to my hardware days of "MIDI Thru" on my rack pieces for layering. I did this A LOT when playing live to layer synths.  In cake I "laboriously" have to copy a MIDI track...but then it actually gives me much more control, as I can slightly alter the MIDI on each track... ie keep MIDI note on/off more suited to the VSTi patches.
 
Maybe I'm witnessing the new revolution of people getting stoked about min mouse click items.  But TO ME, truly in the end, sometimes it limits what you can do (as in cloning a MIDI track, as I mentioned above).
 
the Presonus colors are nice I suppose.  Doesn't affect my music though. ;-)

Mix,
 
You bring up a good point.
 
Reaper is way ahead of Sonar in being able to sequence synths onto one track, but there are limitations in the fast fix.
 
Sonar clone, like you said "laborious" gives far better individual synth control.
 
This same approach can be done with any multi track DAW like Sonar unable to host more than one vsti per track, as far as I understand it.
 
Was always pushing Energy XT for you guys to try, because XT brings Sonar capability to the level of what Studio One 3 claims it can now deliver.
 
Studion One 3 looks like it brings all the needed parameters into one channel to do any and everything needed, minus the ability to go into a single cloned track and edit midi notes.
 
Esay for me to judge from the sidelines since I can't even install the demo on my dinosaur win xp system.
 
You guys know better who have it up and running, but if things work the way theye are supposed to, Studio One 3 has left us all behind in the dust, only regarding handling of multiple vsti synths on a single track. Doesn't affect or mean s*** to a tree for the vocalist or a guitar player.
 
John
 
 

does S3 have an equally elegant comping system?  Track templates? Pro channels?  Mix recall?  Could probably come up with a pretty long list.... I think we all too often hail a few new innovations and forget the uniqueness of what we have.
 
I do love all the main feature improvements.  The nice thing about Platinum is similar opportunities can be incrementally added and I hope they are.
 
And the idea of learning a whole new system... I recognize I'm challenged in this respect but my comfort level is pretty high these days and far too little time making music anyway!  Last time I tried version 2 I was scratching my head and sayin'... why can't i do... how do i do.... and the info that was on line didn't help much.  Guess if this were a full time business multiple daws would make sense... if I only had a brain!

the 'fast fix'....     ;-D

Man the Presonus forum is fairly alight. Rave reviews to outright condemnation of the dev team.

mudgel
Man the Presonus forum is fairly alight. Rave reviews to outright condemnation of the dev team.

only forum that does that I suppose??? (Rolls eyes)

I'm still keeping an eye on this, but for now, using the MUX plugin provides much of what S3 introduces in regards to multi-instrument tracks.  I'd certainly prefer to have a native version though, no doubt... their implementation does seem fairly slick.   But I'll get by.   
 
My hope is that CW expands its core MIDI capabilities to include this and other things we haven't thought of yet...
 

Another thing they are ahead on... mobile interface. Cmon, Cakewalk, you're falling behind on the frontrunning innovation You've been known for!

stevec
I'm still keeping an eye on this, but for now, using the MUX plugin provides much of what S3 introduces in regards to multi-instrument tracks.  I'd certainly prefer to have a native version though, no doubt... their implementation does seem fairly slick.   But I'll get by.   
 
My hope is that CW expands its core MIDI capabilities to include this and other things we haven't thought of yet...
 

Expanding the MIDI capabilities would be nice, but, I would almost settle for Sonar just remembering the ports I have my MCU & Extender connected to when I forget to turn them on prior to starting Sonar...