Cubase 7 installed - i thought I'd share my first impressions
 
Cubase 7 

• Love the fact I can see 70 odd tracks on the screen at the same time.
• I like the smaller toolbars - makes better use of space
• Like the mixer and its scalable
• Love autoscrolling - bliss
• Amazing midi and audio editing - much deeper and more mature than Sonar
• Audio quantising works extremely well - even on non rhythmic stuff. Amazing
• Tempo detection works perfectly so far. Even with non rhythmic instruments.
• Very stable although some cakewalk plugins cause it to crash - so they have been disabled
• Colours - honestly - what a difference. Beautifully implemented. So simple.
• Really like the quality and volume of FX and synths provided. Excellent. All the bases covered
• Drum maps are fantastic -one drum midi track can drive multiple VSTs - very intuitive and easy to use
• Presets are actually populated!
• Comping is a doddle - very quick & intuitive
• note expression :)
• Chord tracks - being able to change the chords after recording it - including audio! Honestly - what a feature!!
• VST multi outs is better implemented - its pretty much one click and routing is generally taken care of
• Nested folders

 
What I miss about Sonar

• Smart tool - much better than Steinberg's equivalent
• Skylight interface is better than lots of floating windows
• FX bin
• VST wrapper seems more robust in Sonar (see point above)
• Logical menus - Cubase's menu structure & terminology seems quite verbose and is initially confusing - some of the interface elements are too dark in Cubase
• Ability to see volume and pan for all track in the teack view - you apparently can only see this in the mixer
• Quick groups

 
Overall I'd say that Cubase feels more mature as a product and in many areas better implemented.  The ability to quantise audio and do reliable tempo detection in a few clicks is a real winner - plus having the project scrolling across the screen rather than the cursor makes it much easier to keep on top of things. I opened up X2a this afternoon after a week in Cubase land - and to be honest - it felt - err - how should I put it ...... toy like. :-( Compared to Cubase 7 -  I can only see a handful of tracks on the screen at the same time. Everything feels supersized as if designed for children. It means lots of scrolling and navigation issues. I think in this regard 8.5 was better.

Is the glass have empty or have full????  Perception is reality and preference is simply a matter of choice - wherever, with your preference make meaningful music, melody and money...

Agreed - I am genuinely not sure what I'll end up using in the long run. It has been an enlightening experience after 13 years with Sonar.
 

dorism
Cubase 7 installed - i thought I'd share my first impressions

Great list!  I must say for the first time I'm tempted.  If Steinberg actively and PUBLICLY collects known issues/bugs, and puts out minor versions as needed, that would heavily tip the scale in their favor. 
 
I love X2 overall, but I am disillusioned by it not getting a single bug fix release in 2013!  And even worse, there is no way to tell what bugs are even recognized by Roland.  So, are our issues being worked on or not?  The more you stuff into a release, and the longer the development cycle, the more chance new bugs will be introduced.
 
Transparency is a huge selling point, I cannot stress that enough.  (hence bold AND italic )  Does Roland feel the opposite?  That hiding out and randomly releasing a bunch of "perks" is a better business plan?  Has anybody seen how Steinberg handles this crucial business practice?

That does sound very nice and I wish money weren't an object. Couple of questions...
 
How well does it deal with notation input?
 
Is there something similar to FX chains?
 
I'm curious about your comment on FX bins. How are insert effects handled and is there a limit to the amount of inserts per channel?
 
How does it handle the GUIs of VSTs/effects/synth/etc? I find the multi-dock to be ever so crucial to keep things organized and clean.
 
I know Pro Channel is kind of unique to Cake but are there any kind of comprehensive tools directly on the channels like EQ or compression?
 
Does it support busses? I ask this because I know Pro Tools uses a different method for bussing and to me it's not how I would like to work.
 
I could probably ask a ton more questions but that's probably too many as it is. I love the Sonar way for so many reasons but my old Steinberg stuff never failed to just do what it was supposed to.
 
Cheers.

Beepster
That does sound very nice and I wish money weren't an object. Couple of questions...
 
How well does it deal with notation input?
 
Is there something similar to FX chains?
 
I'm curious about your comment on FX bins. How are insert effects handled and is there a limit to the amount of inserts per channel?
 
How does it handle the GUIs of VSTs/effects/synth/etc? I find the multi-dock to be ever so crucial to keep things organized and clean.
 
I know Pro Channel is kind of unique to Cake but are there any kind of comprehensive tools directly on the channels like EQ or compression?
 
Does it support busses? I ask this because I know Pro Tools uses a different method for bussing and to me it's not how I would like to work.
 
I could probably ask a ton more questions but that's probably too many as it is. I love the Sonar way for so many reasons but my old Steinberg stuff never failed to just do what it was supposed to.
 
Cheers.

- Haven't looked at notation yet - but its supposed to be light years ahead of Sonar
- yes there are fxchains
- inserts are handled in the inspector - 7 inserts which I presume is a limit - you also have strip fx - a bit like pro channel. Saturation, eq, transient shaper, compressor, gate and limiter. These are built in and can be enabled on request.
- vst and vsti handing -  basically 'pop up' in their own windows - you can't dock them as fas as I can tell.
- pro channel - see above
- buses are handled like sonar - you can route tracks to a bus, route buses to buses and have send buses. They appear in the track view under a folder so you don't need to maximise it.
 

dorism

Beepster
 

- Haven't looked at notation yet - but its supposed to be light years ahead of Sonar
- yes there are fxchains
- inserts are handled in the inspector - 7 inserts which I presume is a limit - you also have strip fx - a bit like pro channel. Saturation, eq, transient shaper, compressor, gate and limiter. These are built in and can be enabled on request.
- vst and vsti handing -  basically 'pop up' in their own windows - you can't dock them as fas as I can tell.
- pro channel - see above
- buses are handled like sonar - you can route tracks to a bus, route buses to buses and have send buses. They appear in the track view under a folder so you don't need to maximise it.
 

That does sound more than workable for my needs. It will be a long time before I could make the investment but I will be researching this more. Perhaps even one of the lighter versions can handle the the things I need that Sonar seems to be falling flat on. Thank you for the reply.

Pretty much agree with dorism's list. The one thing I really (really really) don't like is all the floating VST windows.
 
This is not new for me. I equally disliked them in pre-X series Sonar also.
 
The other thing I'm unsure of is some of the more advanced tools for 'Pro-Studio' owners like the mix bus and the ability to make connections to outside studios. That has to be a contributing factor for the cost of the program and not really something that I can use though admittedly others can.
 
In the end I've been spending more time in Sonar that the Q.
 
Regards,

mmorgan
The one thing I really (really really) don't like is all the floating VST windows.
 

The multi dock is awesome and it's little things like that that make me enjoy using Sonar so much. They just need to make sure everything bloody well works properly. If everything worked as advertised sans glitches I wouldn't even consider other options. They would also completely destroy the market IMO.
 
Just... make... it... work.

Double post