Trying to decide between Sonar X1 and Presonus Studio 1.6

gospeltunes


About a year ago I was planning on switching from a Roland VS 2480 to Sonar.   However my money situation changed and I was unable to do it.  Now I am ready to make the change.  I’ve already sold off a lot of my studio equipment  (including the 2480) so I can buy a computer (from Studio Cat), software, and good interface (most likely RME though octa-capture looks interesting). 
But now I am having second thoughts about which software to use.  I was looking at Pro Tools 9, Sonar, and Presonus Studio One, and I have narrowed it down to Sonar X1 and Studio One 1.6. 
 
Here’s my take so far (from reading various professional reviews and forum posts):
Sonar X1 – more features, much better MIDI tools, better virtual instruments, Pro Channel, great usuer's forum
Studio One 1.6 – basic tools well implemented, unique mastering tools, great mix engine, potentially a really great upside
Any advice or comments?   I could really use some helpful information.  I really only have the time to learn one of them. Thanks.

Jeff Evans


I have been test driving Presonus Studio One lately. And it is great that you can do this as well for free and spend a month testing.  This is what it can do which is the way I really like to work: 

You can loop over a section of music (or play straight through) and if you have external instruments you can jump tracks, go in and out of record, you can drag new virtual instruments from the browser into the session (and loops), select a preset, go out of record, rehearse, go back into record, record new data, switch tracks, drag an audio effect over a virtual instrument, drag out a loop, jump tracks go in and out of record again all while the music plays and it does this all without a single glitch. This is great for mixing too because you can do everything without stopping. 

Sonar cannot do this. (I like Sonar a lot and would love to be able to do this!) I have tried it many times and you simply have to stop at some point (or it glitches, especially when you start inserting synths) in order to continue this continuous process  etc. This simply slows the workflow, Studio One keeps it all going and you end up making the music faster. Somehow the priority is on keeping the music playing at all costs. I have found this to be a good feature. I know not all work this way but I am finding it a revelation. This type of performance is obviously aimed at composers making music, which includes me.

And you can turn the metronome on and off with a single keystroke too! External hardware midi timing is rock solid no matter how hard the CPU is working or how many audio processes are going on. Sonar seems to alter the feel of the external midi timing when under a lot of audio load (on my system anyway) This would not effect many of you but it is important to me as I still use some external midi devices. 

I am also a big K System fan and S1 has it built in as standard, very nice. No need to get a special plugin to do it.

It seems to use a little less  CPU horsepower to do the same thing. I don't have to upgrade my computer to make X1 run well. S1 runs perfectly on my existing system. The concept of writing a completely new program from the ground up is a good one. Many DAW's cannot do this. X1 is not new from the ground up as are many other programs too. They just keep changing things around and bolting stuff on.  

In relation to support I had one little issue setting up the demo and the support was fast and excellent.  

Instruments are only OK compared to Sonar. That is one area Sonar really shines for me. But if you have a lot of third party instruments then it is not so much of an issue. Sonar is very well developed in certain areas that S1 is not, so it is a matter of how you work and exactly what it is you want to do. But do give it a shot. So far I have found there is not much I cannot do with S1. But for others that won't be the case. The best thing you can do is download the demo and try out a project and see how you go.

...wicked


Studio One is a pretty click DAW. Great audio engine, awesome interface, very intelligently designed.

The drawbacks at the moment are: surround, video, and audio quantizing. Then little things like track folders and whatnot. 

As the most recent DAW to come out, it really benefits from everything that came before. I think in a few versions when they finish back-filling some features it'll be a pretty powerful beast.

mike_mccue


I just watched that production video and my jaw hit the floor when the guy started strumming guitar.

Usually these videos start with "and now you drag this into here and look we're done".

The production value was fairly low but the info content was very high.

best,
mike