Hellow has anyone compared Presonus Studio One DAW software to Cubase and what are your findings? I recieved the Studio One Artis version with my New Presonus Studio 24 and now am debating to upgrade to Cubase 6 from Cubase 4? One of the main reasons is the Studio One software works seemsless with the mixer so there is a nice DAW interface between them other than Transport control. The other is if one opts for Studio One Pro which isn’t much of an upgrade you get mixing software like WL7 all in one bundle for seemless work flow. Any thoughts on this idea or am I treading in the wrong pond?
Can’t tell from personal experience but in the german section a few hardcore daw user just discussed this theme and yes studio one mixer is nice but the all went back to use cubase.
Don’t know uf that might help you,
Greetz Bassbase
I wish that Cubase had support for Audio Units. It would be very convenient if it did.
Aloha guys,
I often start projects from a manuscript paper POV
and I can’t seem find any info about scoring and notation.
Is there a way to do that in Studio One?
{‘-’}
I switched from Cubase to Studio One for about a year, but went back to Cubase. I just prefer Cubase’s interface, workflow and even though it’s flawed, I really like Cubase’s generic remote solution. It’s a big deal for me to be able to open menu’s an certain edit/quantize functions with a midi controller…and Studio One simply can’t.
Also, the Studio One community freaks me out…feels like you entered some kind of cult…creepy…
The competition is really hot from a lot of DAW developers right now, and just like everything else, there is no “perfect” tool… only the tool that best fits the job, and the tool that best fits YOU. So if you like both of them, I’d suggest you work with both and decide for yourself. Maybe you’ll end up with both and based on various projects you do, you’ll decide to use one over the other. No forum commentary can adequately cover what will be pertinent to you, personally.
Having said that, and as an owner of Studio One as well as numerous other DAW apps, I believe there are a lot of great interface ideas in Studio One – plenty for Presonus’ developers to feel proud of. And certainly, Steinberg should study the best features from ALL their competition… and I’m sure they’ve looked at some of the nice features in Studio One. However, Studio One falls short in so many areas for what I personally need, it just could not satisfy my needs for my most serious work. The tool I personally prefer for serious composing/producing is without a doubt Cubase – for a serious composer/producer who needs the most mature set of tools (not to mention some of the hottest innovations like note expression if you actually use it), I can’t imagine being satisfied with Studio One. But again, that’s just my personal preference. Your needs will be different, good luck!
My friend started using Studio One and never looked back. Says it’s much better than Cubase. I’ll never know because I don’t want to change my workflow and key commands 
Used both and it’s really no contest. Cubase is still a MUCH more polished product with more features, options, and small but crucial workflow enhancements. Same can be said for Reaper BTW.
Yes, they’re both (StudioOne and Reaper) relatively new in the industry, and yes, they both achieved a lot in a short time, but there’s a reason people aren’t jumping ship to switch to these DAW’s and it’s not brand loyalty.
They have some advantages such as a nicer GUI and a unified/integrated interface, something Steinberg may eventually follow, but that’s as far as it goes. Personally, I was quite a bit underwhelmed by both of these DAW’s as I’ve repeatedly heard people speak about them as if they’ve practically surpassed Cubase, so when I got around to trying them out, I expected more. A lot more.
Just my 2c…
StudioOne v2 can do some pretty amazing things to your workflow:
- Drag’n’drop VST’s directly on audio clips - with advanded undo etc.
- Search VST plugins!
- A very nice lightweight sampler included (also with drag’n’drop support ofcourse).
- Also, things like duplicating audio clips in your project will sync to tempo/bar automatically (simple yet awesome feature!!).
I’m sure Steinberg is cooking something new for us soon. And some how I still prefer Cubase. 
For working with details I do think Cubase is the best DAW around. But the workflow when making electronic music in StudioOne is really awesome.
I hope Steinberg will look around and make something new and “revolutionary” into v7, workflow wise. Drag’n’drop support for everything. VST Inserts from the mixer directly to audio events in the project window etc etc etc. We need “total integration” between all parts (mixer/project window etc) in Cubase. I do realize that it would take some major re-thinking and new code. I wouldn’t care if v7 wasn’t backwards compatible. Somewhere you got to draw the line or else you are stuck with old code.
It is simply amazing to see the amount of people (not necessarily in this thread) that seem to float between or is always looking for another DAW, regardless of which application they use. I mean, if all applications had the same functionality there would be no point in all of them existing. So naturally, there will be differences between them all.
Like someone else said, some of these softwares are relatively new, which really doesn’t make them anything more than copycats, since the real pioneers are companies that invented this field. It’s always easier to take something that has already been invented, copy it and improve on it. That doesn’t necessarily make it better in the long run, since things move at an incredible speed, and in order to stay ahead, one needs to be a pioneer, not a reinventor.
From a usage perspective, what Sunshy said, is really what it is all about. To be able to make music comfortably, with ease, with the right tools. Anything else is worry whether it is as good as the new one the neightbor just got. Who cares, the software does not make the music, you are.
From an investment perspective, it’s about how the company making the product, handles. Without doubt, some companies does better than others here. True innovation, willingness to try new things, etc. are all important part from this point of view. Which one of us does not want our purchased objects to last as long as possible?
Get a trial of both, see which one feels best for You, not for someone else, and go with that.
It’s just software and (of course) lots of people think the software they love and use is the best thing ever. Lots of people also regularly claim to have used something or other when they’ve really only played with a demo or really old version for a few days or a few minutes. I saw a lot of that with Cubase, people claiming to have “used it”, but actually not really knowing much of anything about it.
Anyway, S1 is certainly not as powerful as Cubase. No software so young could ever be. It’s focus is more about making music comfortably, staying out of your way, and there are some pretty clever things in there in that regard. The interface and general workflow methodologies alone were enough to make me switch over about a year ago.
It does a lot of things better / easier / more logically than Cubase and vice versa, Cubase does a lot of things S1 simply cannot do yet at all… mostly on the midi front though. On the audio side, not so much really, on the contrary, they’re pretty equal there and S1 may even have the advantage in some practical ways. Midi? Not even close. Cubase is arguably the most powerful sequencer ever.
Use whatever works best for you. For many that’s Cubase, for others it’s something else, and there are a lot of something else’s.
One other obvious attraction for some is the relatively low cost. No in-between version update costs and regularly really cheap sales. But can it fully compete with Cubase as a midi sequencer? Heck no. Few if any actually can.
S1 is started by Wolfgang Kundrus (primary author of Nuendo and early developer of Cubase) and Matthias Juwan (writer of VST 3 specification). I would not call these men “copycats” 
Before this devolves into typical Internet personal validation nonsense let me - an actual in-depth user of both - make some logical comparisons based on facts.
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Cubase midi blows S1’s midi away. No doubt about that. Anyone that - can’t live comfortably - without scoring, the drum editor, independent looping, the midi logical editor, the great list editor, etc, may miss them a heck of a lot. Splitting midi into lanes by pitch on the same track, the midi logical editor, the input transformer, the list for midi goes on and on. Cubase is a midi monster and anyone suggesting otherwise is likely just a really huge fanboi of something else. Maybe nothing really compares to it fully imo… though some like Logic may be rationally arguable.
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S1’s audio engine is easily much better than Cubase’s. Load large plugs in realtime without disturbing playback, play overlapping clips at the same time on the same track, add new or switch inputs in realtime, etc, etc, Stack up multiple clips in an audio part (like Cubase’s audio part) and tell it to - the part - play them all at once, all at the same time, it will do that per-part, or do it globally with a preference. Add real time FX or chains to individual clips with per-clip freeze and editing of frozen clips. Independent hardware monitoring per-channel or per-cue-send. Like above with midi, a pretty long list in either only partially covered above in either.
Most of the other stuff is really subjective to taste, the UI, I/O methodologies, general feel, etc. One thing maybe not so subjective is automation. It was (overall) a really close call for me, automation, but S1 won me over there for it’s flexibility, it’s automation tracks and it’s clip level instrument automation and the ability to move automation anywhere and group envelopes from anywhere. Most modern (new) products easily win on the installation front. Updating or installing is much simpler in the new products. No patching, no installation digging into the Win registry and for some (never an issue for me personally) no dongle and 5 independent hardware installs… so with newer products it’s much easier and less riskier to have them installed everywhere.
If I’m doing mostly orchestral scores, hard core midi with lots of editing, I’d likely choose Cubase. If I’m doing mostly audio tracking and mixing, I’d likely choose S1. If I’m doing a good bit of both, the choice would be a good deal more fuzzy… resting much more on the balances of the other subjective and more personal stuff. Deciding where you want to take the “hit”, because you will take a subjective loss somewhere.
They’re both great products so (if a person is frustrated or annoyed, the only real reasons to look over a fence) weigh all that and make up your own mind. Most people making the direct comparisons are cherry picking really. And there’s lots to cherry pick from either, to make a good case for either.
Thanks, Audiocave, for your very comprehensive comparison of Cubase and Studio One!
Still, there’s something about Cubase that is bothering me. For some reason,it only has on and off sustain continuous controller automation, while Studio One has true continuous data. Does anyone know why this is the case, and how I can work around the issue?
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Studio One V2 ?
sorry, but…
- MIDI is absolutely rudimentary.
- No drum editor.
- No score editor.
- S1 doesn’t handle OMF files.
- No Split Arrange / Toggle Track List
- No Non-Linear Sequencing (Arranger Track).
- No S-type (logarithmic, exponential) curve to fade-in and fade-out.
- S1’s media management is an absolute pathetic joke compared to the power of Mediabay.
- No split an imported stereo track into 2 mono tracks.
- No input gain in the mixer.
- No phase button in the mixer.
- No VST Expressions.
- No Parts and no Part-Editor.
- No dual panning in the mixer.
- No record output of channels.
- No Project Logical Editor.
- No channel button all Insert FX on/off.
- No channel buttons FX and sends on/off.
- No Control Room.
- No Note Expression.
- No In Place Editor.
- No Midi Plugins.
- No global on/off for automation.
- No Multiple output freezing (VSTi Rack)
- No Global Transpose (Audio & Midi).
- No “Volume Envelope Events”.
- No Track Controls.
- No Mixer Reset Button.
- No "set timecode at now option.
- No Quick Controls, e.g. in Inspector.
- No export/bounce virtual instrument tracks in mono.
- Studio One is absolutely lacking in Film Scoring.
- It doesn’t have the same level of hardware support, the routing is very limited.
- The included plug ins are not the greatest. Stock plugins are a joke (e.g. one weak Synth and Sample Player with very old soundfont libraries)
- Horrible support for control surfaces except for the (Surprise!) FaderPort. MCU support sucks, really bad.
- The freeze options is a bet messy and I don’t think it unloads the plug ins from memory.
- Doesn’t have descent panning (only one slider). This can be fixed with the pan plugin. But using a plugin to pan something.?
- Loop browser doesn’t work properly. Loops don’t sync correctly to tempo, and when i open my Virus TI it gets even worse, nothing syncs.
- You can’t route an FX channel to another FX channel.
- Bouncing audio event causes a lot of mistakes.
- To bridge 32bit plugins you have to use a third party program. With J-Bridge it crashes to much.
- CPU usage isn’t optimized IMO.
- If stability is an issue for you, Studio One is definitely not the DAW for you. There are A LOT of bugs in Studio One, sometimes from version to the next. 2.0.5 for example introduced crazy CPU spikes in the Mac version, though those seem to have been resolved in 2.0.6. Presonus’ QA needs work imo. They introduced a new feature in 2.0.5 that doesn’t even work in 64-bit mode (macro toolbar). In 2012 that is sacrilege.
(more: see gearslutz, e.g.)
So, I don´t understand the hype.
“drag´n drop in every direction” and a “one window architecture” is not everything in daw life, but it´s nice.
Cubase and Nuendo are much more mature and offer so much more features.
Of course we have wish lists, and Cubase needs improvements - but we are on the right way.
I think Cubase 6.x is better than ever.
My opinion.
C.
Oh, my studio friend had used Studio One, but then I showed him Cubase and all the possibilities it offers. Now he uses Cubase too and he is happier than ever. This is not a joke.
Savours are just different, that´s right and that´s good.
Cubase/Reaper/StudioOne/Sonar/ProTools/Logic - all great DAW´s: with each of it you can record, edit and mix (!)
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My only purpose here is to keep things honest and factual because some people who don’t really know it tend to (unintentionally) not be factual at times. It’s just software in the end. However…
The freeze options …I don’t think it unloads the plug ins from memory.
It does.
Stock plugins are a joke
Not quite true. Instruments do kinda suck comparably speaking. Audio plugins, not at all. Actually, there is also a professional range of metering and analyzation plugs there that don’t exist in Cubase at all. Instruments? Yep, suckage compared to some others.
They introduced a new feature in 2.0.5 that doesn’t even work in 64-bit mode (macro toolbar)
Not quite true. It doesn’t yet work on 64-bit OSX, it does work everywhere else, including 64-bit Win. It (the thing) is also not your typical macro system… but yeah, that kinda sucks for OSX 64-bit users, agree.
So your comments were actually on point (even the semi-subjective stuff, like stability, if it’s true for you it’s true) except for those few incorrect statements. Accuracy is good, if it matters, and it should always matter. I think my previous comments were fair and accurate and not all that subjective.
Thanks.
Destined for the lounge of course. These things are rarely appropriate on a DAW forum, and almost always result in some… favorable unintentional mis-statements. “Vs” threads kinda always go down the toilet.
Thank you Audiocave, I accept your statement, partially.
I have already mentioned my experience with S1 vs. Cubase.
Well, finally there are no daw-winner in these days. right.
C.
Destined for the lounge
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Right you are. The relevant thing is that the Reaper’s and S1’s of the world actually make Cubase better. I think we’ve seen some of that already in Cubase 6 and will see more of it.
So healthy competition is always good… if we don’t take it all too personally.
absolutely.
nevertheless I hope that Cubase 7 will copy some nice features from S1 and Reaper (…which have also much copied from cubase!!!) 