# Cakewalk or Studio One?



## shnizzle (Mar 22, 2020)

tl;dr
I really like Cakewalk, but it´s buggy. Studio One is super smooth, but I need to tweak more to get the sound I like. Thoughts?

So i´m thinking of going back to Studio One. I originally switched to Cakewalk because I really like the mix I got from it´s stock plugins and the pro channel modules. And I wasn´t really happy with a lot of things in Studio One v3. But now v4 is out, so I gave it another go. 

And here´s the thing - while I love the mix and the approach to the DAW very much, it´s buggy, at least for me. I´m constantly running into weird little hick ups that don´t break the program, but get really inconvenient. 
For example, in one project the automation read just stopped working. In another project, when I copy some automation points from a bus track, it doesn´t paste it to that same track, but rather to some other random audio track. In yet another project when I edit the automation on one channel, it does the same thing for all visible automation lanes, which it usually doesn´t do. And when you press play/pause it freezes for half a second before anything happens, so there´s general sluggishness. It gets frustrating. 

Now I tried the demo of Studio One v4 and I really like it. My main concern was if I can get the same sounding mix. So here´s a test. First mix is done in Cakewalk, most of it is done with stock plugins. The second one is done in Studio One with mostly my go to third party plugins. They sound pretty close, but I did have to fiddle quite a bit to get it to sound like the Cakewalk mix. In Cakewalk it just happened to sound like that and it´s great. In S1 I need to tweak more. Thoughts?

https://soundcloud.com/jonathan-19-2/cakewalk-or-studio-one


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## fantom (Mar 22, 2020)

I used Cakewalk since Pro Audio 3 until last Black Friday. I say this because I used to be biased and praised Sonar. I really had hope that Bandlab would fix major bugs, but lost hope now. The software has major glitches and crashes. I can't load a VST without fear of the audio engine falling apart and dropping sound. I can't export rendered audio without freezing tracks. I had to be in a habit of saving every 5 minutes to not lose work... And in the end I just ended up demotivated to record anything.

I demoed Cubase and Studio One, and despite the lack of a good midi interface in Studio One, I was impressed that everything was stable and just worked. I didn't even have to bounce VST tracks anymore. The lack of a midi staff editor drives me nuts, and Notion is worse than Guitar Pro, but I no longer fear working in a DAW.

Even Cubase took me several hours to install and use without crashes or glitches. I have no idea how people can write this software and not be pushed out of the market by a company like PreSonus... If only PreSonus would implement top feature requests more quickly.

My point here... The workflow of Studio One and productivity far outweigh any fear of mixing to me. You can load the Cakewalk or reaper VSTs into the pro version. I don't really think the audio quality should be much different. I don't do any pro sounding mixes though. So as a tool, my concern is productivity.


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## trem licking (Mar 22, 2020)

Have you participated in the cakewalk forums at all? They are really prompt with replies and bug fixes if you tell them what is going on


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## Kobalt (Mar 22, 2020)

Johnny!

Ironically enough, your video about Cakewalk is what really got me into trying it in the first place, coming from Studio One 2 myself. I didn't feel like paying to upgrade to 4, as I didn't see the need or justification to purchase and own it.

Cakewalk is weird because it's free and yet it's fully featured and like you I just absolutely love the way it works; it's very modular, the ProChannel and its stock plugins are nothing short of sweet, etc...but it's ABSOLUTELY riddled with bugs. I actually get A LOT of blue screens of death on my laptop with it. But since it's free and I don't want to pay, I stick to it, it works for me regardless.

I'd honestly go for Studio One 4, in your position. I think you require a stable platform to do your work in, and it helps that you feel right at home in it. Yeah, if the mix doesn't come up as good, you might have to fiddle with it more, but like it was said above, being able to get shit done without worrying about something screwing up is a priority in your case.


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## shnizzle (Mar 22, 2020)

trem licking said:


> Have you participated in the cakewalk forums at all? They are really prompt with replies and bug fixes if you tell them what is going on



yes, i did roam about on the forums and posted about bugs, even opened a support ticket at one point. but so far i don´t see a lot of improvement overall. some bugs get fixed, new bugs pop up. i want to like it, i really do. but at this point it´s sadly more frustrating than inspiring.



Kobalt said:


> Johnny!
> 
> Ironically enough, your video about Cakewalk is what really got me into trying it in the first place, coming from Studio One 2 myself. I didn't feel like paying to upgrade to 4, as I didn't see the need or justification to purchase and own it.
> 
> ...



good point. though i don´t really do jobs for other musicians anymore, so it´s not like i really require a stable platform. but my nerves certainly do 
just fiddling with S1 v4 i do feel right at home, and it looks great again, unlike v3, imo. i can´t actually go with v2 anymore. ever since some windows update there is this bug that the authorization gets deleted when you turn off the pc. so i´m gonna have to bite the bullet and buy the upgrade. but i think it´s gonna be worth it for me.


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## tender_insanity (Mar 23, 2020)

I've both.

Studio One 4 is really good and I've given it many tries and would love to use it.
The main reasons why I've always gone back to Sonar:

Sound on sound recording option. It's so easy in Sonar and really frustrating not having this in Studio One. 

MIDI editing in Sonar is much better. You can't edit a group of notes to change the length of notes in Studio One like in Sonar (PRV - alt + mouse drag IIRC)
Native bridge for 32bit plugins in Sonar (Hey, I LOVE Kjaerhus Classic plugins)
Studio One has really nice features, too but those things I mentioned are the reasons I use Sonar. 
FWIW I've never had issues with Sonar so i've no idea why I should change the DAW.


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## trem licking (Mar 23, 2020)

yeah studio one doesn't have bridging right? that is a HUUUUUGE deal breaker for me... screwing around with j-bridge isn't hard, but I'd rather not


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## ICSvortex (Mar 24, 2020)

tender_insanity said:


> Native bridge for 32bit plugins in Sonar (Hey, I LOVE Kjaerhus Classic plugins)



I dont know what you're talking about but i have studio one 4 and i can run all my 32 bit plugins natively without any problem...


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## tender_insanity (Mar 24, 2020)

ICSvortex said:


> I dont know what you're talking about but i have studio one 4 and i can run all my 32 bit plugins natively without any problem...



https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-...bit-plugins-in-the-x64-version-of-Studio-One-

I've 64bit Studio One and no 32bit plugin is available without JBridge.

EDIT: https://answers.presonus.com/28380/does-32-bit-vstplugins-will-work-on-studio-one-professional
_
"Studio One 4 is 64-bit only, so 32-bit plug-ins will not work with Studio One 4.
Studio One 3 was the last version that supported 32-bit plug-ins."_


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## ICSvortex (Mar 24, 2020)

tender_insanity said:


> https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-...bit-plugins-in-the-x64-version-of-Studio-One-
> 
> I've 64bit Studio One and no 32bit plugin is available without JBridge.
> 
> ...



that's weird... in my vst folder all 32 plugin show up aswell and when i put them on a track they work.
But maybe that's the plugins that make it work?
I had one instance where i put a 32bit plugin on a track and then there was an error message "studio one 4 only supports 64bit......" but when i restarted the program and tried it again it worked.

But i guess i'll have to try it again today and see whats going on


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## tender_insanity (Mar 24, 2020)

ICSvortex said:


> that's weird... in my vst folder all 32 plugin show up aswell and when i put them on a track they work.
> But maybe that's the plugins that make it work?
> I had one instance where i put a 32bit plugin on a track and then there was an error message "studio one 4 only supports 64bit......" but when i restarted the program and tried it again it worked.
> 
> But i guess i'll have to try it again today and see whats going on



Yeah, they shouldn't work.


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## Nicki (Mar 24, 2020)

shnizzle said:


> tl;dr
> I really like Cakewalk, but it´s buggy. Studio One is super smooth, but I need to tweak more to get the sound I like. Thoughts?
> 
> So i´m thinking of going back to Studio One. I originally switched to Cakewalk because I really like the mix I got from it´s stock plugins and the pro channel modules. And I wasn´t really happy with a lot of things in Studio One v3. But now v4 is out, so I gave it another go.
> ...



I was a die-hard Cubase user until it was time to upgrade... again. I got really put off by the whole "pay $99" to upgrade to x.5!". There were a bunch of features in Cubase pro that I could have made use of but the price was just to much for me to afford so I stuck with CUbase Artist 7 long after it ran out of support. When I started looking around for a new DAW, I tried out a few like Reaper, Harrison Mixbus and Studio One. While Reaper was highly customizable and cheap, it's biggest detractor to me was it's level of customization. It would have led me into option paralysis and I would have spent more time customizing it than I would have making music. I also didn't like it's approach of being fully-functional vs. fully-featured like other DAWs are and having to supplement the features that Reaper lacks with third party plugins. The plugins I would have had to buy to get the features I needed in Reaper would have ended up costing more than buying an upgrade of Cubase. Mixbus was cool and sounded really great but the workflow was a little jarring to get used to having come from Cubase so I ended up not liking it.

Ultimately I went with Studio One. I tried out the free version (which was incredibly limiting to say the least) but it felt like "home" and I had a quick mix using some pre-recorded loops done in about 15 minutes. I got the crossgrade price of $200 which was the total after a sale + crossgrade promotion. I absolutely LOVE working in Studio One. Before I bought it, I did more research on PreSonus and found out that Studio One was created by the original Cubase team which explained why it just felt like I was able to be productive right out of the gate. It's also worth mentioning that Studio One is an all-in-one solution in that you can mix AND master using the software. I'll likely never switch to another DAW now since Studio One's upgrade prices are much more affordable than Cubase and I can create mixes much more easily than I ever could in Cubase. Studio One is a much more user-friendly and intuitive DAW than anything else I've tried, with the exception of GarageBand.



fantom said:


> I demoed Cubase and Studio One, and despite the lack of a good midi interface in Studio One, I was impressed that everything was stable and just worked. I didn't even have to bounce VST tracks anymore. The lack of a midi staff editor drives me nuts, and Notion is worse than Guitar Pro, but I no longer fear working in a DAW.



Studio One 4 does have a MIDI staff editor. It's easy to use, but I do agree that Cubase's MIDI editor is much better.


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## Prince Acheampong (Apr 24, 2020)

Studio one


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## fantom (May 3, 2020)

Nicki said:


> Studio One 4 does have a MIDI staff editor. It's easy to use, but I do agree that Cubase's MIDI editor is much better.



Sorry for delayed response... But can you please find a screenshot or anything showing a staff editor? Because I cannot find it. I would love to be stupid here. Official docs only mention pattern, piano roll, and percussion views.

One of the top 10 feature request since 2015
https://answers.presonus.com/3643/basic-score-editor-intergrated-into-studio-one-really-needed

The top feature request as of today is articulation editor (seems pretty obvious this should exist)
https://answers.presonus.com/3240/articulation-editor

Other people who also can't find the thing you say exists within the last 2 years:
https://answers.presonus.com/34823/score-editor-in-studio-one-prof
https://answers.presonus.com/28436/studio-one-in-favour-of-midi-compositions


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## fantom (May 3, 2020)

tender_insanity said:


> I've both.
> 
> Studio One 4 is really good and I've given it many tries and would love to use it.
> The main reasons why I've always gone back to Sonar:
> ...



The sound on sound recording feature is effectively covered by the Studio One layers and comping workflow. Watch the tutorial on their website.

Also, native bridge in sonar for me was always a 50/50 shot at crashing the software.


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## Aewrik (May 4, 2020)

fantom said:


> Sorry for delayed response... But can you please find a screenshot or anything showing a staff editor? Because I cannot find it. I would love to be stupid here. Official docs only mention pattern, piano roll, and percussion views.


https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-...3-Notion-and-Studio-One-Integration-Explained

It's in the top answer in one of the links you sent. Works alright, but can seriously spaz out sometimes.


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## fantom (May 4, 2020)

Aewrik said:


> https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-...3-Notion-and-Studio-One-Integration-Explained
> 
> It's in the top answer in one of the links you sent. Works alright, but can seriously spaz out sometimes.



I'm aware of the Notion integration. TBH, the integration sucks. Notion also isn't very usable to me. It takes the same approach as Finale, Sibelius, MuseScore, etc. It assumes you want to transcribe something you already know you want to write, like copying a book. I want to quickly edit inside a measure without worrying about formatting the surrounding notes. TuxGuitar, Guitar Pro, and Sonar all allow this type of editing.


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## Nicki (May 4, 2020)

fantom said:


> I'm aware of the Notion integration. TBH, the integration sucks. Notion also isn't very usable to me. It takes the same approach as Finale, Sibelius, MuseScore, etc. It assumes you want to transcribe something you already know you want to write, like copying a book. I want to quickly edit inside a measure without worrying about formatting the surrounding notes. TuxGuitar, Guitar Pro, and Sonar all allow this type of editing.


It's the Piano roll editor. Just double click on the track on the area you want to edit.


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## fantom (May 4, 2020)

Nicki said:


> It's the Piano roll editor. Just double click on the track on the area you want to edit.



Piano roll is not a staff editor. Is it that hard to consider that some people are more productive using sheet music over piano rolls? Would you rather read a tab or a piano roll? Same difference.


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## Aewrik (May 4, 2020)

fantom said:


> Piano roll is not a staff editor. Is it that hard to consider that some people are more productive using sheet music over piano rolls? Would you rather read a tab or a piano roll? Same difference.



It's not hard at all..! You know the capabilities of Studio One and considering how every sale is pushed with a Notion bundle at the front, things aren't looking up for you anytime soon. If you want an "inline" staff editor, it seems you'll have to make Cubase work for you somehow.

If you can make the time to learn Notion, it's just fine, both for entering and editing notation. The same goes for Sibelius (well...) and MuseScore.

It'll be cool when/if Studio one gets a staff display in the edit view, but it will probably be dependent/building on the Notion way of work, which probably won't solve your gripes with the user experience. One can always hope for something better, though.


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## Winspear (May 4, 2020)

fantom said:


> I'm aware of the Notion integration. TBH, the integration sucks. Notion also isn't very usable to me. It takes the same approach as Finale, Sibelius, MuseScore, etc. It assumes you want to transcribe something you already know you want to write, like copying a book. I want to quickly edit inside a measure without worrying about formatting the surrounding notes. TuxGuitar, Guitar Pro, and Sonar all allow this type of editing.



Can you elaborate? Extensive Sibelius user here who doesn't see that much difference to working in Tux/GP. Deleting a note puts a rest in its place, notes can be dragged up and down, etc. I really can't see a difference or what could be improved for flexibility to make editing easier* - I'm curious.
*That said you should try the trial of Dorico, perhaps you would enjoy it. You can by default enter notes anywhere along the bars grid, and it will correct the notation for you adding rests etc. Somewhat similar to the approach I have sometimes taken in GP/Sibelius of pre-filling out a bar with 16th note rests - but less clunky.
Still, nothing to do with DAW so sorry for derailing the discussion. Just curious what you're after


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## bostjan (May 4, 2020)

I've tried six or seven DAW's, but definitely use Studio One the most. Cakewalk did not impress me, except for its MIDI interface being a little better than average.

I mean, often times in life, we are given several non-ideal options and forced to make a choice. If the MIDI interface is a big deal for you, probably don't use S1, since it is less than ideal in that field. For whatever reason, I find ancient 1990's software to be far more intuitive when it comes to editing MIDI. With a potential MIDI 2.0 or MIDI overhaul in process, though, maybe the most prudent option would be to sit and wait until things get back to "normal," and there is a new layout.


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## decoy205 (May 4, 2020)

I went and bought studio One 4 seems great so far.


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## Nicki (May 5, 2020)

fantom said:


> Piano roll is not a staff editor. Is it that hard to consider that some people are more productive using sheet music over piano rolls? Would you rather read a tab or a piano roll? Same difference.



If that wasn't what you were looking for, you could have just said so instead of providing a rude reply.

I'll still offer a different solution, though it's much more manual and may not be conducive to your workflow, but you could export the midi track, then import it to an editor of your choice, make your adjustments, then re-import it into Studio One. You might even be able to do what you want with Notion, but just don't know how. You may want to contact PreSonus support and ask them.


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## fantom (May 5, 2020)

Winspear said:


> Can you elaborate? Extensive Sibelius user here who doesn't see that much difference to working in Tux/GP. Deleting a note puts a rest in its place, notes can be dragged up and down, etc. I really can't see a difference or what could be improved for flexibility to make editing easier* - I'm curious.
> *That said you should try the trial of Dorico, perhaps you would enjoy it. You can by default enter notes anywhere along the bars grid, and it will correct the notation for you adding rests etc. Somewhat similar to the approach I have sometimes taken in GP/Sibelius of pre-filling out a bar with 16th note rests - but less clunky.
> Still, nothing to do with DAW so sorry for derailing the discussion. Just curious what you're after



I tend to write top down within a measure. So I want to be able to identify things near the beat and enter a note with a specific duration anywhere in the measure in any order. I do not want to write left to right. This is probably similar to writing drum parts. Enter the snare and kick basic part first, then add elaborations and off beat parts. Yes, the piano roll is better for this, but it is quicker for me to find notes on a staff than the piano roll.

As for Dorico, I looked into once. It is not designed for people wanting to do midi editing. I rather use guitar pro with a worse render than move to something focused on engraving. My main issue is I don't want to go in and out of a daw to edit midi and constantly import parts. I want to make changes while hearing the record guitar parts.



Nicki said:


> If that wasn't what you were looking for, you could have just said so instead of providing a rude reply.
> 
> I'll still offer a different solution, though it's much more manual and may not be conducive to your workflow, but you could export the midi track, then import it to an editor of your choice, make your adjustments, then re-import it into Studio One. You might even be able to do what you want with Notion, but just don't know how. You may want to contact PreSonus support and ask them.



I will look at if this is possible in notion again. I couldn't figure it out before. If they really want notion to be used by S1 users, they need to ARA it into S1 instead of import / export.

As far as being rude, was I? From my point of view, my very first response was telling the OP there is no staff view and the midi workflow is lacking compared to Sonar and Cubase particularly due to the lack of a staff editor. I never once mentioned piano roll. From there on, I've been told I am 1) wrong 2) not using a good workflow 3) notion integration is good enough 4) I'm rude for being trolled.

Take it for what is worth, but please reread the posts I've made and let me know how I'm not being trolled or misunderstood repeatedly. The point of my post was to help the OP make a choice. I think this conversation might help with that, but at the same time, not sure any new information is being provided by people saying this isn't a problem.


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## bostjan (May 5, 2020)

fantom said:


> I tend to write top down within a measure. So I want to be able to identify things near the beat and enter a note with a specific duration anywhere in the measure in any order. I do not want to write left to right. This is probably similar to writing drum parts. Enter the snare and kick basic part first, then add elaborations and off beat parts. Yes, the piano roll is better for this, but it is quicker for me to find notes on a staff than the piano roll.



I think this just further adds to the confusion. What's stopping anyone from using the piano roll or percussion roll that way? How is a staff going to be any different in that regard?


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## fantom (May 5, 2020)

bostjan said:


> I think this just further adds to the confusion. What's stopping anyone from using the piano roll or percussion roll that way? How is a staff going to be any different in that regard?



Maybe it is more confusing to you. Cakewalk supported this for 25+ years. I find it far easier to work this way. It is something that is limiting in other products. Take it for what it is worth. I just want the OP to know this is one of the things I miss from Sonar and that Presonus and many of their users do not see it as something S1 or Notion should fix. It is a recurring issue where people think the workflow isn't useful and therefore don't understand why someone else could ever want it. MuseScore's author has been notorious for telling people to change their workflow instead of listening to user feature requests. See his response in https://musescore.org/en/node/11029

And as you mentioned, the piano roll can accomplish my workflow, just takes more screen real estate and is not as quick as a staff view (for me).

This is getting way off topic. Other workflow improvements and stability make Studio One the better DAW for me. Even with my frustration around midi editing, I'm more productive in S1 than in Sonar. That's the part I want the OP to see.


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## Winspear (May 6, 2020)

Gotcha. I understand, and indeed I too would prefer to take a MIDI editor approach but with a staff view. 
All I can recommend is the rests trick I mentioned - to flesh out bars with 16th rests first at which point it becomes pretty easy to jump into the bar at any point. 
Did Cakewalk change this? Shame


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## fantom (May 6, 2020)

Definitely will try the rest trick. Sounds pretty obvious now. Thanks for that tip!

Cakewalk didn't change anything. The staff layout just got buggy over time. It is still functional though.


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## KingAenarion (May 6, 2020)

If you like the Pro Channel stuff from Cakewalk for sound, Overloud Tapedesk is the plugin version.


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## shnizzle (May 10, 2020)

wow, i´m out for a few days and come back to some awesome discussions here. cool stuff, folks. fwiw i did switch back to Studio One and bought the upgrade to v4 as it was on sale last month. no regrets. love it.


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## shnizzle (May 10, 2020)

wow, i´m out for a few days and come back to some awesome discussions here. cool stuff, folks. fwiw i did switch back to Studio One and bought the upgrade to v4 as it was on sale last month. no regrets. love it.


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## fantom (Jul 8, 2020)

So bumping this...

I didn't buy the upgrade just yet. But it looks like Studio One 5 added the score editor, mpe, and keyswitching. It also looks like they did it wysiwyg and not like Notion/Finale/Sibelius. I'll definitely look into it more, but Cubase just lost its appeal to me (well, except Cubasis is on android and studio one still isn't). I am looking forward to my next chunk of free time now!


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