Hey guys, I'm usually a lurker here, and I love this site to bits, so if you're about to throw me under a bus, go easy there cowboy!
This isn't a shitpost. But I need to know that surely I'm not the only one noticing this.

Having heard so many convincing things praising STUDIO ONE over the years, I decided to seriously move over to it from CAKEWALK/BANDLAB 5 months ago. "Made for musicians, by musicians!". YOUTUBE is loaded with these "Reasons why i'm changing to STUDIO ONE" type endorsement vids, and I took the bait. Working in it, It seemed pretty easy and intuitive, so I had no problem doing the basics from the first day.

But, I also found a lot of annoying things that I stupidly spent months persevering with, hoping I could fix them eventually once I was more versed in it's settings etc. Pfft! No mate, It's not me.. It's STUDIO ONE!

For instance: VST scanning times and FX loading times.
Seriously, there's something wrong with STUDIO ONE here. In CAKEWALK you can load any VST type effect and its up and working in a split second. Even WAVES VST3'S load instantly, but I found in STUDIO ONE, there's a long wait... What's it doing in those wait times? It was woeful compared to what I was used to in CAKEWALK.
VST scans at startup in CAKEWALK are not too painful. It will skip previously scanned files to save time, if you want. I found that STUDIO ONE didn't give me that choice. And I found it to seemingly pause for extended times on WAVES effects and a couple of other big brands, I forgot who..

Sample rate versatility: Working with projects that were done in various SAMPLE RATES is usually seamless in CAKEWALK. STUDIO ONE puts up a fight if it's different to the default rate.

But, the main reason I'm back to CAKEWALK is because STUDIO ONE is unstable. I lost so many hours of work from it crashing on me regularly. It was usually because of a VST, but the same VST's run fine in CAKEWALK. Seems that STUDIO ONE can't handle a lot of different VST effects out there. It doesn't freeze, it vanishes! Then apologizes next time you load it again. It crashes on some of the biggest names in VST's. It banned quite a few too, including Izotope VST's (weird) but say every 10th plugin would choke it to death!

So many more problems to mention, but I forget off hand..
So I gave up. I need a professional workflow, I can't afford to spend another day in STUDIO ONE.
Back in CAKEWALK, it's stable, I can throw it huge files and large FX chains and it doesn't flinch.

I've worked with most Windows based DAWs for over 30 years. Cubase, Reaper, Protools, whatever.. I started on an Atari ST in the late 80's. I've worked on Mac based DAWS for years too. They were all frustrating in some respect, and impossible in others, but STUDIO ONE seems to lack a robustness that other DAWs have. So, save yourself months of fucking around with it, and stick to what you already use.
cheers

If you're wondering. I'm using:
Windows 11
Gigabyte Z690I AORUS ULTRA LITE DDR4
13600k
32gig DDR4
All SSD and NVME's etc
Focusrite scarlett 18i20

 

YouTube is just QVC by a different name these days. Every product is better than the last and you need all of them to stay relevant and happy!

Anyway, it's fine! Use whatever works best for you. If the only reason you're feeling like you're missing out is because some YouTuber is telling you you're missing out, then you're not missing out.

 

Cakewalk is one of the most – if not the most – technically sophisticated DAWs for Windows. It introduced a lot of features that are common across the DAWs today. It's just that the UI or the whole workflow can be a bit awkward at times. But if you're already familiar with it and don't miss anything there, chances are high, you won't find a better DAW that fits you.

 

Hey man, I admit I am a bit of a Studio One evangelist, as I came from a severely limited FL Studio setup - I also tried other daws and nothing 'clicked'.

All my VSTs (I use hundreds) load instantly, and my plugin scan lasts a bit over 1 minute (you shouldn't be doing this on every startup anyway). Never had an issue working with different sample rates either.

I do admittedly have the occasional crash, but that's most often due to me doing something unusual, or using a buggy 3rd party VST.

The workflow of Studio One is truly unparalleled. I would suggest giving it a chance, and figuring out what the issue may be. Is your setup using the main graphics card to render Studio One? I had issues with this in the past, may or may not help.

The support team of Presonus is pretty fantastic, and I have even suggested features to them which they implemented. Don't give up hope yet! Hope you manage to figure things out.

 

I began with Cakewalk and really found nothing more FUN until I got into FL Studio.
I still didn't find anything BETTER until I got into Reaper.
Certain things drive me crazy with Studio One, but some of those drove me crazy with Cakewalk as well.
Wasted space that can't be adjusted, things that seemingly can't be done, etc.
Reaper can't correct everything, but I find it much less annoying.
I thought that Cakewalk (Sonar) had plenty of issues over the years, and I have not used Cakewalk's current version enough to know (from experience or from browsing forums).

 

I've been using Studio One for over a decade and you've reminded me of things I used to hate but have learned to live with. I've tried various other DAWS and I can honestly say there isn't one I love, they're all annoying in their own way. I'm still in a bad mood since Logic moved to Mac only all those years ago. All we can do is use the DAW we hate the least.

 

If someone did something 30+ years he's most likely too lazy (or too old) to change his mind. Retirement is near, Dude!

 

Last edited: May 20, 2023

you not going to run into many issues in Cakewalk its a mature daw it's been out so long thats why its so stable studio one is still a baby when it comes to maturity with stableness

 

I don't know any DAW that can turn bad ideas, lack of skills and bad taste into something good...
Am I missing anything?

 

Last edited: May 20, 2023

"Not a shitpost" with a title like that LMAO!!! If you need to specify its not a shit post, its probably a shit post. This is not a shit comment!

 

it's funny you mention that, because years back when I decided to leave Cakewalk Sonar, primarily because I needed multiplatform (Windows+MacOS) DAW, I was choosing between Studio One (version 3 that time) and Reaper (version 4 that time I think), and ultimately picked Reaper for stability/reliability reasons, and now years later I'm glad my choice was right

 

i agree with some fellas saying vst scanner taking long time specially for the ones with alot of plugins in their arsenal

( i have 1140 VSTi plugins + 100 FX plugins = 1240 ) and im sure you guys have more since we are hoarding everything hehehe

with time i got used to the scan time opening studio one let it scan while i make a coffie/tea/or even quick sandwich
before start producing


i read somewhere that to speed up scanning we must get rid of libraries/hugh presets in
omnisphere/sylenth/ but im against removing anything as im happy with what i have

 

Win10 SOne 6 here. Mate, something must be wrong with your system.
Scan on startup doesn't take more than 7 seconds if no new plugins are installed, it never crashed or hanged on me once for 4 years I use this line of DAWs, only plugins with heavy .png interface or tons of samples inside take time to load, and I suspect this is due to HDD more than anything else. It runs stable even when I push the CPU way beyond realtime capabilities with heavy processing. It never blacklisted or not recognized anything to boot.
Granted I don't use waevs, let alone slaet or even worse shit makers.
Regarding samplerate - it converts every audio file to the project's samplerate, is that what you called "putting up a fight"? Iunno what your workflow is, but I barely ever had to use files with different samplerates inside one project. It does convert .mp3 files to .wav, which is a bit annoying.

 

I want to listen to your music.

 

Chill bro.. Studio One works fine here

 

I thought I would add my 10 pence in here.

I too am using Studio One 6 Pro (legit) with approx 950 VSTi Plugins and 230 FX plugins and I dont see many of the issues you have mentioned well just one to be honest I get the odd crash now and then but thats just probably me being impatient with things or some of the free VSTi I have but its certainly not something that is frequent or causes me a major headache.

I dont have Studio One scanning at StartUp as there is not point but when I add something new be it VSTi or FX I just do the manual scan and it flies through, no issues at all, it literally takes about a minute if that.

Loading VSTi or FX Plugins are pretty much instant no delays at all

I dont have issues with multi sample rates either.

Maybe try and raise a support ticket.

I own every DAW legit apart from 2 (Pro Tools and Cakewalk) and have tried them all over the years and Studio One is my go too DAW of choice.

I thought Cakewalk was a thing of the past maybe I have missed something BUT I guess the thing is it doesnt matter what DAW you use, just use the one that you get a along with the most and gets the most creativness out of you friend.

Good luck

 

I gotta say, I'm intrigued too

Back to the topic, I agree with the people who says Studio One scanning isn't that long. I haven't used latest versions enough to talk about stability and other things. But I've never considered it especially slow. And with that rocket of a PC of yours.

Maybe like some suggested it's about huge libs in some VSTis...

 

I hope you all know that VST scanning when Studio one is starting can be disabled...
I manually launch it only when I install new Plugins




website free best

 

Last edited: May 20, 2023

So, i guess Cakewalk is your bag of di*ks?

 

All DAWs (and other software using VST plugins) scan the plugins the one or the other way. And every software needs time for it.
Some Softwares like Ableton live or Blackmagic Resolve use an external little utility in the background to do it. These utilities are often quite CPU consuming and prone to crash.
Most DAWs I know check plugins on the fly. Checking all plugins on start is the most time consuming but the most secure way. Some mark newly installed or changed plugins 'dirty' and only scan those instead of all plugins. This is the best way to handle it time wise, but not as secure as scanning all plugins at startup.

You can look at it any way you want, you somehow buy either speed or safety or stability.

I'm afraid this is not the best solution of handling the issue. One always needs to enable and disable the search manually when you installed/changed/uninstalled a plugin.
And if one forgets to enable plugin search, the DAW will not find new plugins and changed or deleted plugins will not be taken into account.