Today everything is paperless. Companies save on packaging and manuals; if you're lucky, there's a PDF, but usually it's only available online. Service isn't improving; they're simply streamlining wherever they can. Every business student learns the principle at university: profit, profit, profit.

The management class, on the other hand, is well-educated and highly paid, but they've lost all connection to the musician and the user at home. They're trapped in numbers and the pressure to generate profits. It's all about improving quarterly figures and outmaneuvering the competition.

I wish someone would invent a DAW that's bug-free and free. Maybe Elon Musk will have a change of heart and give a few billion dollars to his users as a thank you. I think the Indians would do something like that.

Otherwise, save your treasures and old DAW versions to a physical storage device.

 

They'll ruin it. If not now, in the next couple of years. RIP Studio One.

 

Yep. I predicted this a couple of years ago, but got slammed by all my fellow S1 fanbois and diehards at the time. I totally saw (and continue to observe) another Cakewalk situation unfolding. Gibson didn’t muck up Cakewalk right away; that happened over a 24 - 36 month period. I’ve been a loyal, legit PreSonus Studio One guy since v2, but ever since PreSonus whored themselves out to Fender, I’ve been trying really hard to become equally skilled and comfortable with Reaper, as I had been with Studio One over the last 13 or 14 years.

I’ve customized my personal installation of Reaper quite a lot, and it certainly is a powerful DAW. Nevertheless, Studio One Pro 6.62 is the sweet spot for me. I have a legit (perpetual) ver 7 license too. I decided to use R2R’s original “Fix” though, because even the legit v7 perpetual license requires periodic phone home checks to verify; monthly, I think. I don’t bother with most of the Studio One add-ons and virtual instruments, so I don’t care if some of the extra ‘stuff’ requires activation, just so long as the DAW itself and all the built-in Studio One plugins work.

I’m getting older (getting close to 6 decades old), so I don’t give a hoot about most of the new directions that e-music and modern, experimental ambient sounds seem to take a lot of younger musicians and mixers; I’m mostly still hammering out REAL music tracks, in a traditional audio DAW workflow, just the same as I did with Cakewalk and Cubase 28 years ago - which was not-so-different from my multitrack tape and small mixing desk days . . .LOL. Obviously, I’m not alone, else people like Warren Huart and Dave Pensado wouldn’t have gazillions of followers on YouTube . . . Jus sayin.

I use lots of MIDI in the form of Rhodes and Wurli sample libraries, Horns libraries, and EZ drummer 3 (and Superior Drummer 3). Shoot, one of my latest tracks ended up with EZ Drummer 2 on it. Some of my favourite keyboard sample libraries weigh less than 500 MB and are like 15 years old! So what!? They sounded great then, and still sound great in a mix. For example: all the original Scarbee vintage keys. Precision Sound; Dusty Electric Piano, Hollow Sun; Definitive CP70 Electric Grand.

Especially in North America, and other western civilizations, many people suffer terribly from FOMO (fear of missing out), so upgrading amd updating, and spending new money almost yearly, to enable companies to remain viable is “a thing”. Well, not me! I have no interest in ‘upgrading’ my aging wife, or my old ‘92 Strat, or my older sample libraries. Fender can take a flying leap with their gougey “continous revenue stream” tactics! If my legit licenses for Studio One versions 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 ever fail to activate, I have all the necessary R2R fixes saved away for any rainy day. So there! Old guy rant over.

 

Last edited: Jan 13, 2026 at 9:26 PM

SoGlad I never went down the S1 rabbit hole.

 

A unique characteristic of human species which doesn't exist in animal kingdom: great achievements of intelligent and competent individuals are systematically ruined by incompetent idiots.

Fortunately, the return to Cubase will be greatly facilitated by the disappearance of Syncroshit...

 

Hopefully Fender won't change Studio One's workflow which is the main reason why I still use it after 11 years.