I have an off the wall question.
I recently purchased a new Presonus studio 24 which comes with a nice software bundle (Studio One) If I upgrade to Studio One Pro I get mastering sofware bundled together with the recording software for a seemless work flow. I also have Cubse 4 and was debating to upgrade to 6.5 as well being the reviews I have read on Studio One are quite promissing. Has anyone compared the Studio One Pro against Cubase 6.5 and Wavelab 7 and what are your findings?
I own Studio One 2 Producer. And I also have Wavelab 6 Essential. IMHO- there is nothing that rivals the workflow of Wavelab. Besides it’s integrated tools it is a host for other mastering programs.(I use T-Racks Deluxe and Alloy, etc.) Wavelab’s metering tools are second to none. I’m going to upgrade to Wavelab Elements 7.
I also moved to Studio One (Professional) and WL is now on life support over here. It only gets used for more esoteric, occasional functions. But for the most part - I totally agree with you that the workflow in WL 6 was superb. However - WL7 can be - dependent on how your brain works - a most frustrating experience that cannot compete with the speed of how 6 was designed.
I say - each to their own but Studio One easily bests WL in the workflow department for my use (Voiceover, spot production/sound design). And as far as true “mastering” would go - say for assembling a CD or what have you - I find S1’s mastering module to be much easier to use and much more productive “workflow-wise” that the WL montage (which for me personally is still a total clunkfest that I will never overcome 
Agreed! WL 7 is a cluttered mess. Whats with all the tiny fonts and VST GUI’s?!
One person’s frank opinion - WL7 for me on OSX is one of the most frustrating experiences in my life. Particularly for running multiple montages with fairly complex clip situations and effects, it crashes repeatedly. Its obviously because of 3rd party VST integration, but the weird part is that Steinberg wrote the VST protocol and should be able to manage coding non-compliance from 3rd party providers. Instead the program crashes repeatedly under heavy strain of standard Waves or Lexicon plugs. IMHO Philippe has been excellent in trying to respond to issues in this forum, but it is clear that Steinberg does not staff Wavelab properly, as it seems to be a one-man show. I understand he can’t do absolutely everything and there’s a limit to tracking bugs, but if I wasn’t so deeply in the middle of a set of projects using WL7, I honestly would suggest finding other options…
Perhaps under Windows, or using basic audio editing it may work fine, but for me its a headache…
I’m a Mac user as well and I absolutely couldn’t agree with you more. I recently switched to Wavelab because BIAS went out of business which meant no more Peak. I used to complain about frustration with Peak, but this is honestly a whole other level. I was a Wavelab user on Windows back in the 3.x days and it was sufficient for me, but my setups and projects have become much more complex since then. I also can’t fathom why I would have VST plugins that work great in everything else, but don’t function in Wavelab. My analysis suite for example doesn’t display at all in Wavelab.
Steinberg certainly doesn’t staff Wavelab properly if it has one person doing everything. I appreciate the help that PG has given me on the Wavelab bug I found, but honestly it’s still in the program and it affects my workflow. It’s irritating to me that software companies have turned the world in to their beta testers when we have paid good money for their software. When you buy a piece of software you expect that the functionality that exists within the application actually functions as expected. If you are a hobbyist or someone who only opens the program once every couple of months then fine, but if you are someone who counts on your software on a daily basis it’s completely unacceptable.
Now that I have bought in to Wavelab will I upgrade in the future? I’m not sure at this point. I haven’t spent a great deal of time in WL7 because of the bug that I found. I am certainly going to give it a fair review before writing it off completely, I have a copy of DSP-Quattro as a backup as well. We’ll see how it goes.
Great post everyone, It looks like stay with WL6. Studio One Pro software. I just purchased Cubase 6.5 which is an excellent suite but may consider upgrading to Studio One Pro.
Again in defence of PG and WL. Its an indispensable tool - something that no other software currently does well. The montage concept is unique and kind of essential to my work. That’s the frustration. On the Mac side though it is not stable enough, or if this is stable then the standards have fallen. My frustration is with the shortcomings that seem to arise from the lack of dedicated staff working on the software and this seems to be the reason the OSX version is not stable enough, the GUI not integrated enough, and the documentation clearly lacking… Just my 2c.
Lack of dedicated staff is a bit of a bold assumption, unless anyone here really knows how many people work on WL - and even then, the number of people is not very relevant. WL7 is the first version for Mac (after years of requests for it) and I think stability issues there may come from that fact. Shouldn’t be an excuse maybe. The GUI is completely redesigned from earlier versions - to the frustration of many existing users - so that was a design choice, possibly with Mac in mind even. About the lack of documentation, you’re totally right.
It’s very relevant if the product costs $600.00.
At that price point - I expect a staff and expect expedient service. That said - to me - still seems that WL is created (and maintained) by a staff of one - PG.
His is the only name mentioned (authored by) in the WL About dialog…so unless there a boat load of people on this project who get no name recognition whatsoever - PG seems to be it.
VP
My point is, that if the product is A-OK and problems are quickly addressed, it could be one guy working only thursdays on it - I couldn’t care less. Ofcourse, it seems that PG is the only one, but check the Cubase forums - lots and lots of problems (from the number of posts and number of users complaining) and a big staff, I assume…
Speaking logically… occupational habit 
- A decent comparison would require an extensive breakdown of pros & cons
- What one user would consider a “pro” could easily become a “con” for the next user e.g. C6.5 → extensive MIDI capability.
- Bottom line - what do YOU actually want to achieve?
I’ve used Studio One and yes I agree that due to its slim-down design, it allows some tasks to be faster than on Cubase, but there are some things it simply is completely unable to do. For some this may be acceptable, others not.
As for the reliability issue of WL7 - my skepticism is based on the fact that for the years that I’ve checked in on this forum, there were always some users experiencing way more grief than others.
I don’t doubt that there pain was real, but I’m not convinced that these issues are solely WL or Cubase, but rather a combination of factors. …logically speaking of course 
I had a classic situation where I posted to this board about the file selection prompt in audio montage on OSX. When I wanted to add another file, the file section browser window would freeze, the ball would keep spinning and the drive directories would not refresh. It was super annoying and would be a deal breaker if I was demoing the program.
I wrote to the board about it. PG wrote that it must be my computer, and not the software. There was no other resources available to bug check.
Another user wrote to the board and found his own solution: the problem was that the various ‘looks’ available in display settings were not properly coded, such that if you selected ‘plastique’ or ‘clean’ it would create the issue described above. I followed the user’s advice and the problem was quickly solved.
My issue in June not resolved:
And this user-derived resolution:
All this to say that niche issues (how many users are on OSX deep into montage projects and using another display ‘look’) are sometime disregarded as user-specific problems, brushing aside the fact that the software is still (in my opinion) not fully bug-free at all at least on the OSX side! No doubt PG is working overtime on this program. But totally legitimate questions about Steinberg’s commitment to this program remain…