Questions & Answers

Ability to save in previous versions

+20 votes
2,426 views
asked Jul 15, 2020 in Editing by benotcervelli (1,020 points)
Hi,

With Sphere you are selling us a big community of exchange. But given that not every Studio One user will become a member of Sphere, or even upgrade to v5, it would be logical to make possible the export to previous version. Particularly for those who would cancel their membership and go back to their perpetual licence in... v4.

The retro compatibility exists in a lot of softwares (I use Sibelius v7.5 and can export back to v1).

6 Answers

+1 vote
answered Jul 18, 2020 by Lukas Ruschitzka (258,430 points)
selected Nov 21, 2020 by Lukas Ruschitzka
 
Best answer

Thank you for the feature request. 

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+2 votes
answered Jul 19, 2020 by benotcervelli (1,020 points)
I can understand that some people are not interested in my question, but how can some vote against it, and without any explanation?
0 votes
answered Jul 19, 2020 by benreaves (11,380 points)

I sort of understand what you mean. I have never wanted to go back to an older version (I myself have upgraded my perpetual license without Sphere), but it's been a mainstay of Studio One that newer versions with new features (even if there was a major update like 3.5 or 4.5) cannot save files directly compatible with older forms of the software. For some reasons, that is impossible to work around, for instance features like Multi Instruments, audio routing Splitter, and the Chord track simply do not exist in Studio One 2.4, so saving a backward compatible file would remove those features. An Aux channel could be converted to a normal audio track, but many other features simply do not exist in older versions, so undoubtedly newer versions saving incompatible formats is simpler for everyone to understand and eliminates the need for people to understand what features were introduced between which versions to know what will be erased when they convert down. Microsoft Office warns the user of this when they save an older format which is incapable of describing newer formatting options.

All that said, Studio One primarily works with information in XML format, so it's entirely possible to identify which features do not exist in older formats of .song files, and erase them, at the same time spoofing the version of Studio One the .song file was built with, so the file would actually load in older versions. The issue is, I'm not sure how often this actually comes up. Since I deal with perpetual licensing, I have all versions I own of Studio One installed, and should I need to go back to an old file that I don't want to upgrade to a v5 format, I just do that in the old version and avoid upconverting it. That in mind, I never want to do any of that, because the newer editing features from v3 to 3.5 to 4 to 5 are so much better that I would rather upconvert and keep working. I have never had to deal with others using older versions, because the new versions have thus far always been such improvements that if I did work with other S1 users, they're upgrading too.

Now, I am upvoting this because it is a decent premise for a feature request, and folks shouldn't be downvoting solely because it looks like a lament for user error. XML can be edited, and this is possible to do, just probably not yet a common problem for Studio One users--not that it couldn't become one, like the product segmentation Avid created with all those prohibitively expensive Pro Tools upgrades different people would wait different lengths of time to buy. I don't think PreSonus has that problem yet, but could encounter it if they aren't prolific in their market study and development.

+1 vote
answered Jul 20, 2020 by Awake1994 (2,040 points)
Yes, this is with every .0 or .5 update strange. I we collaborate with others like I do all have to update to the same (newest) version. It's also not possible to import tracks from song when the song is saved with a newer version.

Logic, PT, Cubase can do it since legends.
+1 vote
answered Jul 20, 2020 by benotcervelli (1,020 points)

Thanks for the answers.

I did not know that it was XML based, and it seems to be a possibility to explore. Specially for Presonus teams.

It is definitely not a lament, and I do insist on the fact that people seems to not clearly understand that Sphere membership is an long term devil obligation without that feature. It's not a question of choice to upgrade or not, because Sphere don't give us that choice no more.

I use v4.6. If I use Sphere (for Studio One, Notion and all the ressources) I will work with v5 and up (if not why to upgrade?). Same for the musicians I collaborate with. If I/we stop Sphere next year I/we will loose the ability to work on my/our projects because of the non back compatibility with my/our v4.6 . If XML based, I/we should a minima have the ability to open any Studio One project back in v4.6 (and earlier), as simply as everyone can export XML from Notion and works in any other score software. 

Of course there will be some troubles with plugins and vsti, but there must be something acceptable between a perfect retro compatibility and a MIDI export. And as says Awake1994 : Logic, PT, Cubase can do it since legends.

(add to this the fact that there is no more crossgrade to Notion (if a SO Pro user wants to use it he has to pay full price), I'm afraid of that 180° change the of Presonus "spirit" I loved : Music is our life. PreSonus is our day job... with a Sphere "obligation" (through an every 3 days connection!) begins a new era...)

+2 votes
answered Nov 19, 2020 by raulcabralfrana1 (1,230 points)
I totally support this request.

In my case, I own Studio One 5, which grants me 5 activations. However, I have to do all the tracking in a Windows 8.1 system (which does not support Studio One 5, and is running version 3), and all the mixing in Studio One 5. I tried every way to update the older system to Windows 10, but it failed, and my hope shifted to the possibility of retro compatibility.

If I had the ability to work on the same project from both Studio One 3 and 5, I would run the project from an external drive during the tracking stage, which would allow me to go back and forth seamlessly between my systems. The loss of newer features wouldn't bother me, since I am just recording stuff, but it would do miracles for my workflow.
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