With a hardware midi interface this plugin can send to the same midi port as does Studio One thus allowing this plugin to also communicate with your synth at the same time. Instrument like definitions can be set up in a very similar way through this. Scroll right to the bottom for Rea Control Midi This handles auditioning and loading of synth banks. Easily installs and operates within Studio One. Once I practiced a bit and figured it out. The ability to click and stretch or lasso any section on the timeline and move it any where you want on the timeline combined with SONAR's latest audio take lane comp editing improvements makes composing and arranging a song quick and easy to place verse, chorus, and bridge sections exactly where I want them and shorten or stretch them out is mind blowing easy. The new MIDI editing features added in the past year are not only a major break through in editing and composition, in my opinion where a great leap forward for the most useful workflow improvements since Cakewalk added an arpeggio module to every MIDI track.
So maybe it could be wiser to explore and learn how to use the features SONAR has that you haven't already before starting from scratch with another DAW. And truth be told, SONAR has been awarded the most MEPA awards several years in a row for developing the most feature rich DAW in the world. The learning curve involved by switching DAW's could set you back years in productivity. Believe me, now matter what it is, the BEST DAW in the world is the DAW you are most familiar with. I stopped using and experimenting with Cubase SX, because I noticed Cakewalk could always do anything Cubase could do, it just does it differently. The Roland sequencer only had 100,000 MIDI note capacity per song and songs where stored on floppy discs, a Windows computer had unlimited MIDI note capacity per song and songs where stored on a hard drive.
Pro Tools had zero MIDI editing support, just simple MMC and MTC support. Back in the days when I was using and syncing it to Pro Tools simply as a MIDI sequencer running on a Windows computer to replace my Roland MC 500. I think Cakewalk had always had powerful MIDI features and made really nice and obviously unnoticed improvements along the way from day one. I am sure there are also entries in the fixes and enhancement sections too.
Most of the releases from the first half of 2017 highlighted some MIDI development. Maybe not the changes you wanted but it was receiving development time. There were quite a few changes to the MIDI side of SONAR last year. but the reality is that Cake has not put a lot into the midi side of the software for sometime. Scook MacFurse I guess I'm tongue in check suggesting it get dropped.