Are there SONAR clubs in your area?

At the Sam Ash store the other day, I noticed the store hosts a monthly ProTools clinic and they have a Cubase club meet at the store monthly.  Does anybody have a sense of the market share?  I wouldn't have thought there would be a lot of hobbyists using proTools, and I couldn't see professional engineers attending this kind of clinic.  I don't personally know anybody using Cubase in my area, but there must be quite a few.
 
I just wonder if anybody participates in or leads such a group for Sonar, and how that is going.  What is a typical session like?
 

 
Regional User Groups Directory
 

What region do you live in?

I'm near Philadelphia. I've never heard of one of these groups, but I would be interested. Fortunately, I have several associates who use sonar and we all have each other here on the forum. That being said, I would gladly host get togethers at my studio if such a group existed. Talking shop can be very educational.

Rochester, NY ... anyone ???
 
 
Regional User Groups Directory

We'd love to help facilitate the creation of these local meet-ups. I am open to suggestions. Obviously it would be hard to coordinate on our end but if there was interest, we could help promote.

Andrew Rossa [Cakewalk]
We'd love to help facilitate the creation of these local meet-ups. I am open to suggestions. Obviously it would be hard to coordinate on our end but if there was interest, we could help promote.

If a retailer like Sam Ash, Guitar Center, or whoever were willing to host a group, do you think it would be possible to arrange a complimentary license for their in-store use?  I'd be happy to take discussions of terms and conditions off-line, but I am just wondering if something like that is a possibility.  I think that would help get them on board.  Basically they are in favor of anything that brings people into their store.  I bet they would donate the use of their studio if they didn't have a cost of setting up the software.  For all I know, they may already have Sonar running in their studio anyway, so it might be a moot point.

AT
Tracy, we have a loose group here.  There was a rep doing monthly meetings at GC that was sparkly (thanks, autocorrect)  attended and we had a few meetings that were mostly hardware related (preamps and such).  Several people came to my place in Dallas to check out Cake hardware I was reviewing, but DFW is spread out.  Most meetings were in the midcities - somewhere between the 2 downtowns.  Make an announcement when you get to town.  It has been a couple years since we had a get together - we need an excuse.
 
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I wonder if it might work to have a little more formality, so that people would have some expectations of what they would get out of each meeting.  I am thinking about a mostly free-flowing session, but each meeting there might be a 20-minute segment exploring a featured plug-in.  Somebody would be assigned responsibility each month to really learn the plug-in and then demonstrate it to others.


I was also thinking that it would be cool if the group would work on one real mix each meeting.  Somebody could come in with raw tracks and then the group would explore ways to get it to more like a polished mix.  Or somebody could bring in a problem mix and let the group see if they could improve it.
 
I was thinking that we might be able to invite a professional studio engineer to each meeting to share some ins and outs.  There are probably 10-15 people in my area who could add something to such a group.  I don't know if any of them would be willing to do this because they may view Sonar users as competitors (although I don't think we are.)  I'd be curious if anybody has done anything like that.

Don,
 
you are out near where most of the meetings took place.  Beagle was out there but he moved, along with another Cake user who has also moved.  There are a couple of people in Dallas, I guess.  Maybe Cake should offer their coffee mugs as a group motivator?
 
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I've run the Digital Musicians User Group in Boston in the past. The sad fact is, the only time where you can reasonably expect a good turn-out is when you have a big-name speaker (we've had one big-name producer and a few Berklee profs). All the other times, there were many empty seats. And we weren't even limited to a single DAW. 
 
For anyone that does go for it, check out Focal Press's user group program. They'll give your group free books to give away each month (and they've got some great audio and music production books, including Bob Katz's seminal "Mastering Audio"). http://www.focalpress.com/usergroups/ They can also put you in touch with authors in your area who might be available to come and speak (which they've done for us).
 
Anyhow, our group fell apart when the company hosting us went belly up. Bakers, if you want to facilitate a user group, I would ardently suggest making it a music production group, rather than a Sonar user group. Then, you'll attract a bigger crowd and, perhaps, gain some new customers, rather than preach to the choir. Make it about music, not about technology, because music will always have a bigger fan base.

Lots of musicians up in Denton.  I don't know about Sonar users.  Don and I talked about getting together.  Maybe we all should form the three stooges Sonar.  Give me a pm and we can exchange emails.
 
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