How come Cakewalk never gets mentioned?

I've looked at plenty of conversations on the internet revolving around Avid and Pro Tools, but Sonar never gets mentioned.
 
Nuendo, Cubase, Logic, Abelton Live, Reaper; all get mentions but nobody brings up Cakewalk Sonar. Why is this? is it simply not as popular or supported by the audio production community? User base is very small? It never comes up and I've been to many articles on DAWs. Any ideas why?

DragonBlood
I've looked at plenty of conversations on the internet revolving around Avid and Pro Tools, but Sonar never gets mentioned.
 
Nuendo, Cubase, Logic, Abelton Live, Reaper; all get mentions but nobody brings up Cakewalk Sonar. Why is this? is it simply not as popular or supported by the audio production community? User base is very small? It never comes up and I've been to many articles on DAWs. Any ideas why?

I think it's more a matter of the type of user base Sonar has.   Pro Tools( Avid is the maker of Pro tools) has the advantage of being firmly entrenched in the major label camp and even more importantly, having the support of music hardware industry.  Early on, Digidesign (former parent company of PT) focused on making high end studio hardware giving PT a monopoly in the pro world.  Although other software makers have caught up and arguably surpassed PT in many areas, it is hard to uproot incumbents.  Reaper gets a lot of press because their pricing structure and unlimited demo makes it very appealing to people seeking free and low-cost solutions.  Other products like Cubase get more mention because of a combination of reputation for innovations that have become standards (Cubase pioneered the VST format that made virtual instruments more practical to use ).  Another thing in Cubase, Ableton, Logic  and even FL STudio's favor is each has well known names in the pop and EDM world .  ABleton also has the extra bump of being the only DAW that is practical to use live, giving it a PR boost among DJ's and live electronic musicians. In addition many of these other DAWs lend themselves more easily to several popular and fad genres.
 
It's not that Sonar does not have innovative features.   There are features Sonar had before other DAWs.  Sonar is also perfectly capable of creating any genre. I think the workflow is simply now what artists in many of these genres are used to so they try Sonar and give up before they learn how to do the exact same thing in Sonar. All DAWs have this issue.  I use Logic too and there are certain things that frustrate me to no end.  Logic has the advantage of OS loyalty and artist endorsement  and it is a great product.  In fact, I rank it with Sonar as far as bang for the buck as far as included tools. Sonar's user base is more blue-collar (based on forum and known users) in the sense that there are some highly skilled and successful people using it but they don't often carry the name recognition of the lstest big name pop-star or superstar producer.  It's very possible (since none of us know the actual sales numbers) that there are just as many units of Sonar sold as there are Pro tools.  In fact, that would not shock me at all.  It's just not going to get the buzz of other products until the perception that the user base is mostly middle aged or older guitarists.  Not saying that in an insulting way since i am middle aged and play some guitar lol.  Just that the tools embraced by pop culture create more buzz regardless of how successful the company actually is.  AVid has been struggling financially for years despite being "the industry leader".

Since I don't know actual sales numbers it is hard to say whether those are affected by OS preference. Logic was cross-platform then with a reputation for being powerful but hard to use. When it comes to mentions/articles, I think Cakewalk, even among PC programs tends to get less buzz.

What audio production community? I had no idea 

UbiquitousBubba
Inaccurate measurements of statistics assumed to indicate popularity are the most important thing, right?

Are you talking about the mid-terms?

quantumeffect
I started with Cakewalk's Pro Audio 6.0 in about 1996.  At the time I didn’t know the first thing about it so; I walked into Sam Ash explained to the sales guy what I wanted to do and asked me if I was using a Macintosh or a PC.  I said PC and went home with Cakewalk.
 
Does the historical PC vs Mac angle have anything to do with Calkwalk’s popularity?  I don’t know the answer to that question but I throw it out for consideration.

I also started in a similar way with Cakewalk. Although none of us could afford Pro Tools +hardware, that seemed to be the desired product to be "Pro". Cakewalk was on the other hand, very affordable to the local musician and besides, you also got a free copy of Cool Edit Pro.

I started with Cakewalk v1.0 then kept upgrading.  The thought of switching to another program when the one I was using was doing most of what I needed didn't occur to me (everything I couldn't do, I was able to accomplish using SoundForge).
 
Ok, so maybe there's no Logic or Reason to that, but so what?  I'm not a Pro Tool! 

I had a friend who used Cubase. That was my introduction to DAW software. When I was ready to set up my own studio, I researched my options and chose Sonar instead. I've never regretted it. (Did I mention that I really can't stand Cubase?)

I actually have heard Cakewalk mentioned more in engineer circles than it has been in the past.At least in the circles I'm exposed to. I'm getting the feeling things are gaining momentum although slowly. Some large bungles at times by the others have caused some to look elsewhere and in looking and have  began using Sonar. 
 
I think the blue collar idea is correct and I agree with that. Cakewalk was the poor producers software at one time. I think that image is changing though.
 
I had noticed in buying some UK music recording Mags that Sonar still seems to be almost invisible. I'm happy to see we have a good mix of UK users over here on the forum. Just because a magazine chooses to omit Sonar  doesn't mean the people in the UK have lost touch with the rest of the world.
 
Did I see Cakewalk looking for coders with Apple experience? I think things might change significantly if Cakewalk writes code for Apple.If Apple starts to slide, and I think they are slowly loosing ground...then maybe coding Sonar for Apple won't be a lucrative proposition. 
 
I look at Sonar as an equivalent to Logic In Apple. While Microsoft doesn't own Cakewalk I see a closer marriage between  Sonar and Windows than in any other windows based DAW. Why do I say this? Who else has used win 8 to it's full potential with touch screen capability ? One of the first to adopt full usage of multiple cores at the kernel level...and on it goes.
 
When it comes to the other DAWS  I have a few of the others. I think they all try and look at what's best and sometimes they cross polinate. I seen Cakewalk adopt a few tricks from the others,  Studio One still doesn't have floating windows as far as I know, but they do have a nice layout. Who knows maybe the new version will have that. The floating screens in Sonar makes working with dual monitors a breeze. It looks like X4 might have consolidated the control bar along the top..that would make sense....so I think future designs will affect future popularity. The slowly growing user base will have a snowball effect I think. The more people using Sonar the more words gets around.
 
After working with a few people who have different DAWS I see the whole thing can become trivial. They can all make good recorded tracks. If you're working with a guy and he has Pro Tools, just export him the waves...or he can export waves to you...so why does it even matter so much? So I don't feel as if I need Pro Tools or any of the others. I work in what I like to work in and I like Sonar much of the time.
 
I think public perception about Sonar is gaining ground. I think the acquisition by Gibson was a great boost. I think the future holds good things for Cakewalk and it will come to the point where it will be impossible anywhere to ignore them. People will ask...hey why don't you guys include Sonar in your magazine?
 
 
 
 

Yet........I might surmise if you do a "Jimmy Kimble- person on the street" interview about computer music, most people will mention 'Auto Tune' which is not even a DAW.
Diving a little deeper, Pro Tools and Cubase will stand out.
 
I think these are the brands that stand out as Xerox is to photocopying, Google to searching engines..............
Yet, people who know; knows Sonar!
 
 

 
In my entourage, whether it's back in Canada or here in the US, it's 100% Mac.
 
From chart topping artists in their home and or private studios to legendary producers in the biggest studios in NYC, to composers and their assistants at Cirque, to the people running sequences in Ableton during the show and every single musician - it's all 100% Mac.
 
From my perpective, it's hard to conceive of anything changing any time soon because Mac are every where.
 
Which doesn't mean that there isn't a different reality, growing along side. But it's not overthrowing the Mac/Pro Tools standard, it's simply an alternative which is aimed at an entirely different demographic (for the biggest part, anyway).
 
The one thing that has changed is that alternates like Sonar have earned a reputation as solid and worthy tools.
 
But that's nothing to make an engineer switch software and platform, especially when your entire network is still on Pro Tools/Mac.
 
If you want a chance at cracking that market, to get a shot a working in those studios, it makes sense to learn PT/Mac. If you take the independent approach, anything works, and Sonar is as good as any.

dubdisciple
Funny thing about the whole pro tools on mac is that I have yet to meet a mac user that prefers pro tools to Logoc but cite that they learned PT because it's what clients expect and studios they want to work at have.

They do exist. My brother-in-law swears by Pro Tools. Same with his wife. I'm guessing that when you learn it in school, and when it's the first you learn...
 
I've worked with it a bit in the past but never got up to speed - performance was never what I expected because PT native was completely inefficient compared to others.
 
You couldn't expect to run the native version on the same machine as Logic and get similar results. The difference was drastic, and CPU/Memory wise, Logic 9 outperformed PT by 90%. I'm not exaggerating there.
 
But with the new machine and all the plans my wife and I have, I've recently upgraded and at least, the native version now does seem to perform pretty smoothly. But after dabbling with it a bit, I went ahead and bought a tutorial from Groove 3. It's frustrating, especially when you're so proficient with one piece of software as I am w/ Logic to find yourself struggling to find a way to split-drag-copy a clip.
 
That being said, so far, almost everything I've learned I can do 5 times quicker in Logic, because of all the hoops I don't have to jump through. But I'm sure there's more to it.
 
I hope to maybe use it to mix certain projects - the stuff I work on with my wife. Most of the people we work with for this project use PT. 
 
I'm also learning it because, in our world, you have to know it, and there are certain gigs which I know require that I am more than simply familiar with it.
 

Thanks for mentioning it craigb (ITIYRN)

craigb
it?

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