cparmerlee

Kamikaze
Cakewalk and Sonar have always struggled  to be rated among the other DAWs, it was third in a three horse race, and now it's a stampede.

There is no future -- absolutely no future for a general-purpose DAW.  We already have SO, Cubase, Protools, Reaper, and Logic, not to mention _____ (fill in your favorite unmentionable generic DAW.)  I don't care how much money Bandlab has, that game is over and there will be no coming back from that.
 
Notice I didn't mention Live.  They smartly designed and positioned that DAW as its own category (live performance and improvisational composition.)  They are first in a category of one, with some of the general-purpose DAWs trying to copy some of the features, but really, why bother?
 
Bandlab can be successful, but only by putting their new DAW yet to be named into its own category of one.  It happens that Bandlab's products are ALREADY in that category, which is the creative end of the whole process (songwriting and collaboration.)  Tying a studio-grade (OK, with some fixes) DAW to that value chain can work.  Offering another generic DAW is a loser.  So let's see what they do.
 
And this seems very similar to the Cakewalk Momentum strategy, except that Bandlab has more pieces in place and established.
 
If you can go with that premise for a moment (even if you don't agree with it), that suggests something fairly significant for the people tuned in here.  The SONAR base is surely the most helpful and most experienced/expert DAW community out there.  But under the scenario I laid out, we won't be seeing a lot of "studio greybeards" coming on board the new product.  If it goes the way I'm describing, there will be loads of production newbies who have been fluttering around the cloud-based stuff and now want to cut their teeth on commercial-quality production.  If it goes that way, then YOU ALL are actually part of the product, which is why Mr. Meng should be interested in keeping the user base together, even if it means essentially giving away free licenses.  Learn to speak "Millennial".
 

sharke
"Been using the program since the DOS days" 
 

sharke
Frankly given Sonar's lack of "street cred" among kids, I don't see how that was ever going to be rectified without putting it in front of their faces in the context of something like BandLab. I find that many young people haven't even heard of Sonar. If you can get a good sized crowd of young newbies using Sonar through their contact with BandLab, you'll start to see things like video tutorials making the rounds, and kids will start referencing the program on sites like Reddit and Twitter.

Starise
I can certainly understand feelings of uncertainty. 
 
It has already been mentioned that people use daws differently. Point well taken. This means there is no "best daw"
in the general sense. Please go to the Ableton, Reason, Cubase, Reaper forum and tell them how utterly clunky some of their features are. They all have clunky features. Please report back as to how well all of that worked out for you.
 
Please go the the daw from God forum and stay there. We like Sonar.
 

iRelevant

sharke
"Been using the program since the DOS days" 
 

Hoho, that's hilarious :) But yeah, I think your assessment of Sonar forum demographics is spot on.
 
I guess the punks who grew up with facebook and smartphones have new  expectations. 
 
I don't get around that much these days, so I'm curious as to what you would say have "street cred" these days ?

spacey

cparmerlee

Sir Les
Well, in some circles...not all of them be circles...But whom owns what, and whom is going to be owned...or what, if we dig into financial corp take overs, and or unseen ownersheepship....Just to avoid any court or law....Things to undo, what was done.....Is or as it be is...Is..as it may be....So, it might be nice to see the product of Cake being served by so call other interested bought or sold....from or to, or in keeping...sold to avoid....Is just the shell game of some corps, tied hands or not but might be in future.....No one out side the loop, or circle needs know!...But could be....?
 
...
 
Saw enough...not sure who is to blame...but part to blame is the one who buys.....also, be a fool when stuff like this occurs....What did you expect from a Cash cow system?...Life time updates or something?
Oh yah words....eh?

I didn't understand a word of that, but I wholeheartedly agree with whatever you said.  :)

Perfect. I've always read posts and decided if the person might be the type I'd play in a band with or even stand to be in a room with jammin'...just a leftover habit...there sure hasn't been many but I'd show up to jam with you both.

BenMMusTech
So long as Bandlab don't make Sonar some silly web only app or just a plain silly app...then Sonar still has the edge on all other DAWs on the market for these two simple reasons...floating point all the way through the recording process and upsampling. Floating point audio files not to be confused with floating point mixing is the key to understanding HD audio full stop. One day I will write and publish a paper on this. But ever since I went from 32 bit fp - both mixing and audio files - to 64bitfp I knew I had found the secret. From my ear, 32bitfp bunched the bottom end up or made it grainy. Worse it turned the harmonic distortion created by emulation plugs into distortion. If Bandlab can understand this, and convince what's left of 'the industry' that this is the case...then Sonar can go from strength to strength. Hardware is no longer key for true HD audio. There's a software solution and its name is Sonar! If u guys at Bandlab use that pithy advertising line...make sure you pay me!

Anderton

sharke
I'll go out on a limb and suggest that Reaper does a lot more than Sonar and is a superior DAW in almost every way. 

Universal statements assume people all use something in the same way, which they don't. For example, try creating a loop library that will stretch in other DAWs with Reaper.

There's no matrix view, which regardless of whether it's underutilized or not, is a valuable songwriting and improvisational tool.

No DSD import or export for your Japanese clients.

No tempo extraction from freestyle playing.

No upsampling, which is sooo much easier to do in Sonar than any other program.

I'm not sure if Reaper has FX Chains but those are extremely valuable additions to both Studio One and Sonar.

Sonar is also a more complete package - people who don't have the money to invest in lots of plug-ins will welcome features like the QuadCurve EQ (once you learn what those four curves can do, it's very difficult to obtain the same results in other EQs), TH3, Melodyne, Blue Tubes, phase-linear EQ with mid/side options per node (I know you can use ReaFIR as an linear-phase EQ, but it's clumsy and AFAIK doesn't offer mid-side processing), etc. I don't think those who want a complete package would dismiss them as just "goodies" but rather, see them as essential tools. Rapture Session also comes with some very useful sounds.

I know Reaper is going to have ARA integration at some point (maybe it already does, I dunno), but Studio One has had it since 2011 and Sonar since 2013 IIRC. 

Now, maybe these features mean nothing to you. However, I would never say Sonar is superior to Reaper in "almost every way" just because Sonar has features I need and Reaper doesn't.

promidi
If someone uses Sonar's instrument definitions, user defined controller and NRPN names,  support for Studioware panels, CAL support, etc, then they would say that Sonar does a lot more than Reaper does that they need it to do....

iRelevant

sharke

iRelevant

sharke
"Been using the program since the DOS days" 
 

Hoho, that's hilarious :) But yeah, I think your assessment of Sonar forum demographics is spot on.
 
I guess the punks who grew up with facebook and smartphones have new  expectations. 
 
I don't get around that much these days, so I'm curious as to what you would say have "street cred" these days ?

With the kids (teens, 20's), FL Studio, Ableton and Reason are where it's at, although Bitwig is making headway there too. These DAW's are heavily geared toward modern production techniques, especially in the electronic realm. Part of the reason why this kind of music production is so popular among youngsters it that you can do it solo, in your bedroom, without the need for expensive equipment or soundproof studios. Recording full bands is another story entirely. You need space, you need mics, you need the instruments, and even if you have all those it's a very steep learning curve to that "pro" sound. If you're using soft synths and samples you can do it all on a laptop in the box on your headphones and achieve a commercial quality mix, and kids are very much doing this. They're leaping on DAW's which have the best reputation in this area. Sonar doesn't get a look in. 
 
Logic and Pro Tools also have street cred, especially among the hip hop crowd and anyone recording vocal based pop or EDM. But it's not just the DAW's, it's the OS they run on. Macs have more street cred than PC's, and you're not going to get street cred (as much as I hate that term) with a DAW that only runs on Windows.  

Thanks for the update, I see I'm not totally out of the loop. So the trendy way to get cred these days then is to get a mac with logic built in, and supplement it with Bitwig for hipness. Man, those apple people know a thing or two about marketing.