dubdisciple
Chuck.  I didn't say it was common.  Noticed that I used past tense.  Vegas was once an audio only application.  As a modern DAW it would be awful.  it's not even capable of side chaining .  When Vegas added video features the DAW market was a lot less advanced.  Vegas, even with the new video additions was somewhat of a poor man's Nuendo.  It is wise that they focused on the video aspect because they have not made any major core updates to the audio core of any of their programs in ages.

sorry I misunderstood what you were saying in your first post.

ProTools has a very nice workflow for audio especially (or so most people feel). Back when PCs were a LOT less powerful, their expansion cards allowed people to use a ton of plugins while native systems were stuck with a few, or low quality ones. These days, that isn't such an issue, but ProTools is by now the de facto standard for larger recording studios. Many production style studios use Cubase, Logic and yes, Sonar. Reaper is gaining some popularity, and if I'm not mistaken Colby Caillat's hit of 2012(?) "Call Me Maybe" was done entirely in Reason.

In other words, your own skill in composition, production and mixing are much more likely to hamper you than any inherent lack of sound quality on Sonar's part.

I recorded my band's last two albums in X1 and X2 www.serotonincrush.com
 
Sonar is an excellent, pro level DAW. The only things I don't use it for any more are film scoring (due to it's lack of features...although X3d might be better), and project delivery...in which case I use Pro Tools.
 
If you plan on recording an album, Sonar is killer.

Actually, Sonar is NOT powerful enough to make a full-fledged album: I looked for a menu item that said "Make full-fledged album" but couldn't find anything. Apparently it's the responsibility of the person using Sonar to make a full-fledged album

Kev999
Does the Sonar package include all the softsynths and effects that you would need?
No.

I disagree, I submit this massive hit to the jury (live version so you can see what is going on):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15YZUXL_ULU
 
More stuff may make you feel more creative, but you ain't necessarily more creative. 

Sorry I was away so I didn't keep up with the thread.
 
First, I'm sorry that I started asking a question, then changing the subject half way in it. My bad... I didn't mean to waist anybody's time or appear to be trolling.. and, also, my English may seem a bit basic at times, this is cause I am of French origins. 
 
About me: (feel free to skip..)
I work in a pro studio as a Engineer/Sound designer/Musician. I consider myself good enough, though not excellent at any of the three. I have received a couple of awards and have been associated with an Oscar nomination. I have scored tv series, wrote theme song for tv, I have mixed movie scores in 5.1, did sound design for film, Imax, publicity, Cartoon, etc etc... Being of the X generation, I have had to work my *** off in a struggling and competitive market doing whatever I could first to survive, then to keep the career going. (don't know why I'm saying this or if it even matters lol) 
 
Here are my thoughts (sorry long post):
 
Regarding the initial question:
 
I heard some say that native systems were less hi-fi, because programmers had to squeeze the maximum out of the limited dsp power available and this impacted on the overall sound quality. Second, there is such an abundance of  vst plug-ins out there, all claiming to sound better then the other, I wanted to know how Sonar's packaged plug-ins and synths compared with the specialized developers stuff (Mc DSP, Wave etc...) But from reading many posts in the thread, my questions have been answered and ty all.
 
Regarding Sonar's handling of the Video:
 
I wouldn't have talked about it unless I had not noticed Mr Anderton's presence on the thread, and knowing he is now working for Sonar/Gibson I asked him about the video.
I agree, my views regarding video handling in Sonar are very subjective, and represent MY needs and experience with Sonar. But, as small of market share my case should represent, the problems I have using Sonar in certain pro situations are real. And I find this sad cause the "Music Making" part of Sonar is excellent and blows PT out of the water.. It is maybe naive of me to wish that Cakewalk would beef up the video app to help users like me. Maybe one day.
 
This said, I still have X2, and some of you wrote on this thread that the video in X3 had evolved. In what way is the new video app different in X3??? 
 
Thanks and have a good year all of you!

ziblip...the video changes are in very early stages.  The changes include stearing away from direct show, allowing more codecs to play and the ability to trim video.  It's a start.  I doubt Sonar evolves in the way Vegas did but one never knows.
 

BTW, Sonar IS amazing enough to sound design a full feature film. I have done this with great success.

Its just the unpack/export project side to share with Studio Houses, also creating cue sheets is a problem.

Sorry to go on about the Video side of things, the forum must be so bored of me banging on about it by now.

dubdisciple
Mark, it'd not that big of a deal that you talk about it a lot.  Pretty much any hot button topic that comes up will undoubtedly be jumped on by people who have that particular pet peave with Sonar.  Your focus on this issue pales in comparison to the obsessively endless posts of the Staff View Mafia.  They have valid complaints, but once they get started it feels like every thread for about a week gets hijacked into endless rants about the exact same thing.  You are tame by comparison.  DO keep in mind that whatever video changes Sonar has in mind are allegedly still in early stages and they make it clear it should probably not be used on actual productions yet.  Besides, aside from the one outburst thread, most of your posts on the topic have been simply wishing Sonar did a better job rather than endlessly trashing the product.

Ta mate, I really am just wishing the best for the future...A future where I dont have to explain to Studio Houses what Sonar is and be slightly embarrassed about OMF's and AAFs.

And yes, I couldnt agree more, ITS EARLY DOORS for Sonar and Video. 
 
Btw..."Staff View Mafia"  .....(Whispers...lets not bring this up)

dubdisciple
ziblip...the video changes are in very early stages.  The changes include stearing away from direct show, allowing more codecs to play and the ability to trim video.  It's a start.  I doubt Sonar evolves in the way Vegas did but one never knows.
 

Hability to trim video you said?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? How is that done? by entering numerical values (cutting my wrists) or by dragging edges (happy camper)????????

excuse the typo.  I meant to say ability.  Mark, I know you gave up early on X3D but it allows you to trim in and out points of video now.

zblip

dubdisciple
ziblip...the video changes are in very early stages.  The changes include stearing away from direct show, allowing more codecs to play and the ability to trim video.  It's a start.  I doubt Sonar evolves in the way Vegas did but one never knows.
 

Hability to trim video you said?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? How is that done? by entering numerical values (cutting my wrists) or by dragging edges (happy camper)????????

Typo aside, you can do it either way.  It's not very elegant now but it does work on a basic level

Steev
OK there is Pro Tools and then there is Pro Tools HD, and it is my opinion that they are not even as close to each other as SONAR Producer and Pro Tools HD are close to each other.
 Weighing in as an ex Pro Tools refugee turned SONAR+ Vegas type of guy myself, I’d have to honestly say that I find SONAR as been  consistently ahead of Pro Tools in technical advancements and out of the box tools
 For instance, I don’t believe any current version of Pro Tools MIDI support is as good as Cakewalk Pro Audio MIDI support was, never mind comparing it to SONAR’s. It was only a year or so ago Pro Tools started to support loops, and FINALLY the new Pro Tools 11 became of x64 bit age, yeah.. Unfortunately it can’t run 32 bit plugins, boo… SONAR was capable of doing that, since what v5? And SONAR was also quick and gracious enough to support .OMF exporting making it easy to share and collaborate projects with my Pro Tools users friends, and easily open Pro Tools projects back up in SONAR.
 Please don’t miss understand me, I really like Pro Tools, very capable DAW and still use it today collaborating with others as it enjoys a ROCK SOLID immovable place as industry standard.
  And if it wasn’t for the fact that I realized about a decade ago that I couldn’t possibly afford to get where I wanted to go I would have never shut down my expiring OS 9 Power Mac after building a much more inexpensive  Windows 2000 PC, forged ahead doing it with Cakewalk in the first place. By the time SONAR PE 4 was released and I upgraded to an M-Audio Delta 1010 I was in love, shut down my 16 track Tascam and never looked back.
 Now we all have different ideas about workflow and how we would like to do things, but I honestly feel that the only thing better, faster, easier, and more powerful than working on video projects than SONAR + Vegas would be is to Rewire them together.
 And yeah, I believe SONAR is powerful enough to produce professional quality industry quality products.

+1

Although you can use 32 bit plugs in PT11, JBridge works in PT11.

dubdisciple
Mark...for the sake of your sanity..you may want to wait a few more patches before trying anything you would release to clients. :)  Unless you are in a beta testing mood.It took me a second to figure out how to export a video of decent quality. It defaults to a very crappy setting Like I said, I try to keep in mind that it appears they are taking it in phases with the first being giving it the ability to read more file types.  Not sure what is next but my guess would be that giving better export options is on the horizon.

+1

Actually, I might get into Beta mode and we can swap stories....Thankfully i'm just between clients for the new year break (its always quiet in Post this time of year)

But yeah, my first hair puller was just as you mention, the defaulting to cruddy settings and then going through a myriad of export options and renders to get it right (At least even Adobe sorted this out with Media Exporter)

I think media encoder has me spoiled  to the point where it will be very difficult for me to use the SOnar video export for anything beyond basic low rez reference files