Is anybody here using SONAR for Sound Design …

wst3
All the time!

Sonar is a terrific Sound Design tool! Now I'm not using it to create libraries,  but rather sounds for live theatre, so my toolbox may differ from yours.

First you need source material - I have about 1TB of sound effects libraries that I've used for a very long time, so they tend to be my primary sources. I do have a number of Kontakt libraries that I've started to use, a bunch of percussion libraries from SoundIron and 8Dio, Heaviosity Evolve, and a bunch of others I can't think of at the moment. I also record a lot of my own sounds.

Second, you need Effects plug-ins - all the SoundToys plugs are useful, and Waves has several that work well for sound design (e.g. MondoMod). I'm a big fan of delays for sound design, and the PSP stuff is awesome. There are probably a couple others I use, but again can't think of them at the moment.
 
Third, you will want a synthesizer or two for sweeps, swooshes, etc. The included plugins will get you started, then you'll want to investigate things like Alchemy or Diva. If you have the NI collection Reaktor is amazingly deep too.

You'll eventually want to try your hand at granular synthesis, there is a free processor called PaulStretch which will keep you occupied for years.

Lastly, you may find that a good audio editor still comes in handy. You can do a lot (A LOT) with slip editing in Soanr, but every once in a while I find it easier to think in terms of the old days (think tape) and I use Sound Forge and Wavelab to do some stuff. (In truth, sometimes I still use my tape deck... but I need to get over that!)

Tips -
 
listen to a LOT of stuff you want to emulate. For me it is sound tracks, but it could be anything sound design oriented, games, electronic based music, etc. Just LISTEN!

There are a handful of books that you might find useful too. I just got Burt's book about creating the sounds for Starwars and it will really open your mind to using sounds in less than conventional ways. If you can find the interviews with the designers for "Twister" they are eye openers too.

All of which leads up to creating a library. I don't do that, except for personal use, so my best advice would be to pick a sample engine (Kontakt, Mach5, SFZ) and learn as much as you can about the engine. If you want to learn to create Kontakt libraries I'd suggest joining VI-Control, a forum that boasts a number of the top Kontakt developers. Not sure where to look for the others.

dlion16
another aspect is to record your own sounds with an H4 or similar, then edit to suit...

BenMMusTech
I'm doing a music concrete project/sound mapping/soundscape project for honours at the moment.  Sonar is a great tool for this sort of stuff.  It's by far the best program for editing audio and getting in there and splicing up samples.  I must admit though I am terribly lazy and my audio is all over different hard drives.  I will clean this up though one day.
 
Ben

AT
I mostly use Sound Forge, but SONAR will work fine too as others have noted.
 
Alchemy is the easiest "effect" for SFX.
 
A hand held recorder is a great adjunct for your sound library -even a cheap one.  Hear something, capture it.
 
One of the things it is easy to do in SF is sllooowwww a sound down.  Everyday things or rhythmic parts both work.  A great way to take your field recording and turn it into a strange drone.  Backwards works, too, which is a click command in SONAR.
 
Convolution reverb is really great for treating sound.  There are "effects" impulse libraries that churn out interesting convolutions.  Then run it through again and again different impulses.
 
Basically, anything you can think of to mangle a sound.
 
@
 

chuckebaby
Kenny, cant listen,
 
""
Sorry! We can't find that track.Did you try to access a private track, but were not logged in? Maybe the track has been removed."

chuckebaby
 
I make a lot of my own library's but one thing I find very useful is midi library's, very simple, very easy to create
but very important. repetitive lines, especially drum lines.
I have a huge midi library for all my original songs and all original parts that can be re hashed and used in variable ways.
 
I know its not the same as an audio library, but almost just as important there are great features that can be said for midi library's.
my favorite thing...the size.

robert_e_bone
I use Sonar sometimes, for experimenting with layered sounds, for both pads and leads.  I also do this with a program called Forte, from Brainspawn.
 
And for building sampled sounds, I will usually use Konakt.  I just built an approximation from scratch, of the cash registers and coins from the beginning of the Pink Floyd song 'Money'.
 
Bob Bone