Software is always vulnerable to market forces.
It can very easily become "worthless".
I've still got the discs for Sonar 2 onward. Most won't even install in Windows 10.
As for Plugins don't even think about some of them.
 
That synth from 1981 will probably still work regardless.

my bad skipping samplitude and couple others that are more pro tools audio mix record solutions than all-around DAW choices

michael diemer
Once again, notation is not even considered. No DAW that does not have notation can be considered full-featured.

I'm not here to quibble semantics. I gave an opinion. Notation is an afterthought in most DAWS for good reason. It is important, but evidently not for majority of DAW users. For you it is obviously a dealbreaker, but if that was the feature most in demand it would be at the head of the marketing spiel instead of ignored most of the time.

I am in favor of notation being included, because real musicians read music.  But in the sense of DAWs being analogs of recording studios, the creation and rehearsal of music is secondary to the studio recording sessions.
 
So I would put notation in the "creation" category of applications.
 
That being said, I think that powerful DAWs that also include a notation package, especially as an integrated add-on, offer a deal maker for musicians who wish to create and record. 

michael diemer
Once again, notation is not even considered. No DAW that does not have notation can be considered full-featured.

What I don't get is how adding a bunch of plugins makes a DAW full featured.  To me, instruments and FX are *not* components of a DAW. They are add ons.  Things which directly affect the core recording, playback, editing, and general data manipulation are features of a DAW.   Notation is a form of editing and would qualify in my mind as a feature. Envelope lanes would be a feature. Instruments and effects . . .not so much.
 
I wouldn't buy a set of drums that came with pedals, stands, sticks and cymbals, and would actually have a lower opinion of a set of drums that did come with that stuff.  Imagine a "Full Featured" guitar that comes with a bunch of pedals, cables, and an amp!  I bet that would be a really good one!!!   :-)
 

dubdisciple

the_user_formally_known_as_glennbo

michael diemer
Once again, notation is not even considered. No DAW that does not have notation can be considered full-featured.

What I don't get is how adding a bunch of plugins makes a DAW full featured.  To me, instruments and FX are *not* components of a DAW. They are add ons.  Things which directly affect the core recording, playback, editing, and general data manipulation are features of a DAW.   Notation is a form of editing and would qualify in my mind as a feature. Envelope lanes would be a feature. Instruments and effects . . .not so much.
 
I wouldn't buy a set of drums that came with pedals, stands, sticks and cymbals, and would actually have a lower opinion of a set of drums that did come with that stuff.  Imagine a "Full Featured" guitar that comes with a bunch of pedals, cables, and an amp!  I bet that would be a really good one!!!   :-)
 

A guitar and a DAW are very different things. You would be unlikely to be a console without basic eq and fx sends either. All depends on how you view a DAW. DAWS do not have a one to one relationship feature wise to the analog tools of old. Reaper is proof that you can make a great DAW with minimal included fluff. I listed the more common ways DAWS are used and most common marketing bullets. This was not meant to be some scientific asessment. It kills me that people seem to sit around waiting on some insignificant point of opinion to flip on that totally has no bearing on original topic. My point was to group things that are used in a similar ways and not to provide Webster's dictionary with definitive terms.

I guess my thoughts are, if I were to compare recording softwares, the core functionality of the recorder would be the absolute number one most important thing I would compare, and the last things would be what extra added on stuff it comes with.  If the core of a DAW is either less efficient, less trustworthy, or missing basic functionality, then it matters not what Christmas tree ornaments it might have hanging on it.
 

michael diemer
Once again, notation is not even considered. No DAW that does not have notation can be considered full-featured.

Not everybody needs notation.  Many musicians don't read music much.  And many DAWs aren't even used compositionally.
 
The question of this thread -- is it too crowded (which I would rephrase as "Is the marketplace too crowded for products to make a decent profit?") really comes down to market segments, as almost every marketing question does.
 
There are lots of hobbyist products, and frankly I don't care whether they come or go.  If we limit the discussion to products that can be, and are routinely used for commercial (or at least commercial-quality) products, I think we can define three broad segments.  I am talking about products that people use professionally for significant income, even if it isn't their primary occupation or income stream.  The segments, I believe, can be described as:
 

• Live performance.  They are mostly concerned with it being extremely easy and agile to build loops on the fly.  Live is the big gorilla here, with two or three other contenders.  That doesn't seem too crowded.
• Recording (both audio and MIDI), but not mainly compositional.  That is to say, analogous to the traditional recording studio where musicians had the compositions completed and well rehearsed before going into the studio.  Today's technology allows people to be a bit more iterative because it doesn't cost $300/hour.  But the process is mainly about recording, nor composing from scratch.  Surely Cubase, Protools, SONAR, maybe StudioOne and a few others are used professionally for recording.  Again, not ultra crowded, if you remove the products that really aren't used to produce commercial recordings, and this segment just got un-crowded by one.
• Compositional.  Here's where there could be a big debate, because it really leads to the question of who the target customer is.  Obviously if a person is composing directly in MIDI, then the recording products mentioned above can work.  The issue is that there are thousands of active composers working in Finale, Sibelius, Dorico, Musescore and maybe some others. And most of these people aren't using DAWs today (unless you want to call Dorico or Finale a DAW, which I think can certainly be argued.)  As a practical matter, today's technology forces some composers to do BOTH -- compose in a notation program, but render at least some of the music in a DAW.  Just as DAW technology has democratized the studio environment, the same thing is happening in video production. I have a friend who just finished a 5-minute teaser for a TV show produced at very low cost.  The teaser will be underscored composing in MIDI. But if the network approves the full program (90-minute TV mini-series), then some of the underscoring will probably be live musicians playing from printed parts.  This convergence is out there.  The DAW suppliers simply don't recognize the opportunity -- YET.  I do predict that this will be well recognized by around 2020 and some DAWs will make this a priority.

Is that a big enough segment to justify the integration work between DAW and notation program?  Time will tell. But it is clear that StudioOne understands that space enough to have invested real development.  I don't believe Steinberg gets it yet, mainly because they didn't invent it.  But they are accidentally very well positioned with Dorico playback having been structured to fit an embedded "Cubase lite" engine.  In theory, Avid could do the same with Sibelius and Protools, but I expect they will be the last to recognize any of this.  With only three players that have any near-term prospects of serving this segment, it is certainly not over-crowded.  If anything, the competition is healthy.  Sibelius and Finale certainly weren't going to do anything on their own.  The emergence of Dorico and Notion provide valuable competition, and this could ultimately cause (or accelerate) the demise of both Finale and Sibelius.  Neither is even slightly active with innovation these days.  Finale has more danger signs than SONAR ever did.
 
But let's say that in a few years, both Presonus and Steinberg have tightly integrated their notation and DAW products such that composers can move freely between notation and MIDI PRV, evolving the score and the sound production in parallel, I bet there are a lot of professional composers who will see that as a real breakthrough.  That doesn't mean the "recording" segment will go away, because there will always be plenty of musicians that just don't work with printed music.