Thanks Anthony (as well everyone else) for coming in here and answering all these questions. It definitely makes a very positive impression for me to know there's honest support behind your product......especially knowing support is available 24/7.
 
I'll be demoing Mixcraft as a very viable DAW option to use and do appreciate you offering/extending this sale for all of us Sonar users. Good to see the people who stand behind their product.
 
 

I bought Mixcraft Pro8 Last week. Today I set it up with dual monitors and downloaded a 10 track midi file..I set up the main console on one monitor and the mixer on another,.....works perfectly, sounds great, and looks fabulous !!!!!!! What a great program !!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW !!!!!!

I have been using Mixcraft 8 Pro off and on for the last week.  I find it very intuitive for getting fast ideas down. Plenty of decent extras. 
 
I made a song and I used the video functions. Good for basic video work. If you have footage other than MOV format you'll be ok. Preferably wmv files.
 
I'm still using Sonar mainly but this was fun to use as well. 
 
Admittedly, much of the frustration with learning any new daw is learning both what it is capable of and the workflow. 
 
I finally began to learn the keystrokes in it.This made using it much easier. It crashed on me with an IK plug. I don't know how resilient it is to a plug it doesn't agree with. So far that part of Mixcraft has me concerned. 
The second thing ties into the first. I haven't found auto save in it. This means you can't forget to continually hit CTRL+S. I lost two hours of recording when it didn't like the plugin.
 
One other feature I use a lot in Sonar is punch in recording. Mixcraft 8 Pro probably has it but I haven't found it yet.
It has take lanes. Not sure how developed they are as compared to Sonar.
 
Does anyone know if Mixcraft 8 Pro has arranging features? 

Mixcraft does have punch-in. 
 
I'm not sure what you mean by 'arranging features'.  Could you clarify, please?
 
About the Faderport 8, does that unit work with standard Mackie Control emulation?  If so, it should work using the Logic Control or the Mackie Controller setting.

Thank you riojazz I'll dig a bit more for the punch in feature. Hey back in the day I played trumpet :).
 
In Sonar you could take a song and move the parts of it around or copy more of the same part. For instance take a verse and duplicate or move it somewhere else. You could make a gap in the song to add something you might have thought of later. 
 
This goes further than copy/paste of loops or individual sections in tracks. This allows moving of entire song sections with everything intact including automation unless you deselect it.
 
Sonar had recently added it. Studio One has it in spades. They make that process very easy by showing the different sections available in a side pane. You then drag the section in the same way you can drag loops around. Makes arranging a breeze. 
 
I would be surprised if Mixcraft has it since it was a recent development in Sonar. Mixcraft appears to have a well developed loop feature....not surprising since a Since Foundry employee works there?  I don't as readily see an arranging area though.
 
I will say the graphics are easy to see. Something I can't say about a few of the heavy weight daws.

Just a mention that I'm into the second day and have had no response to the info I sent to get the crossgrade pricing on Mixcraft.  I'm sure it's taking a bit to check my info and get up to speed on this promotion, but my demo runs out tomorrow.  Thanks.
 
FIXED.  All set - I purchased the crossgrade offer and registered.

Something else to consider is their upgrade pricing is very affordable.  I think from 7 Pro to 8 Pro was $39. Only FL Studio and Reaper beats that.

Starise ,
 
Mixcraft has a feature on board  called the performance Panel . You can use that as an arranging feature ..
To do so you will need to place segments of your song into the performance panel .
May I suggest a way for you to get familiar with it  ? good I ain't waiting for an answer 
Take a tune / mix of yours , chop it up into song sections , place each segment into the performance panel on one track ....have a little fun and play around with triggering the cells ...record that and see what happens...
the concept is simple ...to take that type of workflow to the next level substitute placing a full on chopped up mix with individual tracks ...
You can do this type of workflow easily on a track per track basis ...it just may involve getting the hang of the work flow...
as far as being able to do an exact Studio One type of arrangement on the timeline where all your individual  tracks are moved around and placed accordingly ... ummm that's not happening as far as I can tell ...
If you place the right clips in your Performance panel you can record a performance into the timeline ..thatshould count for something ..
Who knows , a Studio One arranger type of feature may happen at a future date if Acoustica gets a bombardment of feature requests from Mixcraft user's for that particular feature
 
Kenny

I haven't tried that yet but it reminds me of how my Ensoniq synth's sequencer works. It has 10 8-track sequencer banks that each have 10 parts you can program individually for a total of 100 sequences. They can then be arranged in any order with as many repeats (loops) for each one into an 8-track Song preset (16 tracks total) that will play them as programed. This made it so easy to edit a section of the song without affecting the whole thing. If you made one sequence shorter or longer the whole song would adjust accordingly. However, if you added any "song" tracks before doing this, they would be affected as they are full song length tracks.

Well what I'm talking about concerning using Mixcraft 8 seems to offer a lot of options and flexibility
 
You can't tell by my screen shot , I have 24 tracks for Midi Instruments , 24 Audio tracks and 12 sends ...
this was a limitation I placed for this example ...I don't know how many I can put ...who knows ..it didn't seem as if I had a limit

The performance panel has 48 performance cells to trigger and play both Midi on instrument tracks and Audio on Audio tracks ....all on their respective tracks as per what you decide to put there
 
I left it blank for the screen shot because I don't have the time right now to populate the performance panel and create a project right now ...
 
in addition to what can be done in the performance panel the the typical time line of the projects time line can have
Midi and audio performances that are being played in a linear fashion along the time line ...
If that's not enough you can record what takes place VIA the performance panel while your typical linear audio is playing in the time line and selectively improvise new content and a song arrangement on the fly  
 
if that is not flexible I don't know what is 
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny