Everyone seems to be stuck on switching to Studio One 3, but I've been looking at Mixcraft and Mixbus. Both look very nice. Have any of you guys had any experience with these DAWs? Pro's and cons??
 
I am one of those saying I'll stay with Sonar until it takes it's last breath. But, curiously out of nowhere I started getting error messages and crashing from Sonar last night. I can't remember the last time I had any issues with Sonar. So maybe the switch would be better sooner than later.

Hi. I have MixBus 4, and really like it for mixing stems. It lacks ARA and Console 1 integration, so therefor not usable as a main DAW for me. Very intuitive, IMO.
I haven't tried Mixcraft (yet).
All the best.

MixCraft looks a lot like SONAR pre the X series but no where near as sophisticated.

Single MIDI track and Staff(Score as they call it) view editing just the first thing that springs to mind.

Weird Send architecture. 

I was already using Tracktion 7 and Mixbus 4...so I upgraded to Tracktion Waveform. It's a very nice daw.

They are all good daws! I’ve been swimming around and messing with different daws for years now as new home studio hobbyist. I own most of them, have tried many others mentioned too. All so different, like music/songs are themselves. One can appeal to you or another, but it doesn’t mean that others won’t ever, or can/can’t fit someone else better..... my suggestion, spend quality time as focused as can on options and take time to watch a few videos of them in use. Make a notes sheet of what like don’t like about each daw, etc. Might help, or not.... could become a no “one only” like me. None of them are Best, or better than all others..... none of them do everything well/best. Then you throw pricing, support, and update frequency in there to make it real fun......

I agree some are not being mentioned much, but deserve a good look for fit and pricing budget.... especially when on sale!!!
Harrison Mixbus, Mixcraft 8 Pro Studio, Tracktion T7/Waveform 8, Magix Music Maker Premium/Samplitude Studo, Ardour, Reason Essentials, etc.

As good and fun as some of those worthy alternatives are/can be...  Or the more technical featured Studio One, Cubase, options....
... None are Sonar by Cakewalk! <3
Had to throw that in there after spending a few hours on my Spro tonight. I'm going to stay hopeful that because it is so good, that it will be saved/reborn by a caring respectful source somehow....

Mixbus is a no brainer to me. Affordable (I bought Mixbus 32C with all of the plugins for black Friday) and I could not be happier with the mixes I am doing. Fast, intuitive, and they sound great. Their plugins are something else. Unique approaches to gating, eq, etc that I have not seen anywhere else. Getting a great drum sound is easy and only takes an hour or two. These people know sound.

scleland
Mixbus is a no brainer to me. Affordable (I bought Mixbus 32C with all of the plugins for black Friday) and I could not be happier with the mixes I am doing. Fast, intuitive, and they sound great. Their plugins are something else. Unique approaches to gating, eq, etc that I have not seen anywhere else. Getting a great drum sound is easy and only takes an hour or two. These people know sound.

Glad to hear that. I bought Mixbus a few years ago also. I’ve had my issues with it at times, but like you said, the mixer, output quality, and unique plugins are very worthy! I look at daws as plugins/tools. Nice to have different options to play with. :-)
Note, I noticed a few crashes in my Mixbus 4 last night since my newest windows system update, arg!
Sure they will get it next update.
Revisited my SPRO for a few hours last night and was reminded how amazing and full featured Sonar is.