Why the urgent need for '"respect" from Gearslutz? --- To me this is laughable that anyone cares.  I go there for entertainment mostly. Kind of like unwinding and watching a sitcom. 
 
Why do so many forum members here seemingly think it is their responsibility to help Cakewalk develop a marketing strategy?--- Gibson and CW have been doing fine without my help for a while now, they are big boys. (and girls, I suppose.) And they make great products. I own some from both.
 
Pensado's Place makes my eyes glaze over, I can rarely make it through an episode. But they seem like nice guys.
And funny thing is, when they use ProTools that puts ME off.
 
Graham is cool, but he has really stepped up his marketing emails lately. I think he may be starting to taste they success. (and the $$)  I hope that success doesn't change him too much.
 

joel77
GearSlutz has it's uses: they're just few and far between.

That's what my wife's bird thinks every time we change the cage paper.

Doktor Avalanche

gbar
The problems most folks complain about with Sonar are
 
1. No expression maps. Big problem.
2. Video handling.
 

 
In these forums?... Er nope..
There are plenty of other complaints going on, but these are way at the back of the list.... I can't even remember a single expression maps thread (of course there are some but hardly a hot topic), we might get one video thread every 3 months...
 

 
My point exactly. :)
 
And yet, you can visit vi-control or any other composer forum, and those two things come up every time somebody asks a question about switching DAWs.
 
And polling, it's a very small minority like myself who use Sonar.  Ableton has more users (and no expression maps either), but Cubase dominates.

KPerry
I'd argue the 3 most important gaps for SONAR in terms of getting more credible are:

1 - Performance. It shouldn't be the be all and end all but, like cars having great 0-60 figures, it matters. SONAR needs a decent audio/VST performance boost so it can compare favourably with others (which it doesn't in the unfortunately commonly quoted performance tests).

2 - Compatability. There are issues with VST compatability still - it's not bad, but there do appear to be more issues with SONAR than other hosts from reading various forums, and SONAR's methods seem to be criticised (wasn't it Acoustica who recently said that SONAR's thread handling was just wrong which caused problems with their plug-in?). This then reflects in plug-in companies testing with SONAR, which reflects on its popularity which reflects on companies testing with SONAR which... Same applies to control surfaces: Cakewalk should bite the bullet and write the surface dll'ls, not expect the controller manufacturer to do (I'm pretty sure that it's usually the DAW manufacturer who does this).

3 - Reliability. This is a tricky one as - apart from the rare issue I've seen, usually due to plug-in compatability and the Bakers erring on the side of caution with dealing with errant plug-ins - SONAR is no less stable than anything else (hell, I get Windows Explorer crashing more than SONAR!). But there's a perception of it being more unstable, crashing more easily and being more picky about hardware than other platforms. On shared forums, I don't see reports of DAW x stuttering and glitching with one or two audio tracks: I do see these reports about SONAR. This probably ties in with performance above to some extent.

All of these are technical issues that have a direct impact on word of mouth marketing and advertising (especially point 2). They're non-trivial to solve or they would have been, but would need a technical, marketing and charm (money?) offensive to address - eg. Pick a big plug-in manufacturer who doesn't currently support SONAR and work with them to get is supported, learn from them why SONAR is 'difficult', pay for their testing/technical expertise and re-write parts of the code accordingly.

Financial investment in plug-ins is probably greater than that in the DAW itself (all of which are ridiculously cheap for what they offer), so a professional (in terms of making a living from recording/mixing) will choose to follow the plug-ins rather than the DAW, so getting that relationship and compatability right is probably the first step.

1) Link to quote please ?

2) Plugins apart from buggy plugins work perfectly well. Just because Acoustica says so (URL?) does to mean to say it is true. Frankly I doubt it when thousands of plugins work perfectly well..

3) Sonar is reliable. It's people's systems that are unreliable. What is Cakewalk going to do gag these people who scream at great heights crying wolf? Admittedly there are still very visible bugs that need addressing (how long must I go on about that) but they aren't stability issues.

As far as paying a plugin manufacturer to see what issues are, they are already in partnerships I suspect they would have got plenty of feedback, like in these forums, I doubt a financial incentive will make any difference.

Doktor Avalanche

3) Sonar is reliable. It's people's systems that are unreliable. What is Cakewalk going to do gag these people who scream at great heights crying wolf? 

You're a stickler for evidence, Doctor A. So where is the evidence for this?  What, you've checked everyone's systems before coming to this sweeping, unqualified conclusion? Pray do share your findings. This kind of reflexive, blame-the-pilot dismissal does nothing whatsoever to persuade people who run other software fine on their machines that they should stick with or even try Sonar. Your assertion does not make the problems they see with their own eyes simply vanish. It's like an errant member of a marching band protesting, "Everyone else was out of step but me". Gagging people crying wolf? Please. Ok, say what you wish, but I hope CW itself doesn't want to send this message out, otherwise it'll end up a very isolated product, blaming the market for its failure.  

Oftentimes I read these posts solely for their comedic content.  Some entertainment.  What I don't understand are some posters complaining about this or that.  All I know is that Sonar does everything I need a DAW to do.  Boom.  I have had no real problems I couldn't solve in the almost 20 years I've been using Sonar/ProAudio.  I have sat through every video on the web I think regarding mixing and mastering, and I just haven't found anything that someone else was doing on their DAW that was not possible in Sonar.  Maybe my lack of ****ing about Sonar is because I read the manual, all 1400+ pages?  I buy the Garrigus books; they make a good on-the-John read, too.  I study.  I have manuals for all my plugins.  And when I get stuck, I post for help.  I also keep a notebook.  I would HATE for anything bad to happen to Cakewalk because I have a tremendous intellectual investment in Sonar.

GregGraves
Oftentimes I read these posts solely for their comedic content.  Some entertainment.  What I don't understand are some posters complaining about this or that.  All I know is that Sonar does everything I need a DAW to do.  Boom.  I have had no real problems I couldn't solve in the almost 20 years I've been using Sonar/ProAudio.  I have sat through every video on the web I think regarding mixing and mastering, and I just haven't found anything that someone else was doing on their DAW that was not possible in Sonar.  Maybe my lack of ****ing about Sonar is because I read the manual, all 1400+ pages?  I buy the Garrigus books; they make a good on-the-John read, too.  I study.  I have manuals for all my plugins.  And when I get stuck, I post for help.  I also keep a notebook.  I would HATE for anything bad to happen to Cakewalk because I have a tremendous intellectual investment in Sonar.

I say without any sarcasm, I'm glad Sonar does all you need it to. But you should recognize that others might not be tempted by software which requires a 20 year intellectual investment, including reading all of the manual (now at 2,188 pages for Hopkinton) and Scott's book (X3 Power runs 400 pages), not to mention frequent monitoring of the forum to keep abreast of the latest version's bugs if they install every update. It does get to be a bit much sometimes.   

It doesn't take 20 years to learn how to use the DAW.  I don't think anyone could open Microsoft Excel for the first time and not have to study to learn to hit the F4 key to lock in a cell location.  That wasn't the point I was trying to make.  The point I -was- trying to make is that in all the years I have been using it, I've had no insurmountable problem.  
 
Don't you think that if there was a problem I would have ran into it by now?!?!?
 
As far as "keep abreast of the latest version's bugs" its as if you are insinuating there are a bunch of bugs that are somehow catastrophic problems.  I simply don't see that.
 
The project I am just now finishing has 48 tracks, all automated, with maybe 20 to 30 plugins, and 5 unfrozen soft-synths .... all running fine on my AMD quadcore running at a lowly 3ghz.  What more could I possibly want?
 

lingyai
Craig, I downloaded the files, expecting the guide would be included in the download, but it wasn't -- there are only the Sonar files and the audio files. Then I noticed that the page starts off by thanking for already having downloaded the guide. I googled "Mixing with ProChannel in SONAR X3 Producer guide from Disc Makers" but no joy. Is the guide itself still available? 

 
Click here, fill out the info, then click on "Get Your Free Guide."

Doktor Avalanche

3) Sonar is reliable. It's people's systems that are unreliable. What is Cakewalk going to do gag these people who scream at great heights crying wolf? 

lingyai
You're a stickler for evidence, Doctor A. So where is the evidence for this?  What, you've checked everyone's systems before coming to this sweeping, unqualified conclusion? Pray do share your findings. This kind of reflexive, blame-the-pilot dismissal does nothing whatsoever to persuade people who run other software fine on their machines that they should stick with or even try Sonar. Your assertion does not make the problems they see with their own eyes simply vanish. It's like an errant member of a marching band protesting, "Everyone else was out of step but me". Gagging people crying wolf? Please. Ok, say what you wish, but I hope CW itself doesn't want to send this message out, otherwise it'll end up a very isolated product, blaming the market for its failure.  

The evidence is here in front of your nose. When Sonar has been unstable in the past we would have one thread every few hours saying it crashes with THE SAME symptoms, and similar steps to reproduce. The 64 bit precision issue was the last big one I remember. For a recent example check the number of start screen threads and posts in these forums, please note the start screen issue is NOT a stability issue.

What we do have here every so often are people posting about entirely different issues. 95% of the time we get to the bottom of it. The other 5% is generally because the OP might not be confident enough to follow diagnostic steps. At the end of the day there is generally always a resolution.. and Sonar generally is not the problem. Basically do the math...