lingyai
Actually, come to think of it, why would anyone (except for Cakewalk, which has to think about sales) care what others think of Sonar?

Because we would all go through horrible symptoms of withdrawal if people stopped buying SONAR and Cakewalk went out of business. If people are bad-mouthing SONAR because they've tried Platinum and genuinely don't like it, that's fine...to each his own. But in the context of Gearslutz, I've seen plenty of people bad-mouthing a variety of products they've never tried, or even seen at trade shows, or anything because "I've heard that..."
 
If someone is looking to get into a DAW, and they go to a forum where people are all saying "Ohhh, SONAR is bad, I know it is because everyone else here tells me it's bad," then they may never find out that SONAR Artists is one helluva deal for $99.

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lingyai
Actually, come to think of it, why would anyone (except for Cakewalk, which has to think about sales) care what others think of Sonar? Not like anyone's trying to ban it. Everyone chooses their DAW, plugins, mics, interfaces etc to make music they way they'd like. Live and let live. What's the point of getting tribal?

Hm, because people more often are not making music alone. So more Sonar users would be very good for existing Sonar users.

Another excellent point. The way I got around that with a friend who I collaborate with was to convince him to get SONAR so he could open my projects, then save out the WAV files and open them in something else. I'll admit it was a Trojan horse...he converted to using SONAR because he liked it so much better than the, uh, "industry standard" program he had been using. 

Anderton
Meanwhile, you mean like this? 
 

Actually no.
I mean something like Pensado's lessons, and some major online music learning sites. This sites have Sonar videos, but only for learning Sonar. If they are teaching producing or mixing in general they always use ProTools, Logic or Ableton Live.

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lingyai
Actually, come to think of it, why would anyone (except for Cakewalk, which has to think about sales) care what others think of Sonar? Not like anyone's trying to ban it. Everyone chooses their DAW, plugins, mics, interfaces etc to make music they way they'd like. Live and let live. What's the point of getting tribal?

Hm, because people more often are not making music alone. So more Sonar users would be very good for existing Sonar users.

I think at this point, that's an intractable issue. In the last three months alone, I've had mix projects come to me from ProTools, Logic, Ableton, GarageBand and even an ancient version of Cubase. You just have to get on and work out the conversion and handover steps.
 
Obviously, if you've got a regular collaborator, it makes sense for you to agree on a platform. But there's no "safe" DAW that makes it simple to work with lots of different people.
 
It's a shame OMF development petered out. There really should be a better standard for interchange. But I suppose it's hard to justify development costs on something that confers little or no market advantage.

Oh, and for the record, I've just applied for a freelance gig that specifically asked for a Sonar user. Everyone is all over the place. The only thing you can truly believe in is WAVs. All else is a matter of faith.
 

Ok, if it is not enough. People tend to teach each other, it is most efficient way to learn music software. So there are more themes to discuss if two people are using the same DAW.

John T
 Everyone is all over the place. The only thing you can truly believe in is WAVs. All else is a matter of faith.
 

 
Agreed. I recall seeing a poll somewhere (I think KVR) suggesting that the DAW market is as splintered as this year's race for the Republican nomination -- even the leader is in a distinct minority. The notion that any one DAW (much less Sonar) will become so prevalent as to become the de facto medium of exchange among musos seems pretty flimsy. So no, Sonar users don't *need* others to use Sonar -- what percentage of projects have you done which have depended on that?  Personally, I think DAW  rivalry (like smartphone rivalry, OS rivalry, car rivalry, high school football team rivalry etc) is a Rich World problem -- a silly, made-up  reason for people to dislike each other.  
 
 

John T
It's a shame OMF development petered out. There really should be a better standard for interchange. But I suppose it's hard to justify development costs on something that confers little or no market advantage.

I worked at the ISO level on interchange formats for office documents and their various types of content.  All major companies participated and it would have been easy for any one of them to have their products support the standards.  But these standards also petered out due mostly to one or two big 'classic' companies refusing to give up their proprietary hold on their customers.  They failed to realize that doing so would have been good for everyone, themselves included.  That was 25 years ago and the problem still hasn't been resolved.
 
Sad if it's also the case in the music/media industry.
 

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Slate doesn't respect Sonar as a major daw, Gearsluts don't respect...
Unfortunately Sonar is not widely recognized as major daw.
And in fact it is not a major daw.
Sonar is oldschool niche enthusiastic marginal daw still.
And to change it Cakewalk should pay more to promote and advertise and to change its image completely, or make it so strong and attractive that mass of people would run and buy it.

There was a time when Sonar was advertised in virtually every issue of every magazine, especially around release time. The problem was, those releases were as heavy on bugs and half-baked features as they were on advertising. In my experience, the incremental model has led to much reliability improvement, but Sonar's reputation will take longer to recover.
 
Actually, the "because windows" rationale seems quite plausible, because also omitted in that list is FLStudio, which is huge and prominent in the EDM community.

I'm not sure what one expects. Is it that we want people to bow down when we mention the DAW we use? It is and has always been a matter of personal choice. If someone can't see Sonar's usefulness, so what, the jokes on them. 
 
I can see respecting talent but respecting a DAW. No. Its a tool like a hammer. It either works for you or it doesn't. Respect goes to the man using the tool.