To all who have replied, I thank you. You have confirmed what I've suspected all along. In an industry of professional and home recordists, one would think think that manufacturers would develop a system that would incorporate a recorder(DAW) and a console with motorized faders that would automate. Some DAWs do. Obviously Sonar is not one of them. I see companies as Presonus introduce their Presonus StudioLive Series III and I start to salivate . They have their own software and I have to start questioning " Do I really need Sonar as my my DAW"...... Another alternative I would be comfortable with is an analog console which I currently have, Yamaha RM800-24, a real workhorse. The only problem with that is all the Motherboards today abandoned PCI slots. M-Audio used to make a PCI card, the Delta 1010LT had 8 analog inputs and 8 analog outputs. You could link up to 4 cards. I had 3 for 24 track mixing out of Sonar. But alas when Sonar introduced 64 bit, I upgraded my OS W8, 64 bit and motherboard for faster CPU with faster and greater RAM capacity 16-32 GB, the PCI slots only had one. MBs were using the smaller PCI-Express slots. Companies now offer USB multi input audio interfaces. I bought 2 Focusrite 18i20 to do 16 track simultaneous recording with my desktop or remotely with my laptop. If I can find a way to get Sonar to see analog outputs on the 18i20, I could at least mix using the analog faders on my console.......I was hoping with today's technology, there would be choices to do exactly that!  But alas, this industry has left those who do not want to live in a box to jury rigging something different. Personally, I find that unacceptable! If Sonar and other DAWs could agree on some sort of MCU or similar protocol, as they did on MIDI, imagine they growth on DAW and mixer combos?

hydemusic
To all who have replied, I thank you. You have confirmed what I've suspected all along. In an industry of professional and home recordists, one would think think that manufacturers would develop a system that would incorporate a recorder(DAW) and a console with motorized faders that would automate. Some DAWs do.

Which?
 

Obviously Sonar is not one of them.

At least not yet, while with Tascam they have a chance. But they have tried with Roland and VS-700, the history has shown that was marketing disaster.
 

I see companies as Presonus introduce their Presonus StudioLive Series III and I start to salivate . They have their own software and I have to start questioning " Do I really need Sonar as my my DAW"......

Yes, it looks like hardware recorders are going to survive current "DAW era". F.e. this Series III: internal recording and controlling from iPad (which I have described as (a) in my first post). But no single word about using it to control any DAW, not even Studio One.
 

Personally, I find that unacceptable! If Sonar and other DAWs could agree on some sort of MCU or similar protocol, as they did on MIDI, imagine they growth on DAW and mixer combos?

I do not understand you. They have almost agreed on MCU protocol (partially on EUCon). But they prefer to have
Rack interface/Mixer + Separate Surface + DAW OR Mixer with Surface as one device, sometimes with recorder, near always with a possibility to record into DAW but without the possibility to use Surface part in the DAW. I do not know know why, that make no sense for me (especially since they have communication with iPads, so technically and in software everything is there...).

I think it may be that the way things work today the majority of us are now using automation and need to mix with multiple real faders has become redundant. Eight or even one is all you need to manage in a pass. 
For me it was a great day ( 1997?) that I started to control the faders on my Yamaha 01v with a simple midi sequencer run on an Atari. Prior to that I had just finished an album with 12 tracks ( seemed like a lot back then)  mixed on a Soundcraft 24 channel board and it took 2 of us to cue the mixes manually and about 30 passes before we would get it right. The mixing session took over a week. But boy we're we proud when we got it down! 
 
So now it was all automated and you could even make those micro adjustments never worth the bother before. But using the 01v was still out of the box mixing. 
In 2004 I dabbled in PC with Cakewalk Guitar studio but crappy sound cards and whatnot I stayed with my trusty Atari, Yamaha MD 8 and the 01v for a few years more. 
 
But thanks to this forum I finally got used to Sonar and with the us1641 I had multi channels too. 
For me the transition from the 01v automation to Sonars console  was painless. I can map the 01v to Sonar and use the faders via midi to control things but the 01v is to large to sit in front of me so for the sake of simplicity I use the mouse which to me is not a big issue. Sure faders would be better and someday if the right product came along I'd think about it. But money needs to be spent on many other things first. 
 
 

A bit off-topic, but the work is in (slow) progress to make 01v map strait to Sonar (to make it work such a way as you would control Sonar the same way and with the same controls/pages you can control one 01v from another)
 
But OP question is valid: if there is a Digital Mixer, with many touch sensitive hi resolution faders (which are obviously digital, not analog), why producers either "degrade" them to low resolution non sensitive (f.e. A&H Qu) or cut the whole controlling part away (f.e. all mixers mentioned in the first post) when you connect these devices to computer? They WAS NOT cutting that before, they was just sending corresponding messages from old devices (01v is a good example).

azslow3
A bit off-topic, but the work is in (slow) progress to make 01v map strait to Sonar (to make it work such a way as you would control Sonar the same way and with the same controls/pages you can control one 01v from another)

 
When you say that work is in progress...is this for the newer 96i version?
 
There was something available for the 01v that let you control faders and such...but I only toyed with it and haven't made it work in a lot of years.
 
Who is it that's making this (slow) progress and what version is it for?

azslow writes programs, and apps for us all the time, so he must be the work in progress. 
The information and whatnot is found on the 01v Yahoo user group. 
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Yamaha01V/info
 
Go to this page and scan down you will find the Sonar Files zip
 
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Yamaha01V/files
 
 
 
 

dantarbill
Who is it that's making this (slow) progress and what version is it for?

Cactus Music
azslow writes programs, and apps for us all the time, so he must be the work in progress. 

I have only several devices, so particular controller integration is always done in cooperation with someone who has it.


For 01v, the "progress" you can find there:  http://www.azslow.com/index.php/topic,322.0.html
The subject is a bit misleading. It is about 01v, so old version. Toward the end there are some "test" presets. Everyone is welcome to participate with suggestions/testing.

So if I was just looking for a control surface (without a mixer or audio interface), which one gets closest to controlling most part of Sonar, if not all :
 
Mackie Universal Control
Behringer X-Touch
Some thing else ?
 

RishiS
So if I was just looking for a control surface (without a mixer or audio interface), which one gets closest to controlling most part of Sonar, if not all :
 
Mackie Universal Control
Behringer X-Touch

These 2 are ABSOLUTELY equivalent in functionality. The difference is in brand/components/design.
 

Some thing else ?

With motor faders, display and not declared obsolete? Nothing else at the moment.
 
There is no surfaces which provide "ALL" functionality, not at the moment. Closest to that was VS-700 from Roland, but it is discontinued. EUCON based surfaces should be close to MCU in functionality (which is not "all").
 
Smaller/simpler devices exists: Presonus Faderport (with original and alternative setup) is nice single strip controller, BCR-2000 (alternative setup) has no faders and no display, but can do many things which no other controller can do (and with 24 encoders is probably unbeatable in number of encoders pro required space ratio).
 

azslow3

RishiS
So if I was just looking for a control surface (without a mixer or audio interface), which one gets closest to controlling most part of Sonar, if not all :
 
Mackie Universal Control
Behringer X-Touch

These 2 are ABSOLUTELY equivalent in functionality. The difference is in brand/components/design.

That means its not worth spending an addition 400 bucks on the MCU when the X-touch does the same for 600bucks. Useful info !
 
Looking at the fader port feedback here and else where, I am thinking if it is worthwhile to wait for the 8 fader version that is expected in Nov. I have a BCF2000 but some navigation buttons have stopped working. So i probably get the single faderport for navigation and use the BCF for the 8 channels.