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i love Sonar Platinum, but for some reason, i do not use it as a pattern-based sequencer.  weird.
 
my replacement for P5 (i was devastated when it died), when it comes to my pattern-based sequencing, ended up being Maschine.  i wish NI could handle this job better, as arranging patterns in Maschine is terrible (while making the patterns, themselves, is awesome).  P5 was incredible at both pattern creation & arranging of patterns, but needed to become 64 bit and multi-core aware.  
 
yeah, i own FL Studio, and i don't care what anyone says (loudly at KVR), it doesn't sound as good as other DAWS i use.  there is a thin layer of mud in it.
 
it would be nice if Sonar added a pattern-based sequencer that functioned hand-in-hand w/its current linear layout that was as easy & intuitive to use as P5, but the step sequencer does not do it for me, at all.
 
 

wetdentist
i love Sonar Platinum, but for some reason, i do not use it as a pattern-based sequencer.  weird.
 
my replacement for P5 (i was devastated when it died), when it comes to my pattern-based sequencing, ended up being Maschine.  i wish NI could handle this job better, as arranging patterns in Maschine is terrible (while making the patterns, themselves, is awesome).  P5 was incredible at both pattern creation & arranging of patterns, but needed to become 64 bit and multi-core aware.  
 
yeah, i own FL Studio, and i don't care what anyone says (loudly at KVR), it doesn't sound as good as other DAWS i use.  there is a thin layer of mud in it.
 
it would be nice if Sonar added a pattern-based sequencer that functioned hand-in-hand w/its current linear layout that was as easy & intuitive to use as P5, but the step sequencer does not do it for me, at all.
 
 

I've suggested more than once that getting the pattern/MIDI editor function either implanted into Sonar, or made as a stand-alone external editor, would be a fawesome thing for Sonar.

BobF
 
 
I've suggested more than once that getting the pattern/MIDI editor function either implanted into Sonar, or made as a stand-alone external editor, would be a fawesome thing for Sonar.

P5's pattern window as a Sonar plugin would be worth more to me than any meticulously-modeled dinosaur hardware ProChannel ever could.

Project 5 has been labelled a dead duck by the powers that be. How could Sonar's pattern based modules be improved to get you the functionality of P5?

ampfixer
Project 5 has been labelled a dead duck by the powers that be. How could Sonar's pattern based modules be improved to get you the functionality of P5?

Make them look/feel/function like the P5 tools 

TBH, nearly all music has repetitive, loop-type content in it, and a workflow that allowed for easy manipulation would be hot. Geist has sort of filled this gap for me, but getting samples into that on the fly are not elegant (drag/drop from SONAR cannot be used effectively unless it exists in the media browser first). Without a substantial overhaul, I am not sure the internal SS/Matrix would fit this bill but it would be incredibly useful to many.
 
Scoping out the extent of that overhaul might be worth the effort though, as key gaps to workflow (even with 3rd party options) could be addressed.

I have to admit that since owning Geist I haven't touched the step sequencer much at all, in fact Geist quickly became my "DAW within a DAW." Yes the sample browser is a little crappy but I've gotten used to it (and Geist 2 reportedly has major improvements). It's just so easy to implement and manage pattern based beats in Geist, in fact any kind of sample triggering. Sonar definitely needs more work to cater to the electronic crowd. I really don't know how I'd manage without Geist these days. Sometimes I have 3 or 4 instances of it in a project, each using all 8 engines. I sequence patterns in Geist's song mode, and then drag them out into a MIDI track for further tweaking. If only Geist handled things like time signature changes, and if only Sonar didn't throw out Geist's song position when toggling loops on and off (major annoyance), then they would be a marriage made in heaven. But I would genuinely love Sonar to have more Geist-like functionality.
 
You can see their dilemma. I have a rough estimate in my head of what kind of crowd Sonar appeals to from being active on this forum for over 3 years, and it's an older crowd than other DAW's. There's not a lot of love for EDM or electronica, I would say that maybe 80% or over of the users here work with traditional instrument based audio projects, perhaps supplementing with the odd VSTi for sampled instruments and the odd synth part. So on the one hand, it would be a risk putting more of their resources into a Geist/Ableton style workflow with the current user base as it is. On the other hand, they have this huge market of young EDM bedroom producers that they're going to have to tap into to compete in the coming decade. 
 
I have watched countless EDM and electronica based tutorials and courses online. And not one of them used Sonar. It's virtually all Logic, Ableton or Pro Tools. 

Yea, sharke, SONAR wants to be all things to everybody, but not everything to all  people.  Thus the half-finished good ideas like MATRIX (or notation in SONAR).  It is enough to work with, but not the most efficient method to do any single task.  And you are right, the typical user (at least from the forums over the last 10 years) are guitarists who is doing home recording.  Hence Cake has spent money and time on drums (the big bugbear of home rock).  And that was the problem w/ P5 - it was for synthesists and loopers mostly, not the traditional picker.  And it did bring in some new people and hopefully some of them stuck with SONAR.
 
A lot of us back at the death of P5 hoped we got a plug-in equivalent for those aspects we each liked the most.  I'm sure Cake knows there are users who would switch from "live" to a more full-featured, linear DAW like SONAR if they had a better Matrix.  The powers that be have said they are working on upgrading the Matrix, something you never hear about notation.  And I can't think of any major "feature"changes SONAR can implement other than a better notation system or upgrading the Matrix.  Let's hope that the matrix gets an update - maybe for the 1st year anniversary.
 
@

wetdentist
my replacement for P5 (i was devastated when it died), when it comes to my pattern-based sequencing, ended up being Maschine.  i wish NI could handle this job better, as arranging patterns in Maschine is terrible (while making the patterns, themselves, is awesome).  P5 was incredible at both pattern creation & arranging of patterns, but needed to become 64 bit and multi-core aware.  
 

 
I was about to post something very similar, I too feel that Maschine has replaced P5 in my heart.  Having been a fan of music tech for many years, P5 was the first that I was actually able to get my head around and start using productively.  I then thought I'd be fine moving up to Sonar 8.5, but no, it was too much for me.  When X1 came out with a wealth of videos and webinars, I really got into it and dropped P5, but really missed the pattern/clip based workflow.
 
Willy Jones from Cakewalk asked "Is there something or a part of P5's workflow that you are missing in SONAR?".  Well in P5 it suited me to be able to simply and easily view all the pattern/clips I'd created and drop them where I wanted on the timeline.  That's it.
 
Obviously this type of workflow suits me and I have become much more productive with Maschine because it works that way (I'm not intending this to be a NI advert btw).  You can create a number of different versions of a pattern/clip - copy, modify and drop them in where you want.  I export the groups to Sonar X3 to apply finishing touches.
 
You could easily dismiss this thread with the thought that it's all about dance music - I myself tend towards ambient stuff, however as Mettelus pointed out "TBH, nearly all music has repetitive, loop-type content in it, and a workflow that allowed for easy manipulation would be hot."