I've been using Sonar for 14 years and I've had no problems until X3. By eliminating the option to turn off the CC panel's Value handle, Sonar completely ignored my way of learning for 10 years. That was a big mistake.

I, too, prefer to hand-plant CCs and find that aspect of SONAR more awkward today than it was under 8.5. Automation is also less convenient now, and I've been waiting years to see some basic enhancements such as scaling and inversion. 
 
Yet despite my complaints I remain a fan with no intention of switching DAWs. Experimentation with alternatives has shown that every one of them has their own strengths and weaknesses, and none offer a solution that's perfect in every regard.
 
Far more important is achieving a comfort level with a tool that allows you to forget about it, to let it fade into the background of the creative process. If Cubase (or Reaper or Studio One or Logic or a Studer) does that for you then that's the path you should take.
 
For this complainer, however, SONAR does the job it was hired to do, does it fairly elegantly and - most important - doesn't get in the way of the process.

I unfortunately have to agree: automation editing is painful. Similarly, tempo map editing is rudimentary (e.g. cant even see the "nodes"). Sonar does so many things well that I'm hesitant to move. But when I look at the flexibility my friends have with Cubase as far as midi and automation editing, I'm envious.
 
With all the telemetry Sonar has been collecting, my guess that the typical user does not have these needs, or it would be, or would have been, addressed.

Shrug. I use lots of automation. And I much prefer working with envelopes and I much prefer those envelopes have as few nodes as possible.
 
If someone can actually hear the difference between my two-node fader moves and someone else's two hundred-node fader moves, well let's face it, that person was never going to like my music anyway. 

AllanH
With all the telemetry Sonar has been collecting, my guess that the typical user does not have these needs, or it would be, or would have been, addressed.

The data being collected is very basic, mostly relating to OS, amount of memory, CPU, whether 32 or 64 bit, time spent in the program, and plug-ins. It will be a while, maybe even quite a while, before analytics gets more granular. The "big brother" paranoia that existed when analytics were first announced was not only not invalid, but caused many people not to enable analytics, thus making Cakewalk's job of improving the program more difficult, and discouraging them from developing it much further.
 
Cakewalk should have done what some other music programs do - enable it by default, and bury that fact in the EULA. But they wanted to be transparent, and of course, no good deed goes unpunished.

Anderton

AllanH
With all the telemetry Sonar has been collecting, my guess that the typical user does not have these needs, or it would be, or would have been, addressed.

The data being collected is very basic, mostly relating to OS, amount of memory, CPU, whether 32 or 64 bit, time spent in the program, and plug-ins. It will be a while, maybe even quite a while, before analytics gets more granular. The "big brother" paranoia that existed when analytics were first announced was not only not invalid, but caused many people not to enable analytics, thus making Cakewalk's job of improving the program more difficult, and discouraging them from developing it much further.
 
Cakewalk should have done what some other music programs do - enable it by default, and bury that fact in the EULA. But they wanted to be transparent, and of course, no good deed goes unpunished.

My apologies if my previous comment was unclear or seen as inflammatory: I simply meant to say that Sonar now has good telemetry to make product decisions from. I think this is valuable, even if it means that "my favorite" features is less important in view of the telemetry.
 
I agree that Cakewalk communicated well and I thought they had made it clear it was to enable them to better understand how the users use the product.

AllanH
 
My apologies if my previous comment was unclear or seen as inflammatory

 
No, not at all!!! It's just that you and I had similar expectations of what analytics could do, but more participation would really help.
 

I agree that Cakewalk communicated well and I thought they had made it clear it was to enable them to better understand how the users use the product.

 
Me too, but there were still people who thought Cakewalk was going to steal their music. I think all the companies gorging on analytics have spoiled it for the rest of us. My neighbor was sick so I went out and bought a couple cans of cat food. For the next month, I was deluged with ads for pet supplies, cat adoptions, Petco, etc. etc. The ads I got hit with when I was thinking of taking a vacation in Ghana, and surfed Ghanaweb.com for an evening, were...shall we say...interesting .
 

SONAR is still performing its function well, but I hope it develops to be able to select a function option in detail to accommodate more users. I am still a lifetime membership user and I will always watch the changes of SONAR. I support SONAR.

Anderton
 
 . . . but there were still people who thought Cakewalk was going to steal their music. . . .
 

that was my hope, my thinking was that they might pay me a sum of money to take it back

I won't leave Cakewalk and Sonar, but I completely agree that the MIDI editing is way behind the competition. As well as the tempo map, as stated here above.

I've come with tons of feature requests for the piano roll, but it feels more and more like cake doesn't care about the midi aspect of Sonar any longer..

I really love everything Cakewalk's done with Sonar and it's never been as awesome as it is today..

If they want to survive as a company though and want coming generations of musicians and producers (who take controlling synth and effects via MIDI for granted) to choose Sonar over other DAWs I think Cake really must start thinking of ways to improve these things.