I hope that I can still get free updates... for life. ;-p

My biggest hope for SONAR in 2017 would be that Cakewalk as a company experiences a large influx of new growth in a few select areas ...
 
 
1, Increased financial resources in the Cakewalk kitty due to more experienced and first DAW users switching over to SONAR ...
 
2, Increased financial resources made available to the staff of Cakewalk so the developers can spend more time on focusing on developing the program deeper and implementing a few fixes for a couple of longstanding issues a few of us old timers have always wanted fixed ...but never got .....
 
3 , Increased financial resources made available to the Cakewalk company so they can implement a proper company tier structure that includes the resources to hire and set up a proper support systems for both new and old customers alike ...
( FWIW , 99% of the time the forum has served my needs , but in the past I have used telephone support to purchase new Cakewalk products and get a little help along the way )
 
 4,  I would like to see Cakewalk develop a much stronger u tube presence ....
 
I mean no offense by saying this....,it's just a personal observation ....
Some of the Cakewalk videos out there now on u tube seem more like advertisements and they do not go deep enough into the program itself .
 
Having an 80's radio style voice over with a SONAR screen record as an official Cakewalk  u tube video where the action of the screen of whats happening inside of SONAR itself is muted while someone clicks around w a mouse just ain't cutting it   
 
We all  know that there is an abundance of 3 rd party video learning solution's out there .I have spent a lot of money on them ...
The thing is I learned more about SONAR watching a chuckebabys Session Drummer 3 video in the short time it played than I ever did learn falling a sleep to one of the collections of Snooze 3 SONAR videos I bought ..BTW...great vid Chuck
 
What about having some of the Cakewalk in house guys spend a little more time teaching us how to use the program correctly with short , sweet , and to the point official Cakewalk sponsored u tube video's... 
 
Thank you in advance for hearing me out on that one  .
 
As far as a few SONAR features I would like to see in 2017 and beyond ...
 
Staff view improvement's , long over due ...
 
Ripple audio editing since I have had that for many years already . I have gotten used to using it and miss it terribly when it's not there in a music app I'm using ...
 
The Matrix view getting the ability to record audio or midi within a cell .
 
An integrated on-board per track guitar tuner along the lines of what Mixcraft 7 or what Garage Band has ...
it's not only about the guitar ...it makes it easy to map out a sampler when the root note of the sample is not C
 
This ones a stretch ,  Ripple video editing since I have used it with favorable results in another DAW that begins w the letter R....
 
Better metering options along the lines of what Samp has
 
Last but not least ...
 
Gibson give Craig A... a very large salary raise in 2017 so he can finally place an order for a brand new hover car when they come out ...
He is a true SONAR treasure ....
 
The Same goes for Noel  , give him a very large salary raise in 2017 so he can pick up that Gibson hollow body guitar he played and liked a lot at the Gibson booth .
 
edit ....
Whew...after spending so much of this long winded post of mine talking about money .
I must have needed a motivational pep talk just to get off my a$$ . So I decided to put my money where my mouth was ....
I just got done "finally ordering" my SONAR lifetime updates  .
While I was there doing that in the Cakewalk Store I also picked up the brand new Craig A.... e book on SONAR Tips....
Yaaayyy...wooot just doing my part ... 
 
all the best,
 
Kenny
 

I'll second Kenny's suggestion on YouTube tutorials.  I think a lot of the need for basic help can be handled there (and this forum - but a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is 30 pics/sec, so do the math.)
 
I am not sure what other DAWs have out there for official videos, so this might be another differentiator.  If the mac crowd comes on board, it will be crucial since they are more creative types (and less techy)  

Keep this forum in tact and a stable SONAR.

dwardzala
I'll second Kenny's suggestion on YouTube tutorials. 

Not to hijack the thread, but as you may know I do videos. The problem is they take a lot of time because I'm a perfectionist. What would be REALLY helpful to me is a list of topics you'd like to see covered in a video. Then I could make sure the limited amount of time I have to spend on videos would cover topics that were important to people.
 
 

1st topic - the matrix, Kontakt and Heavocity loops.
 
I play some "chords" in HV, making a 12 bar sequence using a couple of loops.  I record a couple of 12 bar loops to SONAR.  I take that "song" into SF to edit, hoping to splice the 12 bar loops into separate loops for the matrix  The last time I tried it the 1st 12 bars worked fine, but my 2nd attempt to cut a 12 bar loop for the matrix seemed to switch tempo so it was playing back at a fraction of the tempo, as if SF didn't splice correctly or SONAR saw the whole clip.  Not sure what I screwed up and I haven't had time to go back and try it again (although the same thing happened before).
 
Even without this probable operator error, it would be nice to see how someone else (like you) would make loops in Kontakt etc, cut them up into smaller "performance" loops and load them into the matrix (and have them play at the correct tempo).

Anderton
 
 What would be REALLY helpful to me is a list of topics you'd like to see covered in a video. Then I could make sure the limited amount of time I have to spend on videos would cover topics that were important to people.
 

A complete/official Sonar walk-through course of a small project with both audio/midi content, (with why's, when's and how's) going from, preferences settings, track organization, level setups and recording, mixing and applying various plug-ins, gain, automation, etc., to importing to final stereo/surround track, and possibly a mastering series.
 
An interactive (live) online course with Craig Anderton, and/or other instructors is something Id definitely be willing to pay for, at a reasonable cost.

1. Fix ACT
2. Redo the menus. If I were a newbie the menu system would drive me crazy. Example: if I want to insert a measure is it in the insert menu? No, it is in the project menu. I know that from a programming point of view it makes sense but from a user point of view? In addition, the track view us getting really cluttered. How many different ways do you need to insert a track? Now with Lenses the track view is starting to resemble 8.5 where instead of icons menus are everywhere. Anyway, pretty small potatoes for a great program.

+1 What Kenny said!
 
As stated any videos on youtube would help.  Its a great marketing resource.  There's been a drought of Sonar videos (what happened to drum production part 2), thank God for Rig Rundown.  I'd like to see a project start to finish with midi and audio.  Maybe several 10-15 minute videos keep it simple to show new users how easy it can be.  Also I recommend putting a date stamp on titles so people can see whats relevant.

Something like Ableton's Beatseeker, a plug that allows the sequencer to lock to a live drummer (or other rhythmic source material).
 
A simple chord creation app that would allow the user to assign multiple notes to any midi note.