So like many others, I have had to seek a replacement for Sonar, even though Sonar may work as it is into the future - you just never know when it may suddenly stop working. Let's face it. Unless a miracle happens, Sonar will eventually fade away into history. It's time to move on.
I don't have a lot of money and can't afford to waste what I do have making expensive mistakes, so I have dug deep into other DAWs and deals in the past couple of weeks since Cakewalk made that horrible announcement and here is what I have found. I hope this will be useful for others who are struggling to move on and are feeling orphaned, alone and confused in the big DAW world.
Firstly, if you are a hobbyist, Sonar is still a working, functioning DAW who's last update was only a month ago so it will be current for some time to come. Your cheapest option is to continue to use it! However, it is no longer supported and will no longer be updated, so there will eventually come a time when it stops being able to support your needs or suddenly stops working altogether. When that time comes you may suddenly find yourself unable to get into any of your projects. So it is a good idea to have a backup plan. Every DAW is different and has a learning curve associated with it. So to remain productive you need to be learning your next DAW now and porting any important projects over to it so that you can eventually transition over from Sonar.
The death of Cakewalk has led some rival companies to make deals available to Sonar users partly through empathy and concern and partly because that's a good commercial strategy! However, it is advantageous for us to have so many deals available to us right now. It does, however, create a lot of panic and confusion as time-limited deals force you into making a rushed decision.
The deals are;- Cubase Pro 9.5 - $250 - crossgrade available from the steinberg.net web store in the EU/UK, Sweetwater in the US or your local Yamaha distributor elsewhere. Deal ends at the end of the year.
- Presonus Studio One 3.5 Pro - $150 - crossgrade available direct from Presonus' web store (maybe more expensive) or from JJRShop. Deal ends at the end of the year.
- Samplitude Pro X3 Suite - $150 - while not specifically a crossgrade deal for Sonar, this is a great deal from Magix for a bundle of software that would normally cost $1400. Deal ends 6th December.
- MixBus - not specifically a deal for Sonar users, but there is a deal on for the next day or so where you can get MixBus for as little as $29.
Other related deals are;For those who need notation, Don Williams has reached out to Sonar users with a special offer of
Overture 5 for $50. It turns out that Overture features were going to be added to Sonar to replace the long complained about Staff view, but Gibson gibbons put a stop to that on various occasions.
There are many DAWs out there to choose from. They are all different and will suit different users in different ways, but let's explore the ones that currently have deals.
Cubase Pro 9.5Cubase was Cakewalk's main rival for decades. It is the leading pro grade DAW out there. Its feature set is huge and from that aspect is on par or more with Sonar. It is a market leader so there is plenty of help available from the web community as well as support for hardware etc. Cubase has always required a dongle - USB e-licenser hardware in order to use it. It does not currently support ARA for using tools like Melodyne directly within clip sections, but Melodyne can still be used in Cubase as a plugin. Cubase also has its own inbuilt system very similar to Melodyne that can do some great things. Cubase has the most substantial midi support in the DAW world. The makers of Cubase, Steinberg invented ASIO and VST so Cubase's pedigree is right up there. Cubase gets updated fairly infrequently. My personal experience of Cubase (I first used it on an Atari ST in the 80's) is that it is packed with industry-leading features and has a flexible workflow. It comes bundled with great instruments and effects. But it was let down by bugs for me. I have always had some kind of stability issue when trying Cubase in the past. Updates don't come cheap. You have to pay for most x.5 updates. If you take your music production very seriously, have serious midi requirements and have a healthy budget then Cubase is probably for you.
Cubase support and communityI was in touch with Steinberg support and I had friendly helpful replies. There is a huge community of users and tutorials all over the place. The forums, however, are a little regimental and serious - none of the banter that we are used to here. Their forum software is also very dated and the font is far too small for my eyes.
Studio One 3.5 ProThe pro audio hardware company, Presonus, develop Studio One in Germany in the same city as Steinberg develop Cubase. In fact Studio One was started by developers who previously worked on Cubase. It is a fairly new DAW who's feature set is not as deep as Cubase or Sonar, but they use that to their advantage because its learning curve is not as steep and it's easier to just get on and be creative without the software getting in your way. Having said that though, it does have some really great features and is a very capable DAW. It comes packaged with a good selection of instruments and effects. What it lacks in deep features it makes up for in speed and stability, but it also has features that were never in Sonar such as an arranger track, scratch pad, and a dedicated mastering section. Studio One has rapidly grown in popularity, has a fairly regular update cycle and really seems to be going places.
Studio One support and communitySupport doesn't seem bad. There are a lot of users and plenty of tutorials around. The forums seem friendly and well populated.
MixBusMixBus is developed by Harrison Consoles, a long established manufacturer of large format, analog mixing desks. Their idea with MixBus was to create a DAW with a similar workflow and sound of an old-school analog studio. They replicated every detail of the channel strips on their hardware consoles and reproduced them in software form within MixBus where they are the prominent feature. MixBus its self is built on top of the open source, cross-platform DAW, Ardour. So MixBus can be run on Windows, Mac and Linux and supports all major plugin architectures although due to licensing it does not currently support VST3 although that is rumored to be coming in 2018. MixBus is not a gimmick. It does what it set out to do. It has that analog sound of wires, transformers, and magnetic tape and it has a workflow which revolves around the mixer. On top of that, it is also a very capable DAW for tracking, mixing and general midi/softsynth use. It is not a generalist. It is a specialist so it may not be the best choice for your one and only DAW, but certainly worth considering as an addition to your musical arsenal, and it is particularly good for mixing music exported as stems from your main DAW.
MixBus support and communityI haven't had any reason to contact support. There are quite a lot of tutorials out there. There is a forum, and I had a very quick look, but I didn't feel much of a thriving community vibe there, but I could be rong!
Samplitude Pro X3 SuiteSamplitude has been around for some time and is a DAW with a deep feature set. The suite also includes some top-notch software such as Sound Forge Pro 11 advanced audio editor and SpectraLayers Pro 4 spectral editor. The Samplitude DAW its self comes bundled with many instruments and effects including Melodyne (yes it has ARA), Izotope cleaning and restoration tools and Elastique Pro built right in. In addition to that, it has some of the best metering and analyzers I have ever seen built right into the DAW. It has strong, customizable support for hardware controllers and generally appears to do many things much more comprehensively than other DAWs. At first, it appears a little alian to someone used to working in Sonar, so that combined with the depth of its feature set means you should expect a fairly steep learning curve to begin with. However, that learning curve looks like it will pay off. I have heard it said by different sources that Samplitude is one of the most bug-free and stable DAWs there is. It is definitely a DAW for the pros, but while it has plenty of midi tools, it may not be ideal for the very serious midi users.
Samplitude support and communitySamplitude is owned by Magix. They have grown into a huge software giant over the years. I have had other software from them and their support has been fine. While it isn't the most popular or hyped DAW out there, there are a lot of users and plenty of tutorials available. The forum looks pretty good although I have only taken a quick look. I get the vibe that there are plenty of happy, contented users that are very enthusiastic about Samplitude.
In summaryWhile I don't want to stop using Sonar I also don't want to lose all my hard work from an unsupported DAW suddenly going dead on me. I do have other DAWs such as FL Studio and MixBus, but they for me have specific things that they are good at and I need a new main, all-purpose DAW to replace Sonar. My first choice was Cubase because it has the depth of features I need and was prepared to forgive it for the hard times it gave me in the distant past which is why I ended up with Cakewalk. However, it spat in my face once again because the GUI was very slow and unresponsive on my machine to the extent that I wouldn't be able to use it seriously, but don't let that put you off - I seem to be the only person with that problem and it has hundreds of thousands of happy users including many big names.
Eventually, I plumped for Studio One Pro. I say plumped because it was my second choice and I wasn't too impressed with the demo at first, but having dug deeper I think it does have some good features and I can adapt to the workflow and it's not a huge learning curve. I also feel like I am backing a winning horse with Studio One as its development really seems to have a sense of direction and purpose behind it. I also purchased Overture at the discounted rate after being wowed by the demo and as an owner of that, I was able to get the crossgrade for Notion too with the combined cost of Overture and Notion crossgrade being less than Notion on its own.
Now, having blown all my pennies on a new DAW I am finding it hard to pass up on the Samplitude Pro X3 suite because, well, because it's a hell of a deal for a bundle of great software including a DAW that really looks like the biz. I think I am going to have to drop some more cash (that I don't have) on that. Even if I only use Studio One as my main DAW and don't get into Samplitude, the other software it comes with is worth it alone!
One thing is certain. There is no other DAW quite like Sonar and I will miss it. It went because Cakewalk was axed by Gibson. The DAWs featured above seem to be pretty well protected from a similar thing happening to them. They are all owned by stable audio hardware companies and a software Giant. So hopefully we won't have to go through this again anytime soon!