Sonar users --
Your pain is real! I'm truly saddened for this whole community. While Sonar was only an occasionally-used DAW for me (while I've owned most versions from Sonar 6 to Platinum), I appreciated its feature set and am also bummed and angry at Gibson. Meanwhile, THIS Forum has been 2nd to none!
While I own Sonar Platinum, Studio One, Reaper, and MixBus, what I use 95% of the time (for 20 years) is Samplitude ProX2. (Simply outstanding for editing, mixing, mastering, exporting. Stable with hundreds of VST-2 plugins. We also track weekly 34 channels for years with hardly a hiccup. Solid with 3rd party VST's, etc.).
Anyway, for those of you looking for a new DAW: you really should consider Samplitude if AUDIO is your gig. (Unless electronic music -- then maybe better off with Cubase). Magix (parent company) has an insane offer that's just come out and is only available for a few days as an Anniversary Special. It includes:
- the current version,
Samplitude ProX3 Suite (with all kinds of goodies -- normally $600), plus
- Spectral Layers Pro4 (spend 20 minutes on the videos on the Magix page. Blows your mind with spectral editing!) ($400), plus
- SoundForge Pro 11 ($200, when bundled with SLP4, or $400 by itself), plus
- a special version of iZotope editing, mastering based on Ozone 7 ($100), plus
- (another version of) Melodyne elements ($50), plus
- Birdline Custom Skins for Samplitude ($60)
Anyway, it's all for
$149 (seriously, the price of a great plugin). 4 days! It says "upgrade" because it's targeted to existing users on prior versions. But it's a
new full version. And works for new users as well as current users. I just bought mine here: (copy/paste)
http://www.magix.com/index.php?id=24739&L=52&phash=9wsnAiYJ77GWu8YE&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=spsut&utm_campaign=US_48_spsut You can watch the 2-minute video for a brief overview of new features.
For new users, check out Kraznet's series of YouTube Videos.
Best wishes.