azslow3
A-Pro and LX (but NOT Panorama) are the only keyboards on the market which support Sonar explicitly. They do this by specialized plug-ins (binary programs, NOT "a template"). Behringer Motör has (claims) Mackie support, so has somehow "extended" functionality. All other keyboards can be configured throw standard Sonar plug-ins, but the result is rather limited. There is alternative universal plug-in written by me, but there are just several presets created by users and making good new one is not simple (well.. to provide the functionality the same as in A-Pro and LX it is simple... but you will immediately wish much more )

azslow3 knows... he da man... Many of us wish the Bakers would hire him to create whatever's needed to integrate our belovid daw with other devices...so they work out of the box for dummy's like me!

Vastman

tenfoot
+another one for the A-Pro keyboards. Best out of box Sonar integration by a long shot.

lots of posts over the years frustrated with this choice.  I considered them when looking awhile back... 
 

Given that 3 users have already commented positively in this thread and that I am sitting behind one that most definitely worked out of the box, and that your entire experience is that you 'considered it', I have to say your comment is highly speculative at best, or more precisely flat out wrong vastman:) I can only ascribe user error if others have been 'frustrated' as you claim.
 
Aslow,  whom you rightly describe as 'da man' also lists it as one of only two contenders. As always, he is absolutely right!

Bruce, I may have been remembering all the problems with the PRC rolands... Regardless, both keyboards are in a similar price catagory with pretty much similar features.... It's best to try them both before you buy or get a solid return promise from a vender like Sweetwater...  The APro/nektar they have different modulations... nextar has 2 traditional... pitch and assignable CC wheels whereas  Roland has choosen a single lever system.  While I don't like that system, you DO have an expression peddle input which I wish the Nektar had...especially for orchestral stuff I'm wankin' with these days.... 
 
Different strokes for different folks... I doubt either camp has both keybds!
 
This thread has been useful as I've been considering keeping my Nektar for sonar control as it's a nice semi-weighted fast playable semi-weighted keyboard and getting an NI Komplete Kontrol S88, because the colored light guide is amazing and really helps manage all the keyswitches and playing zones.  To me, this is the best of both worlds as many venders are adopting NI's NKS format so all such instruments automatically MAP to the keyboard... with the lightguide... with 2 assignable ribbon controllers... expression.... aftertouch.... The Nektar/S Kontrol combo is a bit cheaper than the A-Pro/S Kontrol combo but u would gain another input for an assignable footpeddle for the extra money!  
 
My ideal proposed solution thus becomes a NI Kontrol S keyboard...maybe the 61 size, which is good for the SUPER light guide and for sample libary/vst control (Orange Tree, Spitfire, Heavyocity, SampleLogic, and a long rapidly growing list of vst's/vendors ) and maybe a smaller A-pro or Nektar for transport/sonar controls... BEST OF BOTH WORLDS!!!  And you have an extended (beyond 88) keyboard range at your behest, which is very useful in some libraries like piano, with extended playing ranges plus keyswitches......and/or assigning multiple instruments withing vst's like Omnisphere to different parts of the extended/combo keyboard for real time playing... Lots of advantages here!
 
Good night all... This has been theraputic...

I wonder what people mean with "working with Sonar" as any midi keyboard (or other midi controller) will basically work just fine "out of the box" for recording midi and playing softsynths. Do you mean transport and mixing controls of Sonar itself? Would you really want to do that from your keyboard?

It's worth noting that softsynths each have their own mapping and whether a given controller "works with Sonar" has very little to do with whether or not good templates for controlling favorite softsynths are included. That said, almost all modern softsynths have decent "midi learn" functionality.

Sanderxpander
I wonder what people mean with "working with Sonar" as any midi keyboard (or other midi controller) will basically work just fine "out of the box" for recording midi and playing softsynths. Do you mean transport and mixing controls of Sonar itself? Would you really want to do that from your keyboard?

The "integration" with a DAW (not only Sonar) means controlling the DAW and/or indirectly controlling VST(i) plug-ins. So transport, mixing, FX, shortcuts, etc.
 

It's worth noting that softsynths each have their own mapping and whether a given controller "works with Sonar" has very little to do with whether or not good templates for controlling favorite softsynths are included. That said, almost all modern softsynths have decent "midi learn" functionality.

That is almost true for softsynths. Pure VSTi protocol supports:
a) MIDI input for whatever processing by VSTi. That is what is possible to "MIDI Learn" (when supported) or at least control with MIDI (when fixed)
b) "automation parameters". Most VSTi expose parameters to DAW using this mechanism, "duplicating" the possibility to control the same parameters by MIDI. Since unlike 7bit standard MIDI (1-127) this approach can have arbitrary precision, for some parameters using track automations instead of MIDI CC has advantage (f.e. frequency). Only VST Host (DAW or other "Host in Host" like AutoMap, NKS or Advance) can "translate" MIDI (or something else like OSC/EUCon) into automation parameters changes.
c) "bulk" preset loading/saving. That is how current "state" is save into the Project file. Only DAW mechanism (or "host in host", as mentioned before) can be used to change these presets. Normally VSTis are NOT providing MIDI bindings for such operations since presets can not be loaded in "real time" (think of loading big set of samples into memory)
 
Also FX VST are normally not associated with MIDI input (except may be guitar FXes), so they can not be controlled using method (a).
 
Yet another point is the "feedback". MIDI learn approach is not giving any feedback, so "advanced" functionality of modern keyboards (encoders with rings, motor faders, displays) can be used with (b) method only.
 
With that in mind, the host integration (either in Sonar or inside "host in host") plays significant role in plug-ins inter-operation with controllers even in case "MIDI learn" is possible inside these plug-ins.

Vastman
 
 
My ideal proposed solution thus becomes a NI Kontrol S keyboard...maybe the 61 size, which is good for the SUPER light guide and for sample libary/vst control (Orange Tree, Spitfire, Heavyocity, SampleLogic, and a long rapidly growing list of vst's/vendors ) and maybe a smaller A-pro or Nektar for transport/sonar controls... BEST OF BOTH WORLDS!!! 
 

Great call Dana - exactly the setup I would like as soon as my mid size keyboard dies!

azslow3

Sanderxpander
I wonder what people mean with "working with Sonar" as any midi keyboard (or other midi controller) will basically work just fine "out of the box" for recording midi and playing softsynths. Do you mean transport and mixing controls of Sonar itself? Would you really want to do that from your keyboard?

The "integration" with a DAW (not only Sonar) means controlling the DAW and/or indirectly controlling VST(i) plug-ins. So transport, mixing, FX, shortcuts, etc.
 

It's worth noting that softsynths each have their own mapping and whether a given controller "works with Sonar" has very little to do with whether or not good templates for controlling favorite softsynths are included. That said, almost all modern softsynths have decent "midi learn" functionality.

That is almost true for softsynths. Pure VSTi protocol supports:
a) MIDI input for whatever processing by VSTi. That is what is possible to "MIDI Learn" (when supported) or at least control with MIDI (when fixed)
b) "automation parameters". Most VSTi expose parameters to DAW using this mechanism, "duplicating" the possibility to control the same parameters by MIDI. Since unlike 7bit standard MIDI (1-127) this approach can have arbitrary precision, for some parameters using track automations instead of MIDI CC has advantage (f.e. frequency). Only VST Host (DAW or other "Host in Host" like AutoMap, NKS or Advance) can "translate" MIDI (or something else like OSC/EUCon) into automation parameters changes.
c) "bulk" preset loading/saving. That is how current "state" is save into the Project file. Only DAW mechanism (or "host in host", as mentioned before) can be used to change these presets. Normally VSTis are NOT providing MIDI bindings for such operations since presets can not be loaded in "real time" (think of loading big set of samples into memory)
 
Also FX VST are normally not associated with MIDI input (except may be guitar FXes), so they can not be controlled using method (a).
 
Yet another point is the "feedback". MIDI learn approach is not giving any feedback, so "advanced" functionality of modern keyboards (encoders with rings, motor faders, displays) can be used with (b) method only.
 
With that in mind, the host integration (either in Sonar or inside "host in host") plays significant role in plug-ins inter-operation with controllers even in case "MIDI learn" is possible inside these plug-ins.

I bow to your superior knowledge of this issue. I guess I never bothered diving in that deep. Usually I just see a knob on screen, assign something on my board, and use that. I don't have any completely integrated solution.

Thank you all for your contributions. The discussion has got way out of my league, but I have picked up a lot of info. This forum is most helpful.