My Love Hate Relationship With Sonar Xx

Anderton
People don't come to forums to say "Hey, I turned on SONAR, and it's working. I'm doing some recording." I don't think saying "Sonar blows up for so many regularly" is based on anything other than anecdotal evidence from this forum, which is populated by a small fraction of SONAR users. What does seem interesting is that, again based on anecdotal evidence, certain people seem to have a lot more problems than others. 
 
SONAR is a very affordable solution for Windows computers, which means you're going to get people new to computer recording. Look at how many posts are about issues involved in using onboard audio, or not knowing something basic like turning off wi-fi when trying to steam audio in real time. Yes, it's complicated. So was running an analog studio.
 
Even Logic Pro X, which runs on hardware owned by the company that makes the software, has problems but yes, running on Windows machines is more problematic. For example, from the front page of the Samplitude forum (also Windows only):
 
Needing Video Help
Waves Tune & ProX...odd sync behavior?
Elastic Audio - why i get a square curves?
Pro X 12 Midi Clock output not working?
Track suddenly changes itself into four Surround Subs
Something changed....... Can't move tracks in Manager Window
Problems with latency compensation with external effects
Is Samp overloading your audio interface
Elastic Audio crashing Samp Pro X
ProX Track Bouncing - is uselessness (AUX,BUS)
IMHO Independence gives less added value to Samplitude Pro X Suite tha
tracks disappearing from view on timeline
CD tray not opening after import cd tracks
undo recording don't erase audio   
 
These are just the ones with obvious problems in the titles. There are others that ask problem-based questions.
 

TomHelvey
Finally at last glance, who are the artists endorsing and using Sonar? With the exception of Craig who I've been following since the 80's, who are these guys? When was the last time they charted?

Lots of them have bought into the "you have to have a Mac and Pro Tools." But not everyone. For example, "Call of Duty" was scored with SONAR, and game sound design is pretty complex. There's a major studio here in Nashville that has Pro Tools for the clients, but does most of its work behind the scenes in SONAR. That's what I did with the classical projects at Maricam Studios. As soon as I captured the WAV files in PT, I took them home for editing. This was back in the days when PT didn't do adult crossfades and all bounces had to be real-time.
 
I have virtually every DAW on the planet installed on either my Mac or PC. I use SONAR as my primary DAW because I'm very productive with it. I use Ableton Live for live performance, and ReWire Reason into SONAR. I have a PC Audio Labs computer so I don't have very many technical problems. A friend of mine who is a high-profile bass player in a band with platinum albums recently switched from the Mac and [a different program] after being fed up with the unreliability. He bought a Windows machine and SONAR, and has lived happily ever after.
 
This is why different products exist. You choose the one that works best for you. None of them are perfect, so you have to choose one where the imperfections don't matter to you as much. For example, if you have Omnisphere and Komplete, I don't think you really need a whole lot of other instruments anyway; and still, nothing does what Rapture does. If Rapture hadn't existed and was introduced last week, it would still be considered innovative IMHO.
 
I get frustrated with all software, and that includes SONAR. On balance, though, it works best for me. When asked for advice from others, I don't always recommend SONAR. I recommend what I think will work best for them. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

200bpm
Craig, this is pretty low, copying thread titles from the Samplitude forum to make sonar look better in comparison.

kitekrazy1
I hate Sonar, it's complicated, you have to know all kinds of stuff about your windows box to get it to work reasonably well.
 
 
 It's like that with all DAW, Video and Gaming software.  It's no different for Mac users.  A more proprietary environment is more stable buy less free.

mike_mccue
I wish SONAR had VCA style fader control.

Anderton
The Yosemite upgrade comments are insane. Half give it five stars, half give it one star. So I asked two trusted Mac fanatics what to do. One said the one-star reviewers don't know what they're talking about it, it's great. The other said to wait at least until late January when some serious security holes are fixed. He strongly advised not updating from Mavericks.
 
Oh well.