Praise for Noel Borthwick and Craig Anderton

I don't say this to exclude others at Cakewalk, but I want to give a shout out to Noel and Craig. Both have been involved with the community here for many years, and have provided valuable help to Sonar users. I've read Craig's books and online writings for so long I can't remember the first, but he has been a constant help to people starting out, and recording at home. Knowing that he was involved with Cakewalk for a short time seemed like a perfect fit, and I think he helped improve the product. I know he keeps up with everything, so he'll have plenty to do, but want to say that your work has been helpful to me and many others.
 
As for Noel, he is the biggest reason I stayed with and had confidence in Sonar. For the CTO of the company to be as involved with the user base as he has been is very unusual, and is the main reason I stayed with Sonar for so long. No other software company has ever been more responsive to its users. Some people will always complain, but most companies don't even try. I always felt like Cakewalk really cared about what their users thought, and that was unique. It is a real shame that the company would be dealt with this way, and I wish it could have just been sold again. But I wanted to say what great work Noel did for a long time, and ask everyone to give him a round of virtual applause.

Agree absolutely.
 
Noel, Craig - thanks for all giving us such an incredible DAW.
 
And of course, my thanks also goes to all the Bakers, and wish you all the best in the future.
 
Mark.

Noel's the one, not me, who deserves the props for what made SONAR the program it is/was. I was just a long-time SONAR user with a penchant for sharing what I learned in a variety of ways - books, this forum, workshops, and the Sound on Sound column (which I'm still writing).
 
I get a kick out of helping people, but also from a practical standpoint, it comes back a hundredfold: for example I think most of the reviews for my latest album have been written by people who found out about me from the SONAR forums 

panup
Yesterday I was amazed to to read that there were only SONAR 4-6 developers at Cakewalk.

Same here. not only was I surprised, I was impressed.

The knowledge and experience I've picked up from Noel and Craig has helped me be more productive and even helped during transition to another DAW.

panup
Listen the Momentum demo, Noel playing Coltrane. Superb stuff.  I wonder if he can improvize over Giant Steps chord progression...

I would imagine so, he seems to be a fairly accomplished player. It's not for beginners, for sure, but also not *that* hard really if you're comfortable with more traditional jazz progressions - it's just ii-V-I progressions in 3 tone centres, OK they're a major third apart which is unorthodox (and kind of the whole point) so it takes some stick time but after a while it starts to make sense to your fingerbrains... A good starting point is the bridge of Have You Met Miss Jones, which is kind of based around the same concept but isn't so daunting as it's typically not so fast, and you can relax with standard changes on the A sections in between ;)

aahladas
I'm buying a Mac and moving to Logic and Pro Tools, not because I want to, but because I don't want this to happen again, and I figure they'll be the last to evaporate.

I’d suggest getting Logic first, learning it to the point you know it well enough to work in it and only then consider if you need to spend money on Pro Tools.

Pro Tools has been trading on the reputation it acquired in the early days of computer-based digital audio as the “choice of professionals” for quite some time. All the “big” DAWs, Mac and Windows, are capable of turning out equally good results as far as audio is concerned. The differences between them come down to whether you find their interface and way of working suits you and how well they handle MIDI.

aahladas
I already have Pro Tools, it's just a matter of installing it on the Mac. Logic Pro X is only $199, and I expect to use that for production. I've looked at it enough on YouTube and so forth, and tried GarageBand enough, to know that it should work for me. It also seems to be the closest to Sonar in terms of MIDI. The biggest thing I'm going to miss is ARA with Melodyne, but I tried Studio One and found enough things about it that made me nervous that I decided to go this route. Logic is a more complete platform, and I don't think Apple is going to abandon it any time soon. Plus, Sonar was the only one not available on Mac, so I'll have plenty of options, including Studio One.

Logic has the same thing as Melodyne built in. Well maybe not exactly the same as I've never used melodyne but they have pitch correction built in. I only tried it one time and it seemed pretty easy. The interface seemed similar in terms of representing audio pitches as notes on a piano roll like view and dragging them to the desired pitch.

WDI

aahladas
I already have Pro Tools, it's just a matter of installing it on the Mac. Logic Pro X is only $199, and I expect to use that for production. I've looked at it enough on YouTube and so forth, and tried GarageBand enough, to know that it should work for me. It also seems to be the closest to Sonar in terms of MIDI. The biggest thing I'm going to miss is ARA with Melodyne, but I tried Studio One and found enough things about it that made me nervous that I decided to go this route. Logic is a more complete platform, and I don't think Apple is going to abandon it any time soon. Plus, Sonar was the only one not available on Mac, so I'll have plenty of options, including Studio One.

Logic has the same thing as Melodyne built in. Well maybe not exactly the same as I've never used melodyne but they have pitch correction built in. I only tried it one time and it seemed pretty easy. The interface seemed similar in terms of representing audio pitches as notes on a piano roll like view and dragging them to the desired pitch.

Yeah, I'm aware it has tuning. From what I've seen it's nowhere near Melodyne in terms of tools or quality, but I'll have to try it to come to a full conclusion.

It does have the ability to set up a step sequencer for drums with instrument names like Sonar, and that's something I've used a lot.

I will admit, I didn't totally understand the permanent license for existing users. Even though it benefited me, that had to be a huge hit to cashflow when going to a subscription model. Maybe the user base was already down, and they were hoping to add more, but it was an unusual move for sure. I don't think Adobe did that. A discount for one year or something would have made more sense.

Maybe after sacrificing beacon.

aahladas
 
... Plus, Sonar was the only one not available on Mac, so I'll have plenty of options, including Studio One.
 

 
...actually not... SAMPLITUDE and FL Studio, for example, both long time standing, are Windows based DAWs...
...and lately Apple is not focusing on their computers as expected...
personal tastes of course, but I would consider leaving Apple toys to i-Phone's addicted girls..
 
  

InstrEd
 
And Mixcraft is only Windows based too

 
...yep... you right, thanks... and it's very much "SONAR oriented" too....
Indeed, it's Apple's platform the one missing some very good DAWs...
 

melmyers
My sadness at the discontinuation of Sonar is only partially due to the loss of futher development of the program. Mainly, I'll miss the thoughtful suggestions, solutions and input from Craig and Noel. They helped give Sonar a soul.

then you should check studio one, craig is already churning out tips over there