Sonar Ranking

Maybe I am a little late to this topic but the Audio Skills website ran a poll regarding DAW popularity and Sonar ranked #9 overall. I was surprised how low they scored. Even more interesting was they didn't rank very high even on the Windows platform. So I have a couple questions. 1. What do you think about this? 2. Where does Sonar rank overall? They could have had a small sample which could have skewed the results. Has there been a larger poll taken somewhere? I guess I always thought Sonar was one of the highest ranked DAWS on Windows.

Hi.I think what also comes into play are who votes on these polls? Is it a true representation of the users in general?
I bet most people making music, didn't even know about this.
I could be wrong, though 
I voted for SONAR in that poll. Because I think it's the best DAW (for my use).
All the best.

Looks like #9 overall, #4 for Windows only in user popularity. But the free Audacity is #1(I wouldn't consider it a DAW as it doesn't do multitrack recording).https://audioskills.com/data/daws/windows/

Who cares where if ranks in a non-scientific poll!  If you like Sonar then use it.  I like Sonar and couldn't give a rodent's rump what anyone else thinks.

It has been a matter of speculation on this forum for years: How many customers are actually using SONAR? Or a variant: How many use SONAR relative to other DAW's. Of course that question is more or less unanswerable except by the difficult and expensive methodology of an unbiased survey. Many people own several DAW's and use only one, so without asking a random sample about their actual SONAR use, the question remains a mystery. As for a biased sample, nowhere will you find a sample as hideously unscientific as the contributions of the fanboys on this forum. Of course we regular visitors to this forum think SONAR is great.
 
A simpler question, and one that could be definitively answered easily (and an answer that is presumably already known with some certainty) is: How many licensed copies of SONAR are out there? So why is the answer to that question so difficult to find in any public space? Most companies are happy to publish their market penetration, unless it is either 1) likely to get them looked at too closely as a monopoly or 2) so low as to be an embarrassment that will further depress sales or company value.
 
Facebook does not keep its user base a trade secret, and GM will disseminate its sales to the media without undue hesitation even when it is embarrassing. But in spite of seeing this kind of speculation on this forum for years, I have never seen anyone (customer or employee of Cakewalk) answer this simple question. 

Me too. I started using it when it was only a midi sequencer. As I stated earlier in my previous post, I think it works well, I was just surprised that it didn't rank higher. I know the poll was unscientific, but there is some correlation between popularity and the rankings.

My recordings and plugins in Sonar sound exactly the same as those same recordings and plugins in Protools.
I can't say that applies to all my old reel to reels and cassette decks.
Sonar's poor ranking in some website I've never heard of can't change that.
Sonar is #1.

I'm both, American and Polish. Not sure which is affecting my ability how to delete a couple of my duplicate posts using android. Sorry 😊

And most have to do with "marketing partnerships", who's giving away their software with everything 79.00 piece of hardware equals name recognition and those recording no more than two or four channels limited use will never change from the "freeware", then tell their friends what they're using, and so on.
Take a look at all the two, four, and similar usb type audio interfaces they all give away non-Sonar software.....every one sold.
Think about those quantities, really. That by itself boggles the mind. Every one sold, every day, on and on, gets non-Sonar software so for name recognition it's not surprising.
And that's all well and good, understandable.
And the truly freeware like Audacity, etc.

So there's the answer. Or one of multiple answers 😃. There's no comparing until Sonar is also handed out like candy....

It's kind of like MS Word...when it first started it was given away with free Windows, on every PC, until WordPerfect was gone, now we all pay through the nose.

One thing I believe is that Cakewalk knows more than they say about market penetration, their percent of market share, and how in the big leagues does software make it into the million dollar recording houses. And they don't say. Which is understandable all companies have their industry data and constant research.
But they run a company and not letting your secrets out is part of being successful most of the time.
Maybe all the grandfathered in Pro-tools huge studios just get given free upgrades every year forever with dedicated on call assigned techs to help anytime needed.
Maybe every 10,000.000 large mixer board gets a full anything desired Avid Pro-tools package. Like basketball stars and similar...they never pay for sneakers, sportswear etc. When your huge in any industry companies just give you what's top dollar items for the common man.

But Cakewalk knows more than we'll ever know. Again, and that's OK. It's their livelihood, their business.

Joe_A
And most have to do with "marketing partnerships", who's giving away their software with everything 79.00 piece of hardware equals name recognition and those recording no more than two or four channels limited use will never change from the "freeware", then tell their friends what they're using, and so on.

I think this is very true.  But I also think most Sonar users (a relatively sophisticated, objective, knowledgeable crowd) would agree that for the "price performance" that SONAR delivers today, it is very under-represented in the market.  Of the "serious DAW users" I know, 80% are non in it professionally, even for part time income, and they tend to go for Reaper or some of the Mac stuff.  The ones I know who are making some professional use of a DAW are all using Pro Tools, Cubase, StudioOne or SONAR.  And of that set, I'd say StudioOne has its base mostly because of the give-away marketing.  In my case, I had one of those free disks for a couple of years before I actually installed it in order to collaborate with a colleague. and then I did an upgrade to their full producer product.  In that case, my colleague had switched from Cubase to StudioOne after he got a free disk with a Presonus audio interface, and he found StusioOne was a lot more intuitive than Cubase.  And he upgraded to the full S1 version at the same time I did.  This type of marketing works.
 
It is a little frustrating, not that the SONAR market share is so low, but that there seems to be so little awareness of SONAR, which is one of the most established products in the market.  One would think that the Gibson family would present many opportunities to work on that awareness in the same way Presonus has done for SuudioOne.  But there is a really big problem with that, and that is FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
 
SONAR is great, but most of the users have been immersed in the SONAR culture for many years if not decades. Things that make sense to the long-term SONAR user may be completely bewildering to a new person who happens to turn up on the doorstep.  I have no insight into Gibson's marketing plans.  But I do notice there has been a lot of attention on the first impressions.  The command center makes installation coherent.  The start page and the recent track add changes make the product more welcoming for newcomers.
 
Some have expressed a distaste for these pretty veneers, but I would suggest they are really important if the market share is to grow -- indeed if SONAR is even able to keep a critical mass.  So I hope they continue to devote resources to making the product welcoming to the new user, and then follow that up with marketing efforts to raise the awareness of the product.  There is much that can be done here, and it doesn't always require a multi-million dollar advertising budget.

I think sonar has become stuck in the middle...you have a large younger audience wanting to do edm without learning an instrument. This crowd has all migrated to flstudio...live...bitwig...ect. and sonar does not  appeal to them because of the non hype and traditional set up. Then you have the new musicians and older ones turning to computers getting told that the professionals only use pro-tools. The mac users are going to stick with logic because of the price and they buy everything apple...so i see it more as a closed market. Leaving sonar and cubase  and studio one as the remaining market.Cubase has the history and introduction of new tech(vst) behind it...so some people will never leave because of the deep knowledge of it....those that do become disgruntled move to studio one. I also find that studio one with the more traditional release versions gets alot of free press and have used that to their advantage(web reveals of new versions).The monthly updates are great for those using the program but dont get any attention in the press or on music web sites.Out of sight...out of mind. In the last 5 years post about sonar have significantly dropped on places like gearslutz...kvr...vi-control ect.

nyxsoftware
The monthly updates are great for those using the program but dont get any attention in the press or on music web sites.

That's a great point.  I do think there could be a marketing solution to that that would position the monthly release for "power users" and "insiders", and still have annual events that roll up the full set of benefits delivered over the past 12 months.

cparmerlee
 
SONAR is great, but most of the users have been immersed in the SONAR culture for many years if not decades. Things that make sense to the long-term SONAR user may be completely bewildering to a new person who happens to turn up on the doorstep.  I have no insight into Gibson's marketing plans.  But I do notice there has been a lot of attention on the first impressions.  The command center makes installation coherent.  The start page and the recent track add changes make the product more welcoming for newcomers.
 
Some have expressed a distaste for these pretty veneers, but I would suggest they are really important if the market share is to grow -- indeed if SONAR is even able to keep a critical mass.  So I hope they continue to devote resources to making the product welcoming to the new user, and then follow that up with marketing efforts to raise the awareness of the product.  There is much that can be done here, and it doesn't always require a multi-million dollar advertising budget.

Ahem one more comment.

The above is a very applicable and good comment.
We recently had a great example, the OP that was enthusiastically complaining about how hard he felt it was to get started with Sonar. Granted some come across as complaining that they have to put in any effort at all on their own (oh the travesty of it all, where will it end..hand on forehead)...

But there is a need for a "setting up two tracks with typical settings in place and only action required is to press one BIG button and record" pretty screen.

That hooks people. *Not unlike fishing magnate Zebco selling all in one package with inexpensive rod, hoods, tackle box with three lures, and bait bucket. All visual, all ready to go, for the father taking his kids fishing the first time.

Get Users invested some small way. Now, if we're talking about these actions, Cakewalk has already thought of them....this goes back to they have some type of strategy we'll never know but don't have to.

Anderton
FWIW there's a service called MI Sales Trak that provides data on retail sales. That's not as relevant for software as it is for hardware given how much software is downloaded directly, but retail remains a semi-significant share of sales. MI Sales Trak's info is proprietary, copyrighted, and the subscriptions are very expensive, so I cannot tell you what the rankings are for SONAR. What I can say is they rank the top 10 selling software packages each month in terms of market share, dollar share, and by price point; suffice it to say that from time to time, reading the report makes my day. 
 

That's cool/nice to know