Sonar is not industry standard?

I am having a problem with Sonar crashing every time when inserting Waldorf Nave. I contacted the Waldorf and this is the reply I received:
 
"We are currently testing only on industry standard DAWs. Sonar belongs 
not to this. But it doesn’t mean generally, that our products won’t work
on Sonar, it only means, that we aren testing it.
 
We would need to be in collaboration with Cakewalk, but we aren’t.
 
When you like, you can record am movie and show us step by step this
behaviour, so maybe we can look and fix it. Thank you !"
 
This was shockingly unexpected, but I have to admit that in many circles Sonar is not considered industry standard. Every time I get a survey with the questions about DAW, it would say:
"Which DAW do you use?
1.Protools
2. Logic
3. Cubase
4. Abelton
5. Other
And I have to type in Cakewalk Sonar in to "Other" section and feel embarrassed for using it.
 
I guess I am ok with it, long as Sonar meets my needs- I can think about it as a "secret weapon" and be secretly happy about how good it became recently. but still...
 
Why Cakewalk does not advertise Sonar as an Industry Standard? Why are they not in collaboration with Waldorf and not making sure that all major software companies have ability to test their products in Sonar environment? What would it take for Gibson/Cakewalk to change this perception and become industry standard?  
 

Snobs in the industry tend to use Macs...and , as most Mac users, would say theirs is better...
I had a mac and protools back in the 90s and got sick of having to pay tons of money for their products (had a 15k system and an 8k system both with used macs )when I could achieve the same thing for pennies on the dollar with a windows machine and sonar.
There are close to 90% windows computers out there...so don't sweat it. Just make your music and laugh at them

vladasyn
But I am thinking- is the ProTools that much better than Sonar? The ProTools is industry standard- PC or Mac, right, or just on Mac? I have been looking in to it and considering to install it and see if it really that much better.

Well...I worked at a Pro Tools studio for almost all the classical projects I've recorded (including one award-winner). They had a big HD system, recorded at 96 kHz, etc. Great studio, actually, with a fantastic selection of mics and a room sound to die for. But once I'd recorded the files, the first thing I did was transfer them to a hard drive so I could bring the files into my own studio and do the editing and mixing with SONAR. The process was just so much smoother than with Pro Tools. 
 
Newer versions of Pro Tools have fixed some of the issues that drove me crazy (like all bounces having to be real-time - which gets old pretty fast with 20-minute classical pieces), but SONAR has also progressed since then, so AFAIC I'd still much rather use SONAR than Pro Tools for projects.

That's always the problem with an industry as fragmented as pro audio in that the "standard" is something that is in the eye of the beholder. AAX is proprietary, yet is 'standard' because ProTools is so popular. If any other DAW tried a proprietary, locked down format they'd get no love but PT having its place of primacy can do what they please.
 
Though of course the whole "standard" and support thereof thing made me think of something else amusing: Melodyne is the unquestioned standard in pitch correction. There are other solutions, but it is the heavy hitter, the one the pros use, the one to which all others are compared. Well, when you get down to it, only Sonar and Studio One truly "properly" support it. Melodyne wants ARA these days to integrate as it wishes. It works with non-ARA DAWs, but not optimally. So the "standard" DAW doesn't fully support the "standard" pitch correction :)

Oh, so it is Waldorf that defines standards for audio industry. Now we know.

It doesn't seem logical that a one platform app would be an industry standard. Limiting it to only one platform reduces the number of users to a select few, which IMO only cripples the industry.
 
More and more "industry standard" apps are becoming cross platform like PT, Photoshop, etc. For the longest time AutoCAD was Windows only but is now available to some degree for Mac as well.

The only bummer,  for first time users who are shopping for a DAW they will always be told to get Pro Tools by the majority of people or articles they read. Just like if someone asked which bass they should buy the answer will always be a Fender. . It's the easy answer and you know they won't come back and shoot you for giving bad advice.  They do not question this advice, so the beast grows and grows.
I don't think it has as much to do with Mac's any more... it's just popular and for no logical reason other than it's popular.
I myself think Cakewalk has a nice place in the market and obviously enough customers to keep them profitable for now. I find more and more users popping up in my neck of the woods. Sadly too many of them are still using the older versions they pirate. Sonar was way to easy to pirate in the past so they are in a better place now they have solved that issue. Just watch the number of "registered" users grow once those old versions stop running on modern systems.

vladasyn
So it is the Microsoft to blame for losing the battle to Apple for being industry standard?
I build computers and I love Windows 10 on the latest hardware. I do not use Xeons processors, but Intel i7 is plenty for good performance. I don't see how Apple holds the monopoly so strong with the prices they have.
 
But I am thinking- is the ProTools that much better than Sonar? The ProTools is industry standard- PC or Mac, right, or just on Mac? I have been looking in to it and considering to install it and see if it really that much better.

Current i7s beat the Xeons in the Mac Pros effortlessly, the top of the range iMacs are faster than the Pros. Which is a bit weird to put it mildly, and I say that as someone who mostly uses Apple computers.
 
Apple have a few things going for them which Windows PCs do not when it comes to audio. Not many things, but in the right circumstances they matter. Seamless low latency MIDI networking over wifi built into the OS for example. Most PCs can't produce low audio latency without disabling the wifi adaptor in Device Manager and often Bluetooth as well. Macs don't have that problem so if you need to send e.g. MIDI clock round a network live or in the studio that's advantage number one for Macs.
 
No worrying about driver modes, ASIO vs WDM vs WASAPI etc., OS X Core Audio and Core MIDI just get on with things. No need to worry about cpu parking, sleep states etc. either. BIOS? What BIOS?
 
And if you have Apple's Applecare maintenance plan if your Macbook dies on the morning of a gig you can pick up a replacement from any Apple store, install it with a clone of your original setup and know it will work. There are people who tour foreign countries by just taking a bunch of DVDs and telling the venue/gig or tour organiser to supply a such-and-such model bare Macbook and be sure it will work when they install their personal configuration onto it.
 
The final advantage, as has already been said, is that macs were capable of serious audio work at the time the IBM-compatible PC was primarily a business machine with inferior sound and graphics, not the powerful games and everything else platform it is now. Upgrades to what you have are nearly always perceived as easier and less expensive once system design, familiarisation, training etc. is taken into account than switching, so once committed to a system, businesses tend to stay committed to that system.
 
PCs have the huge advantage of much more power for your money or the  same power for less money, more available software, you can configure the hardware how you want and you're not reliant on just one hardware company. And the way Logic in particular handles multiple MIDI hardware inputs and outputs is nothing like as good as Sonar.
 
On to Waldorf. Now, I really like Waldorf synths, I own a couple in hardware and the iOS versions of Nave and Attack. But it has to be said that Waldorf excel at three things. The first is their distinctive sound and the second is the variety and number of bugs. The Blofeld was unbelievably buggy when released and remained so for years, major issues like failing to MIDI sync or dying when an OS update was installed , and it's apparently still buggy now. The earlier and quite expensive Q was released with lots of functions not even working at all. The OS for the MicroQ didn't really settle down until just before they stopped making the synth. Plugin versions of Attack had bugs such as the delays didn't work.
 
The third thing Waldorf are good at is saying "bugs? Our synths have bugs? Really? Are you quite sure?". Until one day they quietly slip out an update that fixes a few bugs but may introduce a new one or two to keep everyone on our toes.
 
I guess their excuse is that they're actually a small company in terms of people on the design and programming side that hit far above their weight and they do their best.
 
As for Pro Tools, don't bother going there. It may be the established studio's virtual tape recorder of choice for the reasons Craig Anderson has said, but for MIDI, electronic music, project and home studios it is a poor choice. And if the same plugins are used, no-one can tell which DAW was used to record, mix and master a track anyway.

Soundwise
Oh, so it is Waldorf that defines standards for audio industry. Now we know.

Brian Walton
Waldorf is a German company.
 
Since Cubase + Ableton + Logic are all German Companies
 
And of Course Pro Tools has been the studio standard for a long long time.
 
I'm guessing their statement stems from the small rock they are living under in Germany which has about 1/4 the music sales as the USA.  

I had no idea who Waldorf is. Had to google them. However I have been familiar with Cakewalk for 20+ years.
Just depends are where you're coming from I guess.
 
btw- kudos on the lucid and well presented post tlw!

and Justin Bieber is the industry pop standard...
whats that tell you.

A vast majority of "industry standard" begins in schools, which is also a viable revenue stream to those companies that got into that arena. Once a student spends countless hours learning one DAW, they are not likely to shift to another. The "Mac-fetish" of most schools tends to lock out SONAR from the get go.
 
I spoke to a friend's daughter last weekend who began audio engineering at a smaller school and she said, "We are required to learn on Pro Tools." Not surprising in any way, but the ramification is that most of these students pursuing such a career are only going to be exposed to select options on their path.

According to musicradar Pro Tools is the 8th best software while Sonar is no 7. Industry Standard doesn't mean the best (FWIW). It just means most people use it, no more....and because most people use it, other people buy it. That's basically how Pro Tools got to be "Industry Standard".
 
http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/the-20-best-daw-software-apps-in-the-world-today-238905