I've been running both Sonar on a windows 10 machine and Logic Pro on my MBP literally side by side for more than a year.  The MBP has never crashed during a live set or a recording project.  Countless times the windows machine crashes or locks up - and Sonar is the only app apart from plugins on that machine besides the OS.  I HAD to go to Mac because of losing revenue with Windows.  It's too common to walk in to do a session and find that Microsoft had installed updates that rendered a driver, codec, or some other file inactive that prohibited the machine from running Sonar in a stable manner.  It gets embarrassing with paying customers waiting on you to download some new file to keep an audio interface running or re-install a softsynth.  You get the idea.  With Mac, I have always been able to postpone any updates until it fit my schedule. 
 
My problem isn't with Sonar, it's with Windows.

Starise
I don't regularly delve into the inner workings of a software program, especially one as complicated as Sonar, so I hope you'll pardon me for not understanding why we can't have both versions? I CAN understand it not being financially viable. I don't see why this was insurmountable technically when we have several other DAW software companies that did it successfully.
 
Is it the way Sonar was made from the ground up? Apples to oranges kind of thing. If we have a program to merge the two, maybe compatibility was what killed the idea.
 
What makes some competitors software better suited to multi porting? Writing two distinct copies from the ground up? If so, why not write a Mac copy from the ground up? My hunch is that this was very expensive and not really viable in light of sales projections. I had hoped it could be done, even if it was a more simplistic version if only for the sake of having that market open.
 
If you spent most of your life for the last 6 months on this project I'm sure you're way more deflated than the rest of us. I don't use a Mac but I'm sympathetic to those who intended to do so. I really hope some kind of a truce can be reached for those who invested in the software thinking it would be used on Mac. 
 
Where do we go from here?
 
If you really like Sonar why let a platform hold you back?

In a couple of words, the difference is "available expertise".

You can use it just fine as a field recorder. The cpu usage for that case is low. Any i nterface can be used as well with low latency.

C Hudson

Sanderxpander

But the main thing I find baffling from your post is the assertion that updates don't break anything on OSX, because in my experience OSX updates break things far more often than Windows updates do. I get emails from Native Instruments multiple times a year to please wait with updating my OSX because they need to adapt a driver or an installer or a program. If there is anything Apple deliberately doesn't care for it's backwards compatibility, because it messes with their business model - they sell hardware, primarily. They need you to update every so few years. Microsoft makes an OS that they and it's in their interest to make and keep it compatible with as much hardware and software as they can feasibly ensure.

FWIW, my wife's 2010 MacBook pro runs sierra just as smooth as butter. It obviously lacks in the raw computing power of a modern machine, which shows in video render time,but the point is, a 7 year old laptop can run the latest OS on the mac side and it be very usable. Try running a 7 year old PC with the latest versions of windows. Sludgefest. Not a pleasant experience at all. This kind of throws a wrench into your argument that Apple does not care about backwards compatibility where as MS do. Not the case. MS continues to add more layers of bloat until you need a new machine to have a decent experience just checking email. NI have only given me warnings when OSX went to new point releases. Never on an update. You might own different products though so that might be why.
I've had 3 windows 10 machines perform an update then boot to a blackscreen, requiring a complete reinstall/reimage. Never experienced anything like that on Mac.
Consistency is why I went to the dark side. Professionally, Im not concerned joe blows PC can run 350 compressors and mine only 325. If joe blow updates his video card, his 350 could turn into 275. Not looking back now. In 3 years my Mac's have never let me down. I know lots of guys have great success with PC's too, many on here in fact. Bottom line , they all want your $$   :)
 

That's ridiculous, Windows 10 runs faster than Windows XP. Old computers get a huge benefit from going to 10 over Vista and 7. I don't know what happened for you but I cannot corroborate this experience at all. Additionally, virtually ALL of my Mac using friends (and that's basically everyone as Mac is very prevalent in the Dutch music scenes) have upgraded their older Macs to SSDs because they "were getting so slow". I don't think this is a case of one beating the other because all computers age and perception of speed also changes compared to newer hardware, but it's a simple fact that Mac OS (and iOS) upgrades obsolete hardware in a way that almost never happens to Windows. Most Windows 7 drivers work on Windows 10, even.

As for updates and point releases, that may be a semantics issue. I call point releases updates too considering how often Mac drops them. If you're fine sticking with Tiger that doesn't bother me, assuming you can find any apps that will still install on it.

gbarrett
I've been running both Sonar on a windows 10 machine and Logic Pro on my MBP literally side by side for more than a year.  The MBP has never crashed during a live set or a recording project.  Countless times the windows machine crashes or locks up - and Sonar is the only app apart from plugins on that machine besides the OS.  I HAD to go to Mac because of losing revenue with Windows.  It's too common to walk in to do a session and find that Microsoft had installed updates that rendered a driver, codec, or some other file inactive that prohibited the machine from running Sonar in a stable manner.  It gets embarrassing with paying customers waiting on you to download some new file to keep an audio interface running or re-install a softsynth.  You get the idea.  With Mac, I have always been able to postpone any updates until it fit my schedule. 
 
My problem isn't with Sonar, it's with Windows.

OT, but I'm surprised you didn't disable the Windows Update service. I've been running my DAW on the initial release of Windows 10 and it's been rock solid. For a workhorse production computer that only connects to the 'net in order to update SONAR, it's been rock solid.
 
I mean, if you like SONAR... but regardless, use what works for you, and good luck!

Thanks to Craig and others who better described the situation to those of us who aren't computer coders/porters.
 
We have some kind of a working prototype/example of Sonar on a mac . Who would have thought?
 
Congratulations to all those who worked so hard to make it happen!
 
 

 
 
Bravo CW...and the Madden crowds echo...when the going gets tough...We  at CW go backwards, to what is warm and fuzzy, and comfortable knowing how to keep the bug juices flowing...New gear saying, new words tooting, new things coming.....But always with a twisted bug hint of a hunt to persue, and tame?..or is it shame?...be it so, is so lax and lazy never does much if so left to others to do for you, what you should be doing on your own recoding...Not porting over!....Steinberg learnt that back in Atari days to MS windows....Patch and tweak did not work long if at all....Rewrite, recode works!
 
....And if future days or years or whatever comes next...?...Is another contender with bettering Code to run all in all ....Without such bloat and blare Bling bling, spooling and sending f intel...Some might enjoy a more robust experience with out cpu interruptions and such bottlenecks of drive issues and freezing...when MS is collecting data off of System devices to send...While in use doing what ever Sonar saves to those devices...testing 123s on...interruptious devination of devices...is a poor rule of thumb.
When it comes down to the one truth of all truths.....Who needs a computer anyway?....
 
Music comes from the heart of Living things first and foremost.
And Living things listen to music of all kinds of living things....No worries...Hum along with Humans is still da free value that always works best to go see do and always seems to get the job done with out too much effort to do in making without.
 
So as for Bakers who send out a process, and do not recode for, or rewrite for,...being lax or said lazy...We remember How Steinberg fared once upon a time...Porting over from Atari to MS...The patch and stitch method did not work.
 
As CW is in effect dropping the ball, because they will not do the leg work in baking it up themselves prime and proper.
 
They use the Proxy's failure  of the cross over mac app to dispel hope of something more stable for users?.....
 
Well, that is what life time updates means folks......circles in bug fixes. work arounds, and oddity of muse...until they "whom ever they be", decide to change it all up with a important new update rammed down the pipe line...to unsuspecting ...Bots....for now your machine is tied to Their whim and will,...We will break it when we do, and we will charge you to get it kind of going again...if we can....And if we can't....It is all paid by you anyway...So, we gain...You the user looses, if so be so, is so?...Well how many are there that have had their machine go belly up because of bad updates from MS?....I know a few myself..and some brought to me over a period also!
 
And that is the hat on the tin man's head, and thre cat's meow turned upside down....right CW?.
 
So ware it with Pride.
 
Studio one 3 works on both Mac and PC....Perhaps you should of tried harder asking people who have done it sort of Properly..they might of said...rewrite the code, do not port it over!
 
But then some digress in ignoring...known truth!
 
There is no easy way CW.
 
Regards.
 
Best wishes!
 
Sir Les.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sanderxpander
Really? Any remote desktop app should work, as well as a few dedicated controller apps.

I was more interested in screen mirroring. All the apps that are supposed to work that way have failed for me, tho I'm sure it's my doing (or undoing).

I would definitely recommend going to Win10 pro.

This nearly 10 year old Q6600 runs better under win10 than it ever has. It takes a while to start - something I'm going to try to address with an SSD - but then it always did, really. And it's loading a truckload of stuff - it's a multi-use machine and I've never really streamlined it for dedicated DAW use. It's run XP, 7, 8, 8.1 and all flavours of 10. I imagine I would be freaked out at the performance of a modern desktop rig at this point, but this one still gets the job done and I haven't felt the need to retire it yet...

Sanderxpander
Q6600 is a great workhorse, the difference from an SSD should give your system new life as long as you're not near to hitting CPU barriers in your projects. Whole albums have been done on much punier hardware.

I've done a lot on this one! Yeah I've been meaning to slot in the SSD for a while, it's been a long time since I've done anything like that so I've been putting it off but I think the time is right. I do challenge the CPU on occasion if I'm using a lot of VSTi (which is pretty common) but I have never had a big problem managing it all with freezing and latency and so on. 

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]

C Hudson
Try running a 7 year old PC with the latest versions of windows. Sludgefest. 

I have an older PC built in 2008 that was updated to Win10. Works much better than it did in Win 7 and boots way faster. I've had no problems with the OS there.
Anyway besides all this debate about Mac and PC I hope some of the people who were interested in a Mac version actually try the alpha. 

Hey Noel,
As stated earlier, I've had several Win10 workstations have their OS's just eat themselves alive , either while updating, or just out of the blue. I've had more stability issues with win 10 than any other version of Windows. Sometimes safe mode works, some times not. Just has really left a bad taste in my mouth for the current state of Windows. 
As for people trying the Mac build, It's kind of pointless to get too excited about it after you've announced it's a dead horse with no future. 
Gibson has a terrible reputation with music technology companies. Hopefully they continue to give you what you need to make Sonar awesome ( which it is ) on Windows. Was hoping they would have increased your team for Mac software . 
 

No, and no.

My opinion echoes some in the industry as Anderton put it. Apple really doesn't play well with intense software unless you run an Apple Wastebasket (Mac Pro). Their laptops leave a lot to be desired as far as performance, and with "heated" reasons. They're not really about professionals anymore (at least not as they were). They are rooted more strongly these days with consumers, which seems to be where their customer-base is.

I still feel strongly that Apple hardware, or at least Unix-based kernel hardware and OS's is a thing, and still growing stronger. Windows is only one OS, and Microsoft can still poop in their own pudding. Sonar should be made to run on a Mac, but not as an emulation as it seems was the idea here. I'd rather see it go away as an emulation or survive and thrive as a natively run app.

I'm ok, personally with it running in Windows 10. Windows 10 is pretty darn efficient with SSD storage, and Sonar does quite well there. My installation of the Mac Prototype didn't even run, so I couldn't tell you if it was great or not.
As he also said, Apple may get serious in hardware/OS power in the near future, so who knows?

Valiant efforts!!

paulo

stickman393
 
 
OT, but I'm surprised you didn't disable the Windows Update service.

I've been trying to do this on a w10 laptop because every update seems to screw up the printer settings and it seems that it is not possible unless you upgrade to win 10 pro. If you know how to turn off updates on w10 home edition I'd be very happy to hear it.
 

To turn off Windows update in W10, follow these instructions.
https://mspoweruser.com/turn-off-windows-update-windows-10/
 
Just remember, Windows Update is a service, so turning the service off means you will be responsible for keeping your computer updated. When you turn off the service, you turn off the ability to automatically update anything Microsoft. You can however, if you use Windows Defender as your antivirus, update that program manually without turning on the WUpdate service. If you do turn off the service, you will have to go back to the Services and turn it on once in a while to download and update your copy of Windows.
 
After you turn the Windows Update service back on, when you open Windows Update in PC Settings, you will most likely see a message that says updates were not installed because computer was stopped. You will have to click on Retry so that all the available updates are downloaded and installed. This may take two or three “Check for Updates”. You will have to keep on clicking “Check for updates” until it says your computer is up to date. Then you can go back and turn off the Windows Update service until next time you want to update Win 10.
 
If your laptop receives all of its updates via wireless connection, you can set your network connection to "Metered". That tact, however, just delays the inevitable.
 
Ciao