future of Sonar

terryj
I am now thinking of trying a different , more commonly used DAW.

Do this! It is really nothing wrong with using several DAWs. As you can easily find, many Sonar users have several of them. And not just for "a DAW collection".
 

This is because in more and more cases, the recording hardware now available , such as keyboards,

Since "recording hardware" includes audio interfaces and keyboards, can you mention at least one hardware in that categories which is incompatible?
 

controller surfaces etc are not compatible with the Sonar software because they fail to update it.

Incompatible surfaces (better say surfaces without special Sonar integrations) is not something to be changed by Sonar. Producers have made the decision to not support Sonar. Using your analogy, if most CD/radios are in a form which does not fit into your car, do use think the car producer should "update" something?
 

I purchased recently a behringer 61 motor keyboard which had it worked with Sonar would have been ideal but of course it didn't. Now I know there are ways round this which involves changing ddl files or the like but this solution is not good because everytime you update Sonar these changes have to be redone. 

Motör should emulate Mackie. And it FAILS to do this. They simply forgot handshake. You could return it with statement "it does not do what you claim it should" (that is true and they know that) or you can use A WORKAROUND and use this "half-functioning" device with Sonar. But as every workaround, that has consequences (copy one file once per month, if you update Sonar, which you do not really need as you write later).
 
And finally, not so many Sonar users (really) use/need this kind of hardware. Someone who does choose it based on quality and compatibility or use 3d party custom solutions.
 
Claiming a company has no future if they do not support "whatever crap I have decided to buy" is pointless.

fireberd
I don't plan on moving to a different recording program, although I have some others that I got free with hardware purchases.  I have the entry level Studio One 3 and it automatically detected and setup my Behringer X-Touch.  I also have Ableton Live Lite and it too automatically set up the X-Touch.  In Sonar (Platinum) I still had to select it in MIDI Control Surfaces.  Sonar should detect and set it up like, for example, Studio One 3 or Ableton.  Thus I agree, to a limited extent with terryj.

The difference between X-Touch and Motör is complete/incomplete Mackie emulation. That is why Sonar refuse to work with Motör. And in official Behringer video, they setup it MANUALLY in Ableton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krqx1xRGZyQ
 

These days almost every DAW is unique and has its own issues to iron out initially (which can circumnavigate by buying the entire package fully set up by a pro) and then to maintain ... which can be a major hassle when you change main components like OS upgrade, audio interface or DAW software... so while there are certainly DAW apps out which have advantages for certain applications, changing will restart the entire learning process... and you might just end up way more frustrated than when fixing what you know already

Cakewalk was not the one that said your Motor would work. Since Behringer said it would work with any DAW and it doesn't then that is their problem and you should take it back for a refund.
 
I have ran across similar situations but it is really nothing new. Some apple hardware wont work with windows and vice-versa. Windows apps won't natively work in Linux. I too don't like the "lock-in" type shenanigans but they all do it in some form or another. I'm not sure but I don't think the Cakewalk ProTools stuff will work automatically in other DAWS. Or, do they?
 
As to changing, that is up to you but you may find the grass across the street is only greener because it has been painted.

terryj
...in more and more cases, the recording hardware now available , such as keyboards, controller surfaces etc are not compatible with the Sonar software because they fail to update it...When i look at the hardware out there that I may be interested in, nothing seems to be entirely compatible with Sonar...Anyway I think that if Sonar is not interested in being compatible with the majority of recording hardware on the market then maybe they have little future.

Have you really come across a keyboard that's incompatible with SONAR? 
 
I'd also be curious to know about other recording hardware that's not compatible.
 

kitekrazy1
 I'd bet people who make a lot of money off their music only change DAWs because they exhausted their needs before moving on.  I'm sure there are DAWs that can do more than Pro Tools but I doubt any engineer is going to switch because the familiarity is right there. Time is money for some and that excludes learning another DAW.

Such category of people will not buy Behringer Motör to find it is incompatible with something. They will go for NI S61/88 (Roland / Akai) or Kawai VPC1. And place MCU PRO+XT / Avid in the near.
(just to remind, the thread about "incompatible" devices)
 

So many are apples and oranges.  I think Studio One is one of the easiest DAWs to transition.    The best bang for buck DAW is Reaper and it goes really deep if one takes the time.  I've come across many dropping DAWs such as Cubase for Reaper.

I am a studio noob and not play in public. But I have already learned that different DAWs have different application areas. Many "pro" in this forum use several DAWs. For live use there is Live, for mixing there is Sonar, for stability and customization there is Reaper. And that is far from complete nor fixed list.
 
As suggested by a friend (noob to noob advise), I have Waveform now. And while I feel comfortable inside Sonar, from everything I have tested, Waveform is probably the only DAW which can be recommended to newcomers into computer music, because that is the only DAW which interface follows common sense (left to right, top to bottom, in progress what is required to get the sound...).

I'm investing in Sonar's future.
I've used it since 2003-ish, and it does exactly what I need.  And from what I've learned in this forum, it will likely supercede my expectations if I choose to get adventurous in a new direction.
The respected producer/engineer that I work with often says exactly the same about his MOTU Digital Performer DAW.
 
if I was buying a new keyboard or controller, I would do a lot of internet research to make sure that it was compatible with whatever DAW I was using.  Research would also show the deficiencies with each combination, so I could see what I can live with and without.  As such, I've never had the "surprises" that came up with the Behringer.
 

you really want to read hate and ignorance? Go to GS/KVR/etc and read the negative posts about Sonar AND our forums . more than half the comments are from parrot heads and sheep who never owned a piece of Cake software or if they did it was an early version with, understandably, issues.
 
They lambast users on our forums as fanboys and mean and cruel to negative comments, BUT!!!!
if you read the original negative comments they are NOT in a constructive fashion but biased,conjecture, aand not based on actual results but instead, opinions.
 
Yes SOnar products are not for everyone, some workflows dont fit .OK thats fine, just say " it doesnt work for me" thank you for the fish, and move on...
 
But no, they have to be drama queens and get their 15 minutes of social media fame by posting fluff ( I blame the likes of Facebook and their ilk for fostering this self centered  attitude)
 
/rant off

kitekrazy1
 I'd bet people who make a lot of money off their music only change DAWs because they exhausted their needs before moving on.  I'm sure there are DAWs that can do more than Pro Tools but I doubt any engineer is going to switch because the familiarity is right there. Time is money for some and that excludes learning another DAW.

As it happens, most, maybe all DAWs can do more than ProTools once you go beyond the capabilities of e.g. Garagebend or some of the "introductory" versions of other DAWs. Especially regarding MIDI, where ProTools was well behind the curve for a long time. The first 64bit DAW was SOnar, not ProTools, and ProTools has limits in some areas that other's don't. I think you're quite right that the main reason many studios have hung on to Pro Tools is familiarity. Another factor, less important now perhaps, is that until relatively recently ProTools only worked with very specific and very expensive hardware but because of that there was a high degree of certainty it would work and just in case it didn't you took out a support contract. So once that investment was made it made sense to get the maximum value out of it.

ProTools was also very early into the market, and promised a workflow familiar to engineers used to working with tape. So many studios chose it when shifting from tape to digital, or even while still recording to tape but wanting to be able to do non-destructive editing by copying the tape into PT, working on the audio then re-recording it to tape.

Which in turn lead to ProTools becoming a de-facto "industry standard" and some musicians even now mistakenly thinking a studio isn't "pro" if it doesn't use ProTools.

As for hardware compatability with DAWs, outside Avid stuff for Pro Tools and some of the dedicated Live controllers there's sometimes quirks and workarounds involved. Logic, for example, can handle most things easily enough except 12-bit MIDI NRPNs which are handled horribly in comparision to Sonar.

But if a hardware manufacturer says "this product is 100% plug-and-play compatible with DAW X" and it isn't, that's the fault of the hardware manufacturer, not the fault of the DAW builder. Sure, Sonar could do with some work on the controller side of things, but even then there'll still be "100% Mackie compatible" controllers which aren't, or "Built for DAW X" hardware that needs work-arounds and has bugged firmware. Which is why it's always a good idea to research what hardware can do in the real wrld before parting with money.

Sometimes spotting what the manufacturer doesn't say can be more important than what they do say as well.

Jim Roseberry
A lot of controllers have come/gone over the past 20 years.
How many actually survive and are supported for a significant period of time?

This is why I much prefer controllers and MIDI interfaces that are Core MIDI/Windows class compliant over ones which require specific drivers from the manufacturer. All too often the product gets dropped from the driver update line a long time before it wears out. And controllers haven't changed much really over the last 20+ years, and even the new controllers such as the Roli and QuNexus, which make expressive playing much easier than using a keyboard plus a foot controller and a breath controller, still rely on basic MIDI for their functions. Even polyphonic aftertouch still hasn't taken off even though modern computers are much more likely to be handle the huge amount of data it generates than those of less than a decade ago.

Same with software synths and plugins - at some point the OS or DAW is likely to get an update that means they don't work any more, or the coders go bust and it becomes impossible to authorise their products. It's the downside of the digital revolution in a way, and those of us who are old enough will have had a bunch of computers, printers, scanners and even cameras that still work but we "retired" them because at some point a new version was much faster, better, or you couldn't get ink for that printer any more and so on.

Jim Roseberry
If you were running the company and had to choose where to spend resources, would third-party MIDI controllers (that likely won't be around 2 years from now) be a high priority?

Well, they wouldn't be for me if I was running the company. I'd make sure my software was compatible with the industry's most common "standards" and let the hardware manufacturers worry about making sure their product actually met that standard. Though if I was a hardware company as well as a software one I might produce controllers designed to work seamlessly with my software. But Roland did that when they owned Cakewalk and we all know what happened to their Sonar-dedicated line of controllers.

tlw

Jim Roseberry
If you were running the company and had to choose where to spend resources, would third-party MIDI controllers (that likely won't be around 2 years from now) be a high priority?

Well, they wouldn't be for me if I was running the company. I'd make sure my software was compatible with the industry's most common "standards" and let the hardware manufacturers worry about making sure their product actually met that standard. Though if I was a hardware company as well as a software one I might produce controllers designed to work seamlessly with my software. But Roland did that when they owned Cakewalk and we all know what happened to their Sonar-dedicated line of controllers.

I don't expect special coding for each specific make/model.  It sure would be nice to have a straight-forward, robust mapping capability though.  Simplicity and completeness for the user.  I have one DAW that excels at this with dead simple context sensitive mapping to boot.  Unfortunately, there are other things it doesn't do as easily as SONAR.

How about a Mackie control app for Windows that you could just run from a touchscreen as 2nd monitor?  Sort of like a control pad app for iPad, but completely integrated with Windows and Sonar?
 
No hardware development investment required, just some creative software engineering.  And a virtual MIDI cable.

abacab
How about a Mackie control app for Windows that you could just run from a touchscreen as 2nd monitor?  Sort of like a control pad app for iPad, but completely integrated with Windows and Sonar?
 
No hardware development investment required, just some creative software engineering.  And a virtual MIDI cable.

Maybe http://ctrlr.org/ will get you a step or two in that direction.