While looking around at prospective candidates to replace Sonar, I've come to one big conclusion.... Sonar is awesome. Nothing else looks as good, has all the features, is as intuitive, or has as good of a workflow. Oh, I know, they probably all sound fine but, I also know I'm gonna have to shell out extra $$$ on plugins to achieve the sound I now get in Sonar. This whole thing really sucks. Hard for me to believe Gibson can be so cold hearted and cruel to thousands of Sonar users. I mean, the least they could have done would have been to keep Cakewalk intact and just sell it off to someone else, thereby, honoring the loyalty of their customers. 
Sorry for the rant, I'm just really upset by all this crap.

good comment Rod.
My only hope is the code becomes open source. I hate thinking this is the end. I use Region Fx and drum replacer quite a bit.

I have spent last couple of days watching all the instructional videos on Groove3 about Studio One and Reaper. They are ok but I am not impressed much. Every few minutes there was something I felt like:  "that is what I do in Sonar in much much less complicated way"

you need to try the demo versions to really get a feel for workflow, etc

pwalpwal
you need to try the demo versions to really get a feel for workflow, etc

There's some good advice
 
Ya im doing that right now with Audacity. Good software, good price.

rodreb
While looking around at prospective candidates to replace Sonar, I've come to one big conclusion.... Nothing else looks as good, has all the features, is as intuitive, or has as good of a workflow. Oh, I know, they probably all sound fine but, I also know I'm gonna have to shell out extra $$$ on plugins to achieve the sound I now get in Sonar.

 
+1
 
I always thought that the Console View was first-rate.  It looks like a real mixer and the routing makes sense to me.  I'm used to it now of course, but the gui's in some other daws appear cartoonish to me.

chuckebaby
There's some good advice
 
Ya im doing that right now with Audacity. Good software, good price.

Back where I started from:)

chuckebaby

pwalpwal
you need to try the demo versions to really get a feel for workflow, etc

There's some good advice
 
Ya im doing that right now with Audacity. Good software, good price.

If you're mixing stuff, you're better off looking for Kristal Audio Engine. It is a little antiquated but has more options for actual mixing than Audacity does. If you can't find a download for it (as it is long abandoned freeware) drop me a PM and I'll send you the installation file. 

If I might... a parallel tale from long ago.
 
The first computer to make it into my studio for real was a Commodore Amiga 3000 tricked out with the Sunrize Audio Card. By today's standards it was pretty crude, but mostly I locked it to time code and let Bars&Pipes Professional drive my MIDI gear. And for that it was outstanding.
 
When Commodore went belly up I decided to stick with the Amiga for a while longer. There were lots of rumors about a third party riding to the rescue, and it did what I needed with no major issues - as I recall no minor ones either, but who knows, it was a long time ago.

That strategy worked well for me, until it didn't. The rest of the world was racing forward, plugins were no longer an oddity, and audio and MIDI in the computer was becoming standard fare. I wasn't sure why, at the time, I'd want to stop using my tape decks and slaving the computer to them, but I did start reading, and talking to friends.
 
As good fortune would have it, almost all of my friends were using PCs in their studios, or developing hardware an software for PCs. It wasn't a difficult choice<G>!
 
And it worked out quite well for me. I switched from Bars&Pipes to CWPA (don't remember the version), and I was able to keep MIDIQuest. I also switched from SampleWrench to Sound Forge. In all three cases these were net zero trades - I gained a few features, I lost a few too, but mostly it was learning curves and I was back in business. And I was now able to work with audio and MIDI in the computer!
 
Pretty cool!

I share this because I think we really are pretty safe for the short term. And I think we will all need to switch platforms at some point. There won't be a white knight bailing us out - at least that seems very unlikely to me. But it doesn't stop me from using Sonar for the foreseeable future. I know where the problems lie, I  know how to work around them.
 
What I will do (lesson learned) is export any project that  I might wish to revisit to plain old audio and MIDI tracks, and I'll take copius notes about processing and effects. I'll also export all presets to VST format.
 
This is bad, make no mistake, but it isn't the end of the world, except maybe for the employees, who clearly had a pretty sweet gig!

Pardon the expression but.....

"There's a few old Dog's in this thread that refuse to learn new tricks"

Now that is out of the way sure, Sonar is great for those who are "used" too it but there are so many solutions available to not at least try out before you come to the conclusion it's the only solution. You got to realize that it took time to figure that out after years put into using it, learning it's quirks and acclimating your eye's too it's interface. When does come down to it do you really need anything else? Maybe not but if things change you may need another solution, keep an open mind and realize you can get "used" too something else and find that it is as comfortable Sonar.

Or....you could find like myself that in an obselete, unsupported and quite usable Sonar 8.5 which run until the wheels fall off my Windows 7 machine.