Otari doesn't make parts for my 30ips 24 track machine, and even though it works fine, I am afraid in the future it might not work, so I'm trundling it out to the street with the trash.  Probably throw my Neve board away too since I might not be able to get replacement slider knobs someday.  I bought a new truck this year, but now I am worried it might not last forever, so will be driving it into the lake down the street in the morning.

What's frustrating, as I look for a new DAW to adopt, is that every "Best DAW" list I find, Sonar is on the list!

One of the things I had to ask the S1 community, and hopefully there's a good answer: Can multiple Layer events/clips be played simultaneously after comping, like you can do with Sonar's Lanes? So far, I don't see a way other than moving clips/events to new tracks, but I gotta ask. The key, 'K' was my friend. Also, note, once you move a clip into a Layer in S1, you can no longer move it. I really don't get that. What's the point of freezing it like that?
 
I also noticed, S1 does a much better job at recording multiple takes of many tracks simultaneously, creating new Layers on each take. Sonar always struggled here, requiring new Projects for each take in many cases.

S1 also has Cue Mixes, assignable to multiple outputs! That's pretty awesome, if the latency is low enough. Obviously, if you use their hardware interfaces, you get the real benefit.
 
And someone PLEASE convince Presonus to let us customize color schemes! hehe. I could totally go for making a Blue Aston S1 color scheme.

Interesting thread.  Just to add a note about Gibson being heartless SOB's who won't sell SONAR, it appears that CW has been losing money the last six years.  I don't know for certain, but my guess is Gibson tried to sell SONAR, but there were no takers. 

I don't expect Gibson was being heartless, just unwitting. I feel CW was already hurting, and although Gibson maybe scored a great deal on CW, if a company like Roland sells CW there should be a really good reason. Gibson unwittingly took the bait, and they're paying for it dearly. What did Gibson expect to gain from all this that Roland couldn't?

NOTE: Please don't let my Gibson-bashing come off as subversive or abusive to Gibson. I've got no real issues with them, personally, but I just feel they're a bit naive and I sort of feel sorry for them.

I want to add my experience with Studio One as well. AWESOME! I tried S1 while I still was using Sonar and my reaction was "this is crap!" Really, I never even cracked it open. When you already have a workflow anything else seems clumsy. Put it this way, if Sonar did come back I'm gone already. S1 has everything I need once I found out how things worked it was a breeze. Maybe it's not for everyone but if I can do it you guys would kill it!!!
 
Also, I wouldn't advise  trying two or three different workstations at the same time. You'll end up hating them all equally. A testimony, Studio One was offering a cross-grade from Cakewalk. I sent them the screenshot but a few days later I had no reply so I said the hell with it. Paid $399 so I could get on with it. A day later here comes the email "You qualify for the discount".
 
Not expecting much I emailed support and told them I had already purchased S1 and its probably nothing they could do. One day later a got an email. Dear Mr. Oliver a refund in the amount of $250 will be credited back to your account. Please allow 5-7 business days. What! The very next day it was posted in my acct.
 
I'm sorry, but the stability and customer service like that was very much welcomed. S1 seems like I always had it now. It is simply solid. My only hope is they stay on track and not listen to us cry too much about changing what is now a dream come true. Everything works for me. No workarounds. I have my parallel compression and side-chaining is super easy and intuitive.
 
Maybe in a month things will be different. I love Sonar too, but after witnessing Studio One I'm sold. Besides this is their forte. Some of the console views are very inspiring. Thanks Cakewalk for many years of service! And thank all of you for helping me through my issues.

Interesting thread, I've been watching this forum since the demise of Sonar, doing research...preparing for the inevitable. Although Jeff and a few others say a GUI is a matter of taste, Sonar's console view was always the best in the business...And I've used Cubase, Logic and Pro Fools. Logic was reasonable, and functioned like a console but it was very toyish. Cubase's console screen - wasn't even a full screen, and is very limited. Pro Fools just felt like the dog puking his breakfast up ;). Sonar's console screen will be the one thing, that is impossible to replace. As for a replacement DAW, there is only Reaper that has Sonars' other two most important features - 64bitFp from recording to rendering, and upsampling -although I've got to test this last feature because it's very convoluted the process. The mix screen is a dog's breakfast, but them's the breaks.

And for those who consider spending 1500 bucks on something like Nuendo or Magixs' top DAW offering, and indeed consider Reaper a toy...It's the tool operating the tools so to speak, and because of the maturity of DAWs across audio land...the gaps between DAWs is non existent. What is really odd to me, is some so-called high end software don t have two of the most important functions - 64bitFp recording and rendering, and upsampling. These should be the two features that are non negotiable for all looking at purchasing a new DAW.

Ben

It is best to install the 64 bit version of Studio One anyway. There is a double precision setting which I have engaged all the time.
 
Many plugins themselves offer upsampling within the plugin itself.  But as you say for those that do not, then the upsampling mode is very good.  I do know from experience that Native Instruments Prism sounds quite different at 96K compared to 44.1K. (for some patches not all)

jeff oliver
 
 
Not expecting much I emailed support and told them I had already purchased S1 and its probably nothing they could do. One day later a got an email. Dear Mr. Oliver a refund in the amount of $250 will be credited back to your account. Please allow 5-7 business days. What! The very next day it was posted in my acct.
 
I'm sorry, but the stability and customer service like that was very much welcomed. 

That is very cool Jeff.
 
I sent the screenshot but made the mistake of inadvertently sending it using a different email to the one I'd already registered with at PreSonus. I raised a ticket telling them what I'd done and they sent me all the details I needed to crossgrade straight to my 'correct' account within a few hours.
 
Now that sort of service is what gets people to part with their dosh.