...here's a little story.
 
It’s the early 90s, and you’re about to do your first album. Amazingly, you’re given a price of a mere $4,000 to record an album from start to finish—with unlimited studio time!—in a world-class recording facility. You can’t believe your good fortune.
 
You walk into the studio, and see two 48-track Sony DASH machine synched together for a whopping 96 tracks, feeding into a giant console with more channels than you can count. What’s more, there’s per-channel automation with moving faders and behind the console is a wall of rack mount gear with dozens of sophisticated signal processors. Even better, there are several guitar amps, cabinets, stomp boxes, and over 20 synthesizers and other keyboards sitting around to help flesh out your tracks further.
 
Of course, you’re thrilled...until the person who let you in says “Well, gotta go. Good luck!” And there you are, all by yourself, with a mountain of equipment you’ve never seen before. You’re not even sure where the on-off switch is.
 
Panic sets in. How can you possibly record, let alone be productive or inspired, under those circumstances?
 
Well, you can’t. But the studio scenario I’ve just described is almost exactly what you get with a Windows computer and Sonar X3. Panic sets in. How can you possibly record, let alone be productive, under those circumstances?
 
Well, you can’t, any more than you can walk into a music store, buy a guitar, and expect to play like Jimi Hendrix by next Tuesday. So it’s no wonder many people are flying blind. How any times have you seen threads like “This software sucks! It doesn’t record!”—until the person realized you need to record-enable a track first. What’s more, today’s musicians have to struggle with operating systems, latency, sample buffers, and more. How are you going to become an instant expert on something like how to apply EQ?
 
People used to accumulate knowledge over time. I see people with hundreds of plug-ins who haven’t mastered any of them. So learn one dynamics processor, one multiband EQ, and one reverb—you’re covered for 90% of your signal processing needs. Learn a program’s basics, like input and outputs. Eventually, you’ll figure out automation.
 
You don’t learn how to play an instrument in a day, a week, or even a year. So cut yourself some slack, and expect to take some time to learn how to “play” a virtual studio, too. It's not Sonar's fault, and it's not your fault. You're not trying to learn a program; you're trying to learn the equivalent of what used to be a multi-million dollar recording studio.

You forgot to mention MIDI! Outstanding post Craig. 
 
 
Also I would add of all the DAWs out there I believe Sonar to be the easiest to figure out. In Cubase you don't record to a track you have to setup inputs and record to them.  Logic as I recall was all about the "environment". It was everything.  Don't understand that and you will be lost. Reaper is one big gigantic menu.
 
Sonar acts like a Windows program and is simple in how it has things organized.
 
 
 
 

I don't find Sonar X3 to be overwhelming at all, because I've been reading Scott Garrigus's series of Power books and they explain the program very well. Many things carry over from one Sonar version to another. I was pretty fluent with X1 and X2, so when X3 came out it was no problem, and everything went very smooth for me. Now I'm planning to take some time and read up on X3...because I know it'll help me get the most out of X3. As with most things in life, you get out what you put in to it...taking some time to learn the program will stick with you for life. 

Very well put Mr. Anderson! I myself am taking all the audio/DAW education and working at it about 2 hrs. a day. Including the 4 hours playing and practicing guitar and keyboard that's 6 hrs. Understanding my PC is out of the question. I don't have time for THAT. I like to eat too much and have a date every now and then. There's been many occasions over the past year when friends have dropped by, let themselves in turned on the lights and found me playing with something in the dark because I didn't notice the sun going down. I'm in no hurry. I am learning as best I can and loving every second doing it! I don't mind the mistakes I make recording. I fix those on the next one. I figure one day when I can't play or record any more I'll put on a CD I made and just listen and smile. What a ride!

Excellent post Craig. In the beginning I was reluctant to leave my trusty old Akai DPS24 for computer based recording. I had tried Cubase SX1 or 3...? I forget but long story short it was a nightmare and turned me off instantly. Then some time later Sonar LE came bundled with a piece of hardware I bought so I decided to give it another shot. I was amazed at how easy Sonar was to start recording with compared to that version of Cubase. Although I've tried a few other DAWS over the years Sonar remains my number one companion (Well aside form my Wife that is... ) not only because I think it's great software and sounds incredibly good, but also because of how easy it is to use.

I'm still new to sonar only a few weeks in sofar but I already have experience with working with another daw so it wasn't so overwhelming except for the fact of how different the layout of things was from what I've grown used to.so really it was just about finding we're all the normal basic functions were located.ive got most of the basic stuff down except editing audio the hot keys and mouse clicks are so different from how I've been doing it for the last few years it keeps screwing me up.but other then that I'm in love mixing bussing and organization especially are a dream in sonar in comparison.there are still a lot of things that sonar can't replace for me tho but fortunately my other daw can be opened as vsti :D

I think Mr. Anderton is primarily thinking in terms of new users to DAWs in general.  

Hey Craig, there's one good book (which I've still got) which helped me enormously when I first started on this road:
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

In a different post I've described my 'Way Of The DAW' from its humble beginnings using atari ST512 with midi only.

Back then it was still bewildering learning midi cc, sysex, patch changes etc, with only the manual (my notator manual was a good 2-3 inches thick if I recall).
 
I can imagine that anyone using the most basic DAW today will encounter a bewlidering array of options.... at least the internet is about to provide places like this, you tube tutorials, et al

Pshaw! I recorded, mixed and mastered ten award winning albums the first day I installed Sonar and still had enough time leftover to pleasure my throng of college aged groupies!
 
;-p