I notice the V-Studio 700 seems to be discontinued. What are some of the currently preferred control surfaces for Sonar X3?
 
 

Touch.

Just note that whatever control surface you use, if it's ACT based, I don't think that motorization works (at least it doesn't with my BCF2000) and if it's Mackie Control based, X3 has lost some of the features compared to earlier version - though there is supposed to be an update coming to that in the form of open sourcing it - we'll see.
 
Anyway, most everything in my tutorial video about the BCF2000 still applies - it's just the EQ mode, which has since been replaced with the ProChannel, that doesn't work the same way as the video.  I don't go over all the features, like compression and whatnot, but maybe you'll find it useful nonetheless.  Please feel free to check it out here: http://blades85.com/music/sonar/88-specific-topics/82-behringer-bcf2000-part-2-use-in-sonar
 
Hope that helps.

I'm still using my Frontier Tranzport. Love it on the desk or as a remote.

I'm still using an Alphatrak by Frontier Design.

DGX 650!

Actually probably not what this thread is about, but you should still buy me one nonetheless. My 630 is out of date :(

Surely V-Studio 700 is still the way to go, I mean it is built for Sonar after all?

I use TouchDaw on an inexpensive android tablet. Not super fancy but it does the trick

I'm using an MCU emulation.  It's a combination of the Mackie d8b digital console and a product from BluAudio called D8Bridge v1.1.  It's not perfect but it's pretty cool.  With this arrangement I get 24 motorized faders, pan, solo, mute, rec enable, channel level LED ladder meters, motorized master fader, fader flip (swaps the function of the channel fader and the channel vPot), fader bank select, all transport controls including scrub, time code readout, and channel scribble strip in the VFD display, as well as LED indicators for all the button functions just mentioned.  I can't select a track from the board or have the board reflect a track selection from within Sonar.  Some of the more esoteric features (plug-in management, EQ) are not reliably available.  This may change with Cakewalk's announcement about making the control surface MCU interface public.  The BluAudio D8Bridge is a software that resides between the DAW software (Sonar) and the d8b console and includes a special serial cable to interface with the d8b, emulating 3 MCUs.  The D8Bridge software translates between the Mackie Control Protocol (MCP) and the native serial commands for the d8b board.  BluAudio is a 1 - 2 man shop up in Quebec.
 
In addition to this d8b/D8Bridge arrangement I also use a wireless keyboard/mouse and a Frontier TranzPort for remote operations when I need it to be super quiet.  I can use all of these control surfaces concurrently, i.e., I can record enable on the console surface, start recording with R on the keyboard, then stop the recording in the other room with the TranzPort transport controls.  It's a very versatile arrangement.  All-in-all I'm pretty satisfied.  A more robust MCP implementation would be better, but this is still pretty good.

I don't think one can go too far wrong getting a Mackie Control. Its not cheap but it is very much worth it.