leebut
Perhaps some of the PT is "standard" position could be related to marketing. I would have thought that Cakewalk try to market themselves  to the big studios, and try to sell to them, so why aren't they making an impression? Is the industry in such a deep rut that the studios are afraid to be the first to change their ways? Well, I don't know the answer to those questions, but marketing must play a role in it.
 
I would have thought that Cakewalk could take a bigger market share with Sonar X3 if, by what I've read here, seems to be comparable if not better in various areas.
M_Glenn_M and John T should not be getting "What's that?" reactions. The new user base needs to expand.
 
I hope Cakewalk can make some headway with X3.

I don't know if it is marketing or the perception that SONAR is a crashfest which I can't agree is deserved.  When people ask what I use and I answer, "SONAR  or Studio One" I get the distinct impression that they have the impression that anything other than Pro Tools is hobbyware. 
 
Only, Pro Tools users know how weak (feature-wise) the program has been in the past.  I tried the demo of PT10 with the intention of buying it but found the workflow to be a hassle.  However, I may still have to buy it just to say I have it but I'd rather work in another platform if given the choice.

I believe we all agree to disagree about Music software Workstations.
I believe there should be a challenge. If someone chose 1 song to mix and give it to a PT user and to a Studio1 user and to a Sonar user and give them a week to mix the song and then post the finished song then we would be on the right track.
MAKING MUSIC AND HAVING FUN.
 
Think about it. Maybe BAPU as ringleader?

stevec
I've always been much more of Roland fan than Gibson. 

Likewise.  Gibson tends to com across as a bit arrogant.  In my earlier working career, I was accused of having "belligerent confidence", which I came to understand as a compliment.
 
I think there is probably a dramatic difference between Roland and Gibson when it comes to
 
- Corporate culture
- Speed of decision-making
- Willingness to try things
- Access to upper management

Hey can we get back to fighting about which is better X3 or PT 11? I am bored with the TV and was looking for some fight action here? Let me throw out a bone.
 
Protools sounds better.

cowboydan
I believe we all agree to disagree about Music software Workstations.
I believe there should be a challenge. If someone chose 1 song to mix and give it to a PT user and to a Studio1 user and to a Sonar user and give them a week to mix the song and then post the finished song then we would be on the right track.
MAKING MUSIC AND HAVING FUN.
 
Think about it. Maybe BAPU as ringleader?

Good idea! It would interesting to hear the results. You are right though, many of us spend too much time with the technical crap that we forget why we are doing this.....TO MAKE MUSIC. If your DAW works for you, then that is the bottom line. I also hate PT, but I need it because it's the way editors require me to send film stems. Other than that, I don't use it. However, there are Hollywood composers, such as James Horner, that use it for composition (ie; Avatar), so its obviously works in that regard.

I have always found this discussion interesting.  From a price to value perspective it appears that Sonar is hands down the better choice.  It does seem however that AVID or PT have the marketing budget to keep control.  Go to a large store like Guitar Center and talk Cakewalk and most of the reps look uninterested.  Look at there training video's and books and Sonar Power is all you will find (probably all you need from that perspective but that is a different thing entirely), Search the web and you will find quite a few recording training video's with Power Tools as the base though they normally will talk about you can apply these things (whatever things are) to any DAW. Go to your local book store and look at the magazines and you will see Protools tutorials and Garage Band but very few Sonar. (They do exist just not in the same ratio).  I then stop and think about the dollars that it takes to make this appearance in all of these places, the bonuses or incentives that have to be paid to stores and realize that this costs lot's of money that have to be passed on to the consumer.  Pro shops always invest more money in their equipment than the local guy in most cases that is just normal business. 
 
At the end of the day, no matter how many pieces of software I look at I always upgrade to Sonar, partially because of it's features and partially because of it's familiarity.  The training availability online has improved immensely over the years thanks to companies like Groove 3 and Cakewalks own team.  I am for one amazed at how the Bakers have stayed focused on improving the product through transition after transition.  I have been through quite a few acquisitions in my career and they always create a distraction so good job guys and girls for staying focused on your first love of music. 
 
So is it perfect; no, but then no software that runs' on multiple versions and configuration of computers is.  Is Cakewalk responsive, they have always been for me.  9 out of 10 times I have had problems it is because of something I have configured or added to my system that causes the problem.  
 
I do think with the great equalizer of the internet you will start to see shifts.  The indie artist that is writer, singer, producer and engineer is becoming a more common commodity and a normal path to music production.  These artists normally have very tight budgets so I think the cost to value ratio is going to be of much higher consideration going forth in the future.
 
Whew.............Glad I got all of those thoughts out of my head.  Think I will just go strum the guitar while waiting for a back up to finish for a clean install so I can get rid of all of those stupid things I have done that will cause Sonar problems.
 
Terry
 

4partmusic
I do think with the great equalizer of the internet you will start to see shifts.  The indie artist that is writer, singer, producer and engineer is becoming a more common commodity and a normal path to music production.  These artists normally have very tight budgets so I think the cost to value ratio is going to be of much higher consideration going forth in the future.

It is clearly becoming a bottom-up world.  Unquestionably the dedicated, large-scale, expensive, top notch professional studio is slowly slipping into the background.  It wasn't that long ago that such places were the center of every serious musician's attention, but we are now well into the "people power" stage of evolution.  Not only do many serious recording musicians have their own DAW-based studio now, it seems to me their product choices are not driven by what the top studios use.
 
It doesn't appear we will see a single DAW dominate in the next 5-10 years, because so many musicians have invested in the learning curve for so many different DAWs and they are all pretty good.  But the one that has far more downside than upside is PT.  It has never been strong on the compositional side of things, and that is what is driving a lot of the recording musicians.  It simply doesn't fit what the compositional musician wants, and is an awful lot of money for something that really isn't the best solution.
 

control surfaces is where they got CW beat hands down.

dahjah
control surfaces is where they got CW beat hands down.

Sonar has multi-point touch. Awesome!

Every studio I have been in during the last year or so was running Protools. And I don't see tons of icons displaying other DAW software either except for Reaper which does seem to be everywhere. These are studios recording many tracks of mostly real instruments and musicians real time and not loopers and beatz boys cutting and pasting their way to fame and fortune though. When you have a 40 piece jazz band on the clock you need to have a proven product that does what it is designed to do rather than accommodating everything including the kitchen sink and maybe not doing too much of it as well as should be expected.
 
That being said, would I recommend Protools for a project studio? Probably not unless you do a good deal of sharing work with other studios. In terms of features, every DAW on the planet (well just about) tops ProTools and has for many years. My personal favorite is Studio One because it is just so logical to me. I'm a long time Cake/Sonar user but after X2 I've moved on. Maybe I'll try X3, I dunno.