swamptooth
cubase handles timing pretty much the same as sonar.  this is a good vid to measure the timing with...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Video_of_6o8_at_90_bpm.ogv

If that's how Cubase handles 6/8 then it's not the same as Sonar. Am I right in my assessment that Sonar defines the beat of bpm as a quarter note no matter what the time signature is? The video above shows 6/8 timed as 2 dotted quarter note beats per bar. I could understand if the DAW was measuring a beat of 6/8 like that, but it just makes no sense to time a beat of 6/8 as a quarter note. That effectively makes it 3/4, which is a different time signature entirely. I like how Studio One does it, if it measures it like Jeff says. 
 
Ideally, I would like to see one dialog for both tempo and time signature, which allows the user to define what a tempo actually means in terms of the meter. 

Another thought: if DAW's define tempo differently as established above, then how does this relate to using tempo based effects like delay? 
 

Sorry that's not a vid about Cubase it's a vid about how 6/8 time is traditionally counted at 90 bpm. Comparing the clicks between sonar and cubase and even reason with metronome on at 90bpm yields the same result - that sped up double time feel.

hey sharke...  i think i got a way to explain this to you...
 
basically what is happening is that sonar and cubase et al are seeing 6/8 time but there is still that (RIGID) part of the program that (especially in snap settings) sees a "beat" as a quarter note.  so, because a beat is really an eighth note in this signature, when you set snap settings or draw 8th notes, what you're really drawing is 16th notes... you need to set snap settings to quarter notes to test this out.  
take a file, set the time sig to 6/8 at 90bpm.  open prv on a midi track and set snap settings to a quarter note. 
draw a quarter note in then copy it and paste special 89 times.  scroll to the end of the midi notes and you'll notice the end time is 1:00.  
So, because sonar always sees a beat as a quarter note, that means that the measure display numbers are off as well, and 2 measures really make up one. 
 
jeez math sucks sometimes...
 
 

Well that kinda sucks. Eighths should be eighths, quarters should be quarters and beats should be defined by the time signature. At least that's how things would be if I were King Of The DAWS 

that's one of the frigging things that always bugged me about rapture and z3ta+ because y'know how you can synch lfo's to the beat right?? well a 1 in the sync dropdowns isn't a whole note, it's a beat. so in 4/4 time, a half is an eighth, and a quarter is a 16th and an eighth is a 32nd.  drove me nuts until i rtfm'd it.  ;)

swamptooth
...always bugged me about rapture and z3ta+ because y'know how you can synch lfo's to the beat right?? well a 1 in the sync dropdowns isn't a whole note, it's a beat. so in 4/4 time, a half is an eighth, and a quarter is a 16th and an eighth is a 32nd...

 
If you need to work with Rapture's step sequencer using patterns more than 1 single note long and synced to the beat, it's probably best to work in 4/4 with 8th or 16th triplets rather than 6/8 time.  It can still get confusing though.

I have sent several feature requests to Sonar over the past couple of years, asking for Step Sequencer to be able to deal with a non-quarter meter base, as well, to no avail.
 
It drives me absolutely NUTS to have to create clips of what should be 6/8 in Step Sequencer instead as clips of 6/4 - where I then have to also DOUBLE the song's tempo to get things to play back correctly.
 
Worse still is that MANY of the songs I sequence up have a multitude of odd time signatures, so I end up with CRAZY tempo maps and things that while they sound right are going back and forth from taking the right amount of measures to all of a sudden needing TWO measures instead of one to represent the notes, due to having to have a quarter note in the meter base rather than the desired EIGHTH note.  I then have to mark up printed scores like an AMATEUR to explain why the measure numbers and notation are wrong.
 
I know that the odd-meter folks are a small subset of the Cakewalk universe, but really, this stuff is aggravating and I wish it would get some attention in development.  PLEASE???????
 
It has gotten to the point where I just keep putting off sequencing up songs, because I KNOW how many hoops I will have to go through to keep the tempos changing from doubled to normal and all of the above.  One of the things I am trying to do is create sequenced midi versions of some really complex progressive/fusion tunes, and to have to put them out there on the web KNOWING they all have this embedded nonsense in them really frustrates me to no end.
 
Here is one nightmarish example: I have a song snippet, which is a cyclic repeating rhythmic pattern of one measure of each of the following - 4/4, 7/8, 4/4, 5/8 then the pattern repeats.  The song has arpeggio acoustic guitar notes.  To enter that in Sonar's Step Sequencer, I have to enter the first measure at 4/4, then double the tempo and insert a meter change to 7/4, then return the tempo to normal and insert a meter change back to 4/4, then insert another tempo change to double it again and insert a meter change to 5/4.  Can you IMAGINE what playing along with a click track to that sounds like?
 
Soooooooo, Mr Sharke - I COMPLETELY feel your pain.  If ANYONE has a better workaround, I am all ears (I suppose it would be all eyes, since I would be reading the responses).
 
Bob Bone
 

You could always just use 6/4 instead of 6/8 time.  Then the tempo would behave as expected. 

robert_e_bone
I have sent several feature requests to Sonar over the past couple of years, asking for Step Sequencer to be able to deal with a non-quarter meter base, as well, to no avail.
 
It drives me absolutely NUTS to have to create clips of what should be 6/8 in Step Sequencer instead as clips of 6/4 - where I then have to also DOUBLE the song's tempo to get things to play back correctly.
 
Worse still is that MANY of the songs I sequence up have a multitude of odd time signatures, so I end up with CRAZY tempo maps and things that while they sound right are going back and forth from taking the right amount of measures to all of a sudden needing TWO measures instead of one to represent the notes, due to having to have a quarter note in the meter base rather than the desired EIGHTH note.  I then have to mark up printed scores like an AMATEUR to explain why the measure numbers and notation are wrong.
 
I know that the odd-meter folks are a small subset of the Cakewalk universe, but really, this stuff is aggravating and I wish it would get some attention in development.  PLEASE???????
 
It has gotten to the point where I just keep putting off sequencing up songs, because I KNOW how many hoops I will have to go through to keep the tempos changing from doubled to normal and all of the above.  One of the things I am trying to do is create sequenced midi versions of some really complex progressive/fusion tunes, and to have to put them out there on the web KNOWING they all have this embedded nonsense in them really frustrates me to no end.
 
Here is one nightmarish example: I have a song snippet, which is a cyclic repeating rhythmic pattern of one measure of each of the following - 4/4, 7/8, 4/4, 5/8 then the pattern repeats.  The song has arpeggio acoustic guitar notes.  To enter that in Sonar's Step Sequencer, I have to enter the first measure at 4/4, then double the tempo and insert a meter change to 7/4, then return the tempo to normal and insert a meter change back to 4/4, then insert another tempo change to double it again and insert a meter change to 5/4.  Can you IMAGINE what playing along with a click track to that sounds like?
 
Soooooooo, Mr Sharke - I COMPLETELY feel your pain.  If ANYONE has a better workaround, I am all ears (I suppose it would be all eyes, since I would be reading the responses).
 
Bob Bone
 

Wow that sounds like a real pain in the ass Bob, not sure I would have the patience to deal with that crap. It's outrageous really - for all of their talk about Sonar (and other DAW's) being designed with the musician in mind, it's not really the case is it? You spend hundreds of dollars on a piece of professional music software and you still have to hack things together like that. It's not just Sonar - I gave up looking into 3rd party drum sequencers like Maschine and Geist when I read about the trouble people were having getting time signatures other than 4/4 to work properly. Again, the same thing: workarounds and hacks which have you performing mental acrobatics. It's so ridiculous...I mean I know 4/4 is like the most popular rhythm and stuff but come on! Tempo and meter are two of the most fundamental elements of music so you'd expect a DAW to handle them correctly, as expected and without issues.