I remember the greg days - wasn't so long ago.  Many of those undisgruntled users waited for better notation - Greg never delivered.  Or gapless engine like some other DAWs.  Oh the moaning w/ each subsequent SONAR release. The list goes on.  It was never the good ole days, not like some remember it.
 
Greg was great, SONAR was and is good, and people will complain.  As sure as death and taxes.

i am the "fanboi" they let loose on.  kvr is a place that is no friend to Cakewalk.  but just try saying negative things about Fruity Loops, and you will feel the wrath of the Image-Line people and their minions.

I hate to say this but I think we need to face the truth and understand why Sonar is bashed not only in KVR but also here in the Sonar forum and also in the S1 forum. While some of the bashing is due to user ignorance, there are at least two major complaints I hear a lot about Sonar.

1. It's very unstable on many computers (and other daws work fine on these computers)

2. You can't transfer the license

I think Cakewalk needs to change these two if they want to stop the recurring bashing and acquire new users. My X2 is mostly stable and I love the great features of Sonar and it's my best daw so I hope I don't get bashed by posting the above opinion. :-)

I still think SONAR 8.5 Classic Edition was the best all arounder Audio and MIDI DAW ever.
 
Just a few little fixes that had been on the Cakewalk Do list for about 10 years and it would have been 99% there.
 
I used it for 8 hours yesterday and it still feels fresh. I had Fabfilter stuff on everything and it just works great for me.
 
Every time I look at SONAR X I think it looks like it was made to seem like Home Studio on steroids with an emphasis on drag and drop loop convenience.
 
It's hard to take Pro Channel seriously when you prefer to use top of the field dsp. The claim that independent efx gui windows is confusing cracks me up. Seriously. I think it's funny.
 
The audio tracking features have been downgraded with a clumsy use of display space. The elimination of layers and the crude adoption of lanes defied the acknowledgement that SONAR's layers were one of it's most powerful features... a feature that set it apart and above more popular DAWs like Pro Tools.
 
The friendly names audio input debacle is still a sad, sad joke. All the other DAWs do it the right way while SONAR users explain that never having "input 2" listed as "input 2" is not a big deal. Seriously. I think it's sad. 
 
I think SONAR's drum maps are really sweet. I think they are the best, but I haven't tried Cubase in a while.
 
I'm planning on buying SONAR X3 before I see what Cakewalk did to it. I'm going to approach it like I'm taking a swim at the North Pole. Pinch my nose and jump.
 
I've started wondering when Cakewalk will tell us that SONAR X will only install on Win8. When that happens I'm going to disconnect from the train. I hope X3 works on Win7. I hope I use it. I'm going to be bummed if it turns out to be a X2b+ stop gap meant as a holdover before the app goes Win8 touch centric in the next couple of years.
 
I've been using ProTools 11 native and it is fantastic. I never took the PT LE stuff seriously but the native stuff is rocking on my new DAW.
 
I still like to work in SONAR 8.5 Classic Edition because it has great MIDI tools and the audio works great but I've developed a plan to use less and less MIDI so as to make the most of Pro Tools audio production strengths because it feels like Cakewalk has simply abandoned any efforts to get to 99% and has decided to give away free stuff instead of servicing their top of the line product.
 
I'm ready to get it over with. Spending a couple K on PT, Studio One, and very soon Cubase 7 wasn't in the plans... but that's what happened when SONAR X left me wanting a program that reminded me of the best features in SONAR 8.5 Classic Edition.
 
I want to get back to spending my budget on nice microphones and tracking nice sounds with the comfort of knowing the DAW is just what I've hoped for these past two decades.
 
best regards,
mike
 
 

i agree that license transfers would solve a few problems (not that i would ever want to transfer mine). but like many musicians, i like to sell things i am no longer using in order to get the next new thing that i desire.  i am always wheeling and dealing gear, hardware & software, and it is very disheartening when i discover that i am not allowed to sell something to someone that wants to buy it.  but that is how many companies get some of their new users, happy ones even! i just don't understand the rationale on such a policy

My guess is that the licence transfer admin overhead is considered not worth it - not necessarily correct, but not an unreasonable assumption.
 
That said, given that SONAR still doesn't have copy protection in any form (no dongle or Mac required!), I think that's a reasonable trade-off.

fwiw, i think cake are mid-adjustment-of-sights toward a different target market; just check all the "reaching out" that's going into the steam forums and the facebook page, compared to the odd visit here... actually it's no wonder they don't have any time for here...

Jlien X
I hate to say this but I think we need to face the truth and understand why Sonar is bashed not only in KVR but also here in the Sonar forum and also in the S1 forum. While some of the bashing is due to user ignorance, there are at least two major complaints I hear a lot about Sonar.

1. It's very unstable on many computers (and other daws work fine on these computers)

2. You can't transfer the license

I think Cakewalk needs to change these two if they want to stop the recurring bashing and acquire new users. My X2 is mostly stable and I love the great features of Sonar and it's my best daw so I hope I don't get bashed by posting the above opinion. :-)

I'm afraid I have to disagree here....
Point 1 seems to fall in the relm of people really do not understand computers these days.  Anyone who is less than 30 years old has grown up in the Windows world.  Windows has always had bugs some have been fixed some remain....because of the complexity most people have learned to live with bugs or have blamed other software as the reason.  It was not until MS won their law suit with IBM that any product was sold in the us with defects in it with the promise that it would be fixed with a patch or a later rev.  I could go on for days here....
 
Point 2
I assume you mean Transfer the license to a different person...?  Wouldn't that be like assigning copyright for a song to a different person?  If this is not what you mean then I apoligize in advance.
 
I think "to face the truth" is that most people are ignorant to how computers work and how a piece of software fits into to "mix".  And I think that if there were statistcs keep on tech support issues we would find that 98% of the support issue are not about Sonar but about issues on the PCs that Sonar is installed on.
Generally speaking Sonar has always worked reasonable well through all versions and the 3 different PC's I've tried it on since I've owned it.
Lastly in my experience artist's do not make good technicians and visa=versa....And that how I face the truth.
 
Rafone

meh

Jlien X
I hate to say this but I think we need to face the truth and understand why Sonar is bashed not only in KVR but also here in the Sonar forum and also in the S1 forum. While some of the bashing is due to user ignorance, there are at least two major complaints I hear a lot about Sonar.

1. It's very unstable on many computers (and other daws work fine on these computers)

2. You can't transfer the license

I think Cakewalk needs to change these two if they want to stop the recurring bashing and acquire new users. My X2 is mostly stable and I love the great features of Sonar and it's my best daw so I hope I don't get bashed by posting the above opinion. :-)

I'm afraid I have to disagree here....
Point 1 seems to fall in the relm of people really do not understand computers these days.  Anyone who is less than 30 years old has grown up in the Windows world.  Windows has always had bugs some have been fixed some remain....because of the complexity most people have learned to live with bugs or have blamed other software as the reason.  It was not until MS won their law suit with IBM that any product was sold in the us with defects in it with the promise that it would be fixed with a patch or a later rev.  I could go on for days here....
 
Point 2
I assume you mean Transfer the license to a different person...?  Wouldn't that be like assigning copyright for a song to a different person?  If this is not what you mean then I apoligize in advance.

 
Thanks for your feedback.
Point 1: Doesn't that mean that even those who don't understand computers can use Studio One, etc.and isn't that a good thing?
Point 2: Sorry, my English isn't good. I wanted to mean that you can't sell your Sonar to someone. 
 

Jlien X
Thanks for your feedback.
Point 1: Doesn't that mean that even those who don't understand computers can use Studio One, etc.and isn't that a good thing?
Point 2: Sorry, my English isn't good. I wanted to mean that you can't sell your Sonar to someone. 
 

Point 1 Apples and Oranges.  Just becaue 1 piece of sofware works well on one platform does not mean that another similar piece of software will work the same way on the same platform.
Point 2.  For the same reasons that technically I can't sell some one a (You name the artist here) song.  The artist or in this respect Roland ownes the intellectual copyright on Sonar.