Busy doings tons of research as unfortunately I have to know that my DAW will always be tiptop - this is my business. It's hilarious to see that the DAWs I used to hate have mostly now incorporated all the stuff I love about SPLAT. I will never discard Sonar but I will have to crossgrade - PT12 and Cubase 9.5 Pro look both look very good. At least PT now has track freeze - hahaha!

LJB
Busy doings tons of research as unfortunately I have to know that my DAW will always be tiptop - this is my business. It's hilarious to see that the DAWs I used to hate have mostly now incorporated all the stuff I love about SPLAT. I will never discard Sonar but I will have to crossgrade - PT12 and Cubase 9.5 Pro look both look very good. At least PT now has track freeze - hahaha!

Yes, it's a curious thing in the DAW world that Sonar always comes up as #8 in the polls . . . yet it has all the features that the other DAWs are just finally getting around to . . . eg. I was looking at Cubase 9.5, and one of their new features is a 64 bit double precision engine.

noynekker

LJB
Busy doings tons of research as unfortunately I have to know that my DAW will always be tiptop - this is my business. It's hilarious to see that the DAWs I used to hate have mostly now incorporated all the stuff I love about SPLAT. I will never discard Sonar but I will have to crossgrade - PT12 and Cubase 9.5 Pro look both look very good. At least PT now has track freeze - hahaha!

Yes, it's a curious thing in the DAW world that Sonar always comes up as #8 in the polls . . . yet it has all the features that the other DAWs are just finally getting around to . . . eg. I was looking at Cubase 9.5, and one of their new features is a 64 bit double precision engine.

 
Umm.... As far as I know the core engine always was 64bit precision. It's the mixing engine that is updated. I guess that's possible because they get rid of the 32bit plugins and have go for 64bit solely.
 
But I must admit I am not sure about that. Anyway - All stuff is 64bit now, so that could no longer be an "hurdle" for those that want high precision in all layers of the application.
 
And for that 8th place. Well - I guess the landscape of DAW users has changed a bit over the years. Like it or not, the majority of users are more EDM orientated. That means the DAW's that focus more on EDM (and thus more on Loops, samples, synths and MIDI), just got sold more. Keep in mind that's no judgment about quality or creativity on my side, but only an observation.
 
As a result the DAW's that target those users get a higher score. In this case it's FL-Studio, Ableton and Reason that end up high in the scores. It's also the reason that Steinberg Pro is 3th (personally I think MIDI handling is better in Cubase than in Sonar, but nobody has to agree with me of course). It's simply because all those DAW's target the current user base better. And, like it or not, the number of units sold are part of the survival of those DAW's. It's just cold calculation, but far from unimportant.
 
I personally think that if the bakers had more concentrated on the matrix view and mad it more usable, they had a far higher score with Sonar. In my opinion dumping Project 5 years ago was one of the biggest mistakes Cakewalk has ever made. Seeing the DAW users landscape now, they would had a absolute winner in their hands (yes I still play around with Project 5 now and then. It still runs acceptable, although it clearly shows it's age). It's a shame that this never had to be.
 
All of this is a personal view, of course.

Sonar is so advanced and efficient that it is still a great DAW with no future updates.  Most of the problems under the hood have been fixed.  As long as it works, I'm going to use it in some capacity.  The only problems I can foresee in the far future are new plugs I might want that wouldn't work in Sonar and help in case I can't figure out how to do something in Sonar.  So I hope some sort of cult of Sonar users sticks around with a forum to help each other.

Card-carrying Sonar cultist here.  I've paid for every version since 2.2.  What bugs me is that a weak company bought it and couldn't keep it afloat.  Bad luck for us.

I met Cakewalk Apprentice in the 90th, when I bought a Waveblaster daughterboard. It opened a complete new world for me and I made a lot of midi songs. 
Later I switched to Reason because of the virtual rack,
Last year, I re-dicovered Cakewalk with Sonar - the only DAW, that could open my wrk files. I have had Reason, Reaper & Cubase to that time already. I started with Sonar Artist, that made me almost very happy, because of the almost instantly & intuitive usable midi-implementation. Then with the lifetime-offer I decided to get a new copy of SonatR Platinum, that I did not regret until today. Since that time it has become my main  DAW. It is easy & intuitive usable for me, even I have almost all other Daws also. For composing I use the midi part, but it is also an easy task with the templates to take the life-recorded matter from my "oldies" Blues band and make a fast mix-up.
I am born in the end of the 50th, so I hope to use Sonar still very long. I dont need to change, as I have enough alternatives.
I will use it as long as it works!
It is a part of my personal history, so no chance to give it up! 
 

Saxon1066
Official Sonar Cultist here.

somebody, maybe even you.......is last version of sonar unstable......it keeps not recognising my midi keyboard, after hours of recognising it?..........and then.....while a certain soft synth is highlighted.....it still plays the other one that's in-highlighted....like on a bass track, I double click and it brings up drums???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? is there a stabler version I can roll back to????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????.

paul jenkins

Saxon1066
Official Sonar Cultist here.

somebody, maybe even you.......is last version of sonar unstable......it keeps not recognising my midi keyboard, after hours of recognising it?..........and then.....while a certain soft synth is highlighted.....it still plays the other one that's in-highlighted....like on a bass track, I double click and it brings up drums???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? is there a stabler version I can roll back to????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????.

Reboot your system first.
10.2017 is very robust but if you have problems with the latest build, you can select any older build in Command Center. Hope this helps.
 
If this does not help, please describe your problem in more detail and give exact steps for others how to reproduce it. Screen capture and video may also help.

The actual version works like a charm. I will do proper archiving of my projects (audio bounce, MIDI export, etc.) in the future, but you should do that anyway. It sounds like you just got the latest version of a software and everybody things it is broken right now. It is the FINAL version of Sonar.
 
I am working with Office 2010 and have no need to switch to the actual version right now. It is the same with my DAW: There is no need to switch right now and this will not change within the next years. My machine runs rock-solid, I do backups and Recovery-procedures on a regular basis and do not install free stuff on it without need.
 
Long story short: I am covered until 2020 (W7), then probably there is a way to install PLAT on a new machine and I will be covered another couple of years - or find something I really like. 

I will continue to use SPLAT as long as possible. But will buy another DAW just as a precaution. Probably S1 If a good deal is offered for a crossgrade. Mostly recording audio. (Latest "The Damps Project" check us out on Spotify or ITunes.)