abacab
I would expect that Platinum will continue to run for many more years, so no rush to learn another DAW, until changes in Windows someday make that a necessity.

i think that time will come in less than one year, if recent events are considered the new norm

jerry@macwood.com
what about pro tools or logic pro or ableton live?
 

PT is what I went to after leaving Sonar. A bit of a steep learning curve and not everything you know in Sonar translates over but may well be worth it. Check out Avid.com and the DUC which is the PT forum of choice. Be aware PT uses an iLok dongle.

There are thousands of Studio One tutorials on YouTube.  I watch two last night after struggling all day with S1 3.5 blind and I think it is a very interesting DAW.  I liked these guys alot:
Studio One Expert
https://www.youtube.com/c...K0pITrfzEC36x6ttyaXUXA

Michayl Asaph
Has anyone considered this daw, http://motu.com/products/software/dp
I don't know it, but I'm going to check out
the demo... I have Mixbus and Cubase 9 Elements,
but they just don't totally cut it for me
like Sonar did.

Digital Performer is my secondary daw after ProTools. DP is a bit like Sonar was back in the day before Sonar got true instruments tracks. The instrument tracks in DP only host the vi and that's it. DP does not use an iLok. There is only one version of the program - no 'lite' version. 30 day fully functional free demo. The user community over at Motunation.com (which is not affiliated with MOTU) is not very friendly especially for newbies; if you ask a question that even smacks of not having read the manual you'll get roasted like you wouldn't believe. The only other forum is Gearslutz; there is a Facebook group for DP but I don't do FB. Couple all this with the fact there is precious little in the way of third party learning support - if that's important to you then take that into account as well.
 
Some people get on well with DP and some don't. I only got it as a backup to PT when Avid started with subscription models for PT12.

sure.....ivevjust spent "ALL", my money on sonar.........I hope these arseholes offer some type of free ****in offer for us who spent "all" our money in  sonar.....to get a substitute daw

Hi all,
 
have any of you considered n-Track Studio 8 as an alternative to Sonar? We've been around for 20 years and now the app runs on all platforms (Windows, Mac, iOS and Android). If my memory serves me right n-Track had multitrack audio capability before Cakewalk added it around '96. Since we heard the sad news we've decided to offer a crossgrade from Cakewalk to n-Track for only $59 (50% the regular price of the EX edition is $119, more than our current 40% black friday sale that ends monday). The purchase include a free upgrade to v9 which will be released within the end of the year.
You can check out the demo of n-Track at
The crossgrade coupon is SONAR2NTRACK (coupon goes into the lower left of the purchase page).
Sorry for the shameless plug, however I thought n-Track should be mentioned in the list of possible alternate DAWs. Let me know if you have any comments on the app!
 
Cheers,
Flavio Antonioli
n-Track founder.

Cubase is a really complicated program to learn. I seriously doubt most will simply pick it up and use it without doing some extensive homework. If you don't mind the extremely steep learning curve, then Cubase might be your choice.
 
I haven't seriously considered Reaper. My first experiences with it weren't good ones. It can be made to work once you get it figured out.Probably easier than Cubase to learn overall. Studio One gets my vote for the easiest, fastest way to get up and recording. The program lets you learn the surface details and get going while you learn the deeper functions later on. Much Like Sonar in that regard.
 
Magix has a good program at a very low price point, but I'm not sure if it accepts vst's. The included content is pretty goo though.
Noone has mentioned Bitwig. That one seems to be catching on, though I haven't tried it.
 
 

well 

exactly..sonar was much simpler and easier to learn than "all" the other software..the people behind this sonar termination are absolutely a pack of arseholes!!!

I took a 30 day demo of Cubase 9 earlier this year.  It has a great MIDI implementation, and some cool composition tools like the arranger track and chord track.
 
If you are mostly into MIDI and/or music composition, this would probably make a great alternative to Sonar.  I was primarily interested in Cubase for some new creative tools.  But I held off because it seemed like too much overlap with Sonar's DAW features.  Didn't really need a a second full blown DAW... well until now, that is, LOL! 
 
If you have a Groove3 pass, there are a lot of videos covering Cubase over there.  If it looks interesting, download the fully functional 30-day trial of Cubase and take it for a drive.
 
I have also tried the free version of Studio One 3 Prime, and it's UI seems easy to work with.  I think it would work very well if you mostly record and edit audio.  Don't have an opinion on the MIDI usage there, because you can only use VST plugins with the pro version.