There actually WAS life BEFORE Disco Duck reared its ugly beak.....
 
Bob Bone

telecharge
But the OP is not suggesting a full-blown sampler ala Kontakt and EastWest. Why is that not sinking in?

Exactly. 
 
My examples were EXS24, Simpler/Sampler, SampleOne, etc.  Those are nowhere near as deep as Kontakt.  Kontakt to me, is when you really want to go deep with scripting, creating detailed sample libraries, etc. Or if someone wants to take advantage of the numerous libraries that are available for it.  Although it can be used as a basic sampler, it's almost overkill and a bit convoluted for when you want to do more basic sampling tasks.

AT
One needs to remember the core users and Cake seems, to me anyway, to be aimed primarily at guitarists who have a PC at home and want to record.  Not beat artists.  Not classically trained notation musicians.  Not to say they don't cater to such folk, but the emphasis has always been on the, if not singer songwriter, then the pop/rock idiom.  Look at where they have put their money and/or development - amp sims and soft drum machines and mixing tools.

This seems to be a popular sentiment, and it may be accurate. But I would then ask, if that is the case, why have new programs come around that cater more to "beat artists" that have surpassed Sonar in popularity and user base?  To me, that says that maybe you are focusing on the wrong audience and you may want to try to expand.  *shrugs*

 
look at Z3ta, and Z3ta 2 or Rapture and Rapture Pro.
these synths were just given upgrades within the past year or 2. while they added what..TH3 ?
Staff view ? well..I got nothing there.
 
There are many thing I would like to see in Sonar, but I take the upgrades with a grain of salt or a teaspoon of sugar. that's the way I look at it. I either use the software to create and work, or I use something else that suits my needs. I've always worked like that, im sure you have too.
 
I do a verity of different jandra's. I wouldn't say the focus of Sonar is geared towards a certain group of writers, producers. 

Blade,
 
one of the good things about Cake is they try to be all things to all musicians.  Some of the bad things are also because of this - some times they come up with a feature or tool that kinda works but not fully (see the lists of problem children above).
 
They do try to expand their base, see P5, Matrix, Beatscape, cyclone etc.  But they can't afford to ignore their base, as with most DAWs, of guitarists/rockers/folkers who record and mix acoustic instruments at home.  As Anderton shows above, this is not a plurality, but a super majority of users and potential users.  Which is one reason they don't fool around with the crapshoot of programming effective software for those apps that make acoustic recording available at home where users don't have a drum room or isolated guitar booths.  See Guitar Rig, the various drum synths, etc.  They buy/lease working versions of those programs while synths and "beat" functions get done in-house.  If Matrix needs work, they can do that tomorrow and they aren't going to piss off a lot of users and lose them like they would if an Amp sim makes your guitar sound like flatulence so that Cake has to pay the programmers overtime to fix what they should have writ right the first time.  The Matrix, no, we'll put Joe on it next cycle.  If they lose a few customers, they are still a head. 70% or more don't care.  You screw up the drums, every one cares.
 
As far as other programs - SONAR splits the market with several of the other "big" DAWs.  Of the beat DAWs, Live! garners the serious crowd but FL Studio is the best ... you can't say seller since they have so many pirated copies... but at one point was the most used DAW of all.  If SONAR were free it would probably have more users, too.  If I was Cake I'd rather have 1/5 of 70% of the market plus 10% of the other 30% rather than the other way around.  And Cake is probably the best known of the PC DAWs since it remains a PC-only DAW. 
 
Cakewalk is a business and makes decisions based upon their own sustainability.  Keep the base happy and build on that.

AT
Blade,
 
one of the good things about Cake is they try to be all things to all musicians.  Some of the bad things are also because of this - some times they come up with a feature or tool that kinda works but not fully (see the lists of problem children above).
 
They do try to expand their base, see P5, Matrix, Beatscape, cyclone etc.  But they can't afford to ignore their base, as with most DAWs, of guitarists/rockers/folkers who record and mix acoustic instruments at home.  As Anderton shows above, this is not a plurality, but a super majority of users and potential users.  Which is one reason they don't fool around with the crapshoot of programming effective software for those apps that make acoustic recording available at home where users don't have a drum room or isolated guitar booths.  See Guitar Rig, the various drum synths, etc.  They buy/lease working versions of those programs while synths and "beat" functions get done in-house.  If Matrix needs work, they can do that tomorrow and they aren't going to piss off a lot of users and lose them like they would if an Amp sim makes your guitar sound like flatulence so that Cake has to pay the programmers overtime to fix what they should have writ right the first time.  The Matrix, no, we'll put Joe on it next cycle.  If they lose a few customers, they are still a head. 70% or more don't care.  You screw up the drums, every one cares.
 
As far as other programs - SONAR splits the market with several of the other "big" DAWs.  Of the beat DAWs, Live! garners the serious crowd but FL Studio is the best ... you can't say seller since they have so many pirated copies... but at one point was the most used DAW of all.  If SONAR were free it would probably have more users, too.  If I was Cake I'd rather have 1/5 of 70% of the market plus 10% of the other 30% rather than the other way around.  And Cake is probably the best known of the PC DAWs since it remains a PC-only DAW. 
 
Cakewalk is a business and makes decisions based upon their own sustainability.  Keep the base happy and build on that.

A quick Google search will show you that pretty much all the major DAWs are pirated (including Sonar) so that's null and void.  FL Studio is PC only as well, so you kind of contradicted your own point (I'm assuming maybe you didn't know it was PC only).  And if you say FL "was the most used DAW of all", what does that tell you? Especially when you consider it's audio recording capabilities were relatively non-existent until fairly recently.
 
As far as ignoring their base, how much more can they really develop for guitarists and people who record acoustic instruments?  Those people are essentially using Sonar as a tape recorder and mixer.  That's about as basic as a DAW can get.  There is a ton of compressors, eqs, reverbs, melodyne, audiosnap, TH3, Guitar Rig 4 (from older versions, if you have them), AD2, etc.  I would say that group is covered extremely well at this point.

bladetragic

telecharge
But the OP is not suggesting a full-blown sampler ala Kontakt and EastWest. Why is that not sinking in?

Exactly. 
 
My examples were EXS24, Simpler/Sampler, SampleOne, etc.  Those are nowhere near as deep as Kontakt.  Kontakt to me, is when you really want to go deep with scripting, creating detailed sample libraries, etc. Or if someone wants to take advantage of the numerous libraries that are available for it.  Although it can be used as a basic sampler, it's almost overkill and a bit convoluted for when you want to do more basic sampling tasks.

I get the impression that you use both a PC and a Mac ....if that is not the case ..please disregard this post ....
 
I love the ESX 24 and I treat my Mac's as if I was running a hardware synth when I want to incorporate my ESX 24 sounds into my SONAR projects VIA a Midi cable + an Apoge sound card into my PC's soundcard  .
BTW , that's not what I'm here to talk about
 
I have MainStage 2 and Logic 9 ...only because I'm running older version of OSX ...I'm locked out of doing what I'm gonna say to you as a result of it ....
 
If you have MainStage 3 you have the ability to not only take your hardware samplers and map them out for the ESX 24 as new ESX 24 instruments within MainStage 3 to be later used in Logic , you also have the ability to stay within the box and take any internal instrument such as Kontakt ( for example ) and map those instruments as individual sample instruments for the ESX 24 ...
Also, you can even take  a fully loaded instance of Kontakt or any instrument along those lines and map out VIA Autosampler in M S 3 a self contained sample set of a combined collection of instruments that would bring a computer to it's knees ....this is all for loading your sounds in the ESX 24 ....
The main rub is all this has to be done in MainStage 3 because Logic X does not have Autosampler included ...
Using the Autosampler VAI MainStage seems to be the only way this type of conversion can be done at this point in time until Logic gets Autosampler .....
IMHO this is very small price to pay since once you create an ESX 24 instrument ...you can use it in Logic 
 
There is a brand new tutorial that I'm basing this info on ....I have no affiliation other than a subscription ....
I have seen this whole tutorial in it's entirety and to be honest with you ...MY Mind is Blown ....
 
https://www.macprovideo.com/tutorial/logic-pro-fasttrack-304-auto-sampling-with-mainstage
 
all the best,
 
Kenny
 

kennywtelejazz

bladetragic

telecharge
But the OP is not suggesting a full-blown sampler ala Kontakt and EastWest. Why is that not sinking in?

Exactly. 
 
My examples were EXS24, Simpler/Sampler, SampleOne, etc.  Those are nowhere near as deep as Kontakt.  Kontakt to me, is when you really want to go deep with scripting, creating detailed sample libraries, etc. Or if someone wants to take advantage of the numerous libraries that are available for it.  Although it can be used as a basic sampler, it's almost overkill and a bit convoluted for when you want to do more basic sampling tasks.

I get the impression that you use both a PC and a Mac ....if that is not the case ..please disregard this post ....
 
I love the ESX 24 and I treat my Mac's as if I was running a hardware synth when I want to incorporate my ESX 24 sounds into my SONAR projects VIA a Midi cable + an Apoge sound card into my PC's soundcard  .
BTW , that's not what I'm here to talk about
 
I have MainStage 2 and Logic 9 ...only because I'm running older version of OSX ...I'm locked out of doing what I'm gonna say to you as a result of it ....
 
If you have MainStage 3 you have the ability to not only take your hardware samplers and map them out for the ESX 24 as new ESX 24 instruments within MainStage 3 to be later used in Logic , you also have the ability to stay within the box and take any internal instrument such as Kontakt ( for example ) and map those instruments as individual sample instruments for the ESX 24 ...
Also, you can even take  a fully loaded instance of Kontakt or any instrument along those lines and map out VIA Autosampler in M S 3 a self contained sample set of a combined collection of instruments that would bring a computer to it's knees ....this is all for loading your sounds in the ESX 24 ....
The main rub is all this has to be done in MainStage 3 because Logic X does not have Autosampler included ...
Using the Autosampler VAI MainStage seems to be the only way this type of conversion can be done at this point in time until Logic gets Autosampler .....
IMHO this is very small price to pay since once you create an ESX 24 instrument ...you can use it in Logic 
 
There is a brand new tutorial that I'm basing this info on ....I have no affiliation other than a subscription ....
I have seen this whole tutorial in it's entirety and to be honest with you ...MY Mind is Blown ....
 
https://www.macprovideo.com/tutorial/logic-pro-fasttrack-304-auto-sampling-with-mainstage
 
all the best,
 
Kenny
 

No, I'm PC only (mainly b/c of my use of Sonar), but I know a lot of Logic users and am aware of the EXS24 and it's functionality.

bladetragic
As far as ignoring their base, how much more can they really develop for guitarists and people who record acoustic instruments?  Those people are essentially using Sonar as a tape recorder and mixer.  That's about as basic as a DAW can get.  

Well let's see. Cakewalk introduced Drum Replacer, Vocal Sync, and ARA integration of Melodyne, all in fairly recent history. All of these are geared towards (though certainly not exclusive to) more traditional DAW users, but you would hardly call them "as basic as a DAW can get". It seems the bakers are not quite out of ideas for their core crowd just yet, and their usefulness goes far beyond "a tape recorder and mixer".

I think Cake is correct to be concentrating on tightening down the loose ends and improving the core program before addressing other market segments (and it's not just EDM; audio for video could use a little love, too). More importantly, anyone who wants to make beats in SONAR already has plenty of tools: The step sequencer, Matrix view, the ability to create and edit loops, drum replacer, synchronizable effects, and virtual instruments with plenty of EDM-friendly sounds. (And, you'll see news shortly about a new EDM expansion pack for Z3TA+ 2 by Nico Herz that I've had the pleasure to evaluate. It's really good.)
 
Just because SONAR doesn't have a particular type of sampler doesn't mean you can't do EDM. Ilan Bluestone and scores of others (check out the Cakewalk blog) are proof of that. As this thread has shown, if all you need is a sampler to complete the picture, there are plenty of options.
 
If Cakewalk stopped work on doing the basic, essential enhancements they're doing now and brought out a simple sampler instead, imagine the hue and cry of "WTF do I want a sampler for when there are already plenty of options available, but ripple editing doesn't work?!??!" AFAIC concerned ripple editing is a far more important feature when creating EDM (or any type of music) than having a sampler that duplicates what's already available elsewhere. I just don't buy the concept of "you can't do EDM in SONAR." If that's true, don't tell the people who do...
 
I certainly agree that SONAR is not tailored specifically for EDM, but as I've said before, SONAR is a set of tools that are flexible enough to accommodate a wide variety of musical styles and tasks. THambrecht uses it to do digitize thousands of archival files because it works better than anything else. Subtlearts uses it to do Audiobooks, which can involve thousands of edits over projects that last for hours...because SONAR does what he needs. Jerry Gerber uses it to create orchestral works, primarily using MIDI. I use it to create soundtracks for commercial videos, do music from rock to EDM, edit narration, and develop sample libraries with great efficiency than any other program allows. 
 
I really can't think of any DAW that's more versatile than SONAR, but because it doesn't push the creative process in a particular direction, that means the results are more dependent on the user's flexibility and command of the program's toolset...consider how many of the "Friday's Tip of the Week" came out of my working with EDM and particularly remixing, which required developing techniques in SONAR that relate specifically to that kind of work.