Anderton
telecharge
I'm all for a healthy debate, and I'm not really surprised at the pushback, but the amount of rancor over the suggestion of a basic, integrated sampler seems a bit much.
As to the actual growth of EDM, the global EDM market is now worth 7.1 billion dollars, 60% more than it was only three years ago. It truly has reached the mainstream only relatively recently. However, google search trends show the trend for EDM is flattening and actually declining (at 90% of its peak), whereas pop—a genre for which SONAR has a good fit—has gone up a relative 50% in the past month alone. Long-term, though, bear in mind that EDM is the only genre that has undergone significant growth since 2009.
Now, another stat. For 2015, shares of streams by genre in the US was 21% hip-hop, 18% rock, 15% pop, 9% Latin, 5% dance/EDM, and 4% country (with the rest as "other" - classical, jazz, folk, new age, etc.). So if SONAR wants to go after a particular musical genre, rock, pop, hip-hop, and Latin—for all of which SONAR is well-suited—are where the action is, which mirrors other aspects of the market (e.g., CD sales, or rather, what’s left of them). Now, this doesn’t at all negate that EDM has experienced significant growth in the past few years, and continues to do so, particularly internationally in places like Viet Nam, the Philippines, etc. But when you look at it in a totality of all music, it remains a niche—a healthy niche to be sure, and one that can likely support Ableton, FL Studio, and Reason. But can it add significant numbers to SONAR, given how the former three applications are firmly entrenched, and the genre is flattening? IMHO, it’s doubtful at best.
As Telecharge said, somehow this thread got turned into an EDM-centered conversation, when I originally mentioned multiple genres
(EDM, Hip-Hop, R&B) that I thought could benefit. The latter two being where I started and have most of my experience. I started getting into EDM and experimenting with that world later in my career. If you feel hip-hop is one of the genres
"where the action is" then that would only make me feel even STRONGER about Sonar needing a better sampler, because it's probably even more sample oriented than EDM is.
I am heavily entrenched in the Hip-Hop production world and I've been in and out of all the major music scenes and studios for years now. LA, ATL, NY, MIA, etc. Out of hundreds of producers/musicians that I've met in the hip-hop world I literally have encountered only four people who use Sonar for hip-hop. Two of them stopped making music years ago and moved on to other endeavors. One whose main gig is actually DJing, and he doesn't really produce anymore either b/c it was more a side gig/hobby for him. The other is a very serious producer who relies heavily on sampling and just got a gold plaque for production he did on a recent hip-hop album and unfortunately he dropped Sonar years ago for Logic. I've even judged multiple hip-hop beat battles and asked some of the contestants what programs they use to produce. I've heard FL, Logic, even Reason twice, but honestly I've never had anyone tell me Sonar. I also know two VERY successful hip-hop producers
(one recently won a Grammy and the other one was nominated a few years back) who recently switched to Studio One.
All these things are part of the personal experiences I mentioned earlier in the thread that led me to wonder why electronic based musicians and producers seem to be overlooking Sonar, but will switch to programs like Ableton and Studio One with no problem. As a matter of fact, I think I'm gonna give him my friend a call and ask him why he chose to leave the Sonar platform. I'm curious to see what he says.