DragonBlood
I've looked at plenty of conversations on the internet revolving around Avid and Pro Tools, but Sonar never gets mentioned.
Nuendo, Cubase, Logic, Abelton Live, Reaper; all get mentions but nobody brings up Cakewalk Sonar. Why is this? is it simply not as popular or supported by the audio production community? User base is very small? It never comes up and I've been to many articles on DAWs. Any ideas why?
I think it's more a matter of the type of user base Sonar has. Pro Tools( Avid is the maker of Pro tools) has the advantage of being firmly entrenched in the major label camp and even more importantly, having the support of music hardware industry. Early on, Digidesign (former parent company of PT) focused on making high end studio hardware giving PT a monopoly in the pro world. Although other software makers have caught up and arguably surpassed PT in many areas, it is hard to uproot incumbents. Reaper gets a lot of press because their pricing structure and unlimited demo makes it very appealing to people seeking free and low-cost solutions. Other products like Cubase get more mention because of a combination of reputation for innovations that have become standards (Cubase pioneered the VST format that made virtual instruments more practical to use ). Another thing in Cubase, Ableton, Logic and even FL STudio's favor is each has well known names in the pop and EDM world . ABleton also has the extra bump of being the only DAW that is practical to use live, giving it a PR boost among DJ's and live electronic musicians. In addition many of these other DAWs lend themselves more easily to several popular and fad genres.
It's not that Sonar does not have innovative features. There are features Sonar had before other DAWs. Sonar is also perfectly capable of creating any genre. I think the workflow is simply now what artists in many of these genres are used to so they try Sonar and give up before they learn how to do the exact same thing in Sonar. All DAWs have this issue. I use Logic too and there are certain things that frustrate me to no end. Logic has the advantage of OS loyalty and artist endorsement and it is a great product. In fact, I rank it with Sonar as far as bang for the buck as far as included tools. Sonar's user base is more blue-collar (based on forum and known users) in the sense that there are some highly skilled and successful people using it but they don't often carry the name recognition of the lstest big name pop-star or superstar producer. It's very possible (since none of us know the actual sales numbers) that there are just as many units of Sonar sold as there are Pro tools. In fact, that would not shock me at all. It's just not going to get the buzz of other products until the perception that the user base is mostly middle aged or older guitarists. Not saying that in an insulting way since i am middle aged and play some guitar lol. Just that the tools embraced by pop culture create more buzz regardless of how successful the company actually is. AVid has been struggling financially for years despite being "the industry leader".