I'm sorry but I just don't get the bit of not letting those who WANT to, buy the last upgrade and have access to it, so they can always have what may possibly be the last version of Sonar ever made.
All sorts of companies do it, they simply put a disclaimer that it's sold as is and there will be no future updates.
The auth server is up, so it's certainly not about webspace costs. It's SUCH an FU and *THIS* part of it is typical Gibson.
I have been checking the software out even more lately and it's an amazing daw.. and no it's not just that easy to move to 'reaper', which works entirely differently even with the best third party gui installed. Reaper is very confusing to look at. None of the skins are clear when parts are selected, tracks are selected, etc.. just that most basic fundamental task makes it hard for me to understand how anyone uses reaper. The selected colours look so normal that I always forget in seconds which tracks were selected and which were at their normal colour. I tried 20 skins.
Also, i have never see software with that many ridiculous options. Sonar is/was streamlined, i remember that when I used X2, and the latest version is just better.
I would take Sonar's gui 100x over ANY reaper gui. Or S1 for that matter.. S1 has SO much info when the side panes are open, that the only way to have the darn thing look clean is to keep only the arrange page visible. Why can motu and apple do it but not Presonus? I own S1 as i was a beta tester and as able to upgrade to V3 recently with BF sale for peanuts, and it was worth it for the DDP project page.. For THAT, it's fairly straightforward.
And it IS an easy daw to learn but my eyes literally flicker and water when looking at it in song mode, and that was only on an 8 track project!
Sonar had it's gui **** together.
I use PT and to me it's by far the best gui in the history of DAWs.. i can look at it all day without any eye strain. I just tried it out on my windows laptop from 2012, an ivy bridge 2.3 ghz that was like 600 bucks, and it runs rings performance wise around my top of the line (from 2015) macbook pro with 2.8 quad. pro tools on windows is great and super easy, and I recommend those who are already ready to jump ship, to give it a try.. You will also appreciate the way you can have midi and audio of same track side by side like sonar, rather than only instrument tracks like say Logic. Once you have done your midi you literally just drag and drop the clip to an audio track and it's rendered in seconds. It's awesome.
Like I said elsewhere, any question on PT, please feel free to ask, i can answer whatever..
BUT, those who are not ready to give up on Sonar just yet.. what's wrong with that? Heck, if i had managed to get the last version and loved it, and that was my main DAW, i would stay on it for 5 years minimum.
I stayed with logic platinum 5.5.1 on windows until 2008! Years after apple stopped the win version. A DAW just doesn't suddenly stop working. In Logic's case though, it could only properly work with 1GB ram and didn't have proper multithreading at all. So i had to move on.
I have extensively checked out Sonar the last couple months as a dongle free DAW to have on my win laptop when i am on the go, and like i said in another topic here, i was ready to buy it and totally shocked to find the news.
It does *everything* as it stands. What could they possibly add to it? Microsoft will not break it with windows updates, unlike apple who break mac os non stop, so why not just use it?
is your music going to somehow sound not as good because there won't be more Sonar updates? Has the audio engine changed suddenly? lol.
If what you are worried about is big fixes, and if you have showstoppers, then that's a legitimate concern, of course.
At the same time, i saw a lot of people here whose posts 4 weeks ago indicated they'd do anything to keep Sonar alive, and now the same people say the ship has sailed. Why? It was NOT cakewalk who were in charge of the shutdown, THAT part is on Gibson..
I for one hope it's sold off, and prospers, I really do. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Sonar. In fact, when I was on V2, I used it for one project then logic for the next and so on, alternating, I was telling pro tools users how cool it was. Many years ago.
If it is working for you and is fairly stable, then simply enjoy it and use it for years to come is what I say!
As far as features, it is pretty much more feature packed than well, any DAW.. it does everything.
If i had a choice of using Sonar as it is now in 10 years or reaper, i would still choose Sonar.
But that maybe just me.