With Sonar I created my own effects racks with FX Chain. The Prochannel I was completely used to with these tools. I will still use sonar for a long time, but as I was already studying other DAWs and I teaching with sonar, I have redirected my students ' studies to another more Popular DAW. Even in the poll of the MUSIC RADAR. FL Studio won as best DAW of the year and second stayed Ableton Live the Dear Sonar was in eighth (ProTools stayed ninth).
 
See the complete list just below, may not be important to some, but lately in all the polls lately I see the FL winning the duels, the latest version is really amazing:  musicradar.com/tuition/tech/the-20-best-daw-software-apps-in-the-world-today-238905
 

I think sensible people will stay where they are. I still have a 10-12 year old dinosaur machine running SONAR 8.5 PE on Win XPee which shows no signs of falling apart, however truth be told it's rather slow and cumbersome by comparison..
 
The fact is simply, we have no facts on the fate of future SONAR development based on Gibson's cloak of secrecy.
 Personally, with all the built in tools, bells, and whistles already developed and incorporated into SONAR, I can't honestly see how Cakewalk could even make it better, more stable, and more powerful then it already is.
 
Another fact is conspiracy theories built on mere assumptions are only going to push us farther off course of reaching our goals.
 Switching over and starting over with all the hurtles of a new learning curve required to use and actually understand another DAW with any fluidity and ease of familiarity could honestly take decades.
 That just seems like an ENORMOUS waste of time to me which could be dedicated to making music
 
 And there is NOTHING to suggest that the latest version of what ever Cakewalk software you are currently using won't still be up and running providing you with the tools you need and are used to working with.
 
 I'd also like to point out that in the past year that MAGIX bought out SONY software, and literally buried ACID, Sound Forge, and Vegas so deep in the bowels of their servers that you can't even pump air into them..
 I gave up jumping thru hoops trying to even find out how much an upgrade from Vegas Pro 11 to VP 14 would cost.. After surfing thru page after page on the MAGIX website, all directing my attention towards MAGIX's wonderful world of NLE's for video editing, I finally got to a page with an email address informing me to manually COPY & PASTE the email addy into my personal email client and write them a personal email for a request for a special upgrade price.. VERY special price indeed, like x3 what Sony used to charge.
But no matter, as it turns out VP 11 works great (as does all previous versions of Vegas, ACID, and Sound Forge do on Windows 10) and so I saved myself several hundred dollars and only thing I've noticed different about VP 14 is a shinier new grill on the GUI..
 I'd also like to point out although MAGIX flatly refuses to support any and all but the most current versions of their software.
 
Since day one starting from the earliest days of development from the original creators Sonic Foundry, Vegas, ACID, and Sound Forge always required on line activation after installing to unlock them.
 And even though MAGIX refuses to support them, they don't refuse on line activation, and I couldn't possibly assume or even entertain the thought that Gibson would either.
 Not because they are a bunch of nice guys, or aren't for that matter, because it's would be an open blatant breech of contract. IT'S AGAINST THE LAW.
 
Couple more things to consider while morning the closing of the Cakewalk Store, you can still purchase it from on line retailers like Sweetwater.
 You could also still purchase a brand new license for ACID Pro 7 which hasn't been in development for over a decade now, not because it was obsolete, because Sony couldn't find any realistic way to improve upon it!
 
 So if I'm going to assume anything, I will be assuming Gibson could very possibly feel the same way about spending millions on SONAR development and could very possibly feel that OVER developing SONAR is very much on par the same as over cooking a mouth watering juicy steak into a dried out chunk of old shoe..

Wow.    I just logged in to get the latest Command Center after rebuilding my desktop computer and read the news.
Not the way I wanted to start my day....
 
I've been a customer of Cakewalk since version 1.1d, which I installed from a single 5 1/4" floppy.   I think my customer number was 75.   Pretty sure I still have a 3.5" disk with a beta of CakeMQX (Cakewalk Pro) on it.  I worked at a small music store in San Diego and we sold Cakewalk like it was soda, we could hardly keep it on the shelves!  I remember meeting Greg H. at the NAMM show in 1988, he never did tell us what the password was for the "View Memory Map" function.  LOL

I've skipped a few versions over the years, and am now running Sonar Artist.   Outside of Microsoft products, Cakewalk/Sonar is the only company whose software I've used for 30 years.  As I sit down to begin some new projects I can't help but wonder if I should look into other products.  Not Gibson.  Not Roland....    Whose left???
 
Thinking my next song is going to be a sad one.    Thanks for listening....
Lou
 

Au revoir, mon ami. 
I guess I'm one of the dinosaur users that doomed the DAW; user since the DOS days.
I've enjoyed watching the software evolve. It has been very good to me, save for that rough patch with X1, and even that seemed to be addressed pretty quickly.
I hate to see so much development go the way of the dodo, as well as a good bit of content. Reminds me of my Alchemy synth purchase. Enjoyed for a few months then poof! Consumed by Apple. In the case of Cakewalk, had a much longer run...
I was surprised to hear that Gibson was so deep in the hole, as well as the reddit comments regarding some less-than-stellar moves by Cake management. Woulda coulda shoulda... water over the dam at this juncture.
I installed the Studio One trial and in very short order was making sounds without consulting a manual. I'm sure it will take some getting used to and some time to come to grips with the new approach.
I'm hoping that the German Studio One team does not go the way of Cakewalk, bouncing from owner to owner until it's bounced into the bin. Gives one pause. Can't predict the future. Maybe a few key bakers can get on the Presonus team?
It's a cutthroat world with lots of competition.
I wish peace to the bakers and offer my thanks to the Sonar community for being so helpful over the years.
 
Jack

Cakewalk will not be sold.  The value of the write-off of the book value (probably carried higher than what they paid with increments in 'good will') is probably worth more than a possible sale.
 
Without knowing specifics let's just say Cakewalk was carried on the books valued at $100M.  (simplified accounting ahead).
 
If they sold it for $50M the value of the write off is now reduced to a $50M good-will write off.  That also would probably not happen until 2018 - not helping 2017's financials. 
 
If you are a CEO/CFO and are having a bad year (Gibson is projected to lose a lot of money this year), and you are scrambling to refinance a large amount of debt, you want your balance sheet to look as good as possible.
 
In my theoretical example, if you are projected to lose $200M and can find a quick write-off (shutting down Cakewalk), that $200M loss suddenly reduces to $100M.  That transaction on the books would have to happen NOW in order to count for 2017. 
 
Real world  - the decision Gibson made was that the book value of the loss for 2017 was greater than the cash gained from a sale.
 
Ain't accounting great?

I see MAGIX mentioned as another company that has 'trashed' some good software, and my experience with them has not been good (or even acceptable). I guess some companies have a death-wish and hope to disintegrate.  Too bad they end up hurting their customers. 
 
REAPER on the other hand has a vibrant user community, listens to inputs and updates each major version an average of 60-70 times!  In my experience I've never run into a bug, but some people with certain configurations have found a few.  The developers also add rather major enhancements in minor version updates on occasion.  I noticed that the Slant Community rates REAPER #2 and Sonar #9 in their Audio section on DAWs, and as a 'con' for Sonar they even note that Gibson is almost bankrupt.  They also correctly point out the steep learning curve of Sonar (after 21+ years of Cakewalk/Sonar use I still had to often hit the manual) and the extremely efficient coding in REAPER (the full install .exe for the 64 bit Windows version is less than 12 MB). One limitation of REAPER MIDI that has been brought up in the past was lack of a notation editor - this has been added in version 5 (I prefer to edit MIDI in a piano-roll editor myself). 
 
I also saw "Switching over and starting over with all the hurtles of a new learning curve required to use and actually understand another DAW with any fluidity and ease of familiarity could honestly take decades."  Certainly true for Sonar, but I found REAPER, as I mentioned, pretty intuitive, and so vastly flexible that I can't ever see using another DAW (though I do use a dedicated system for mastering, which should be a totally separate procedure anyway).
 
There is an updated 2017 SONAR to REAPER Quickstart Guiude (A Transition Guide for Cross-Graders) by Geoffrey Francis which can get you quickly REAPing ( ) and you can freely download the latest manual (also revised in December 1027) and even REAPER itself at the Cockos website.  BTW, I am not affiliated with Cockos in any way other than a frequent (daily!) user.  It's a corker of a DAW, just works and works, and vastly flexible. 
 
Whatever route you choose, sticking with Sonar and de-Internetting your computer (my audio systems are never online, never have been, work day in and day out with no glitches, never need virus/trojan fixes, never get those 'updates' that cause more problems than they solve, etc., etc.) or moving to another DAW, have an ace time with your music!   

A bit off topic (sort of)... several people have mentioned Magix and how it acquired Sony software like Vegas.
To me, Vegas is the video equivalent to Sonar, as far as my favorite (and go-to) programs.  One to create music, and one to create and edit professional videos.

Comparing the two situations, even though Sonar has been abandoned, it still is extremely stable on my Windows 10 machine, including the use of all the various 3rd party plugins.
On the other hand, Magix has made Vegas Pro and Movie Studio a bug-ridden mess, that has so many problems including how it deals with 3rd party plugins.  Constant crashes, constant loading issues.  It is virtually unusable.
Which is a shame because I've use Sony Vegas for almost as long as I've been using Cakewalk products.

I just thought I'd mention this and to address all the people that are so worried about Sonar not being able to work properly any time soon.  By comparison, Sonar is rock solid and barely gives me any problems.  I use it on a daily basis and have written over 100 songs during the past 5 years.   While Vegas (which has never been totally rock solid, but at least used to be dependable to complete a project) ever since Magix took over, it's been a 50/50 chance of me getting through a single project without some kind of crash or lockup.  

So, I'm very thankful that Sonar was created so well, and is a program that is built to last.
Not forever obviously, nothing is.  But I have no doubt that the quality of workmanship that went into building Sonar Platinum will at least let it remain usable for many years to come.

I just got studio one 3 professional crossgrade for 149.99. from X3. I'm just getting into it and I think it's a winner.  I think that was great of them to give that price for a old program . I'm not sure if  Cubbase will give anything off from X3. 

Hi 
my subscription runs out next month and i was just about to renew it
have a collection of many plugins and so on that help me with my work 
will you be giving me a refund on any of these products now that i can not use sonar pro ???
i do not have the funds to rebuild with another software let alone learn it all over again

Very disappointed too ...
 
I made my update on October 24 and no one informed me about it !

I used for some Addictive drums 2 and it does not work anymore ...

The first plug in can be ?

I downloaded pro tools first to try but I do not have the partition and I work a lot with so I do not know too much ...