Bob, that is best answered in the other direction. When I came back to music, it was 16 years since I had gotten out of it. In 1994, a lot of what we have now did not exist. A lot DID exist, but I was just a keyboard player in a band. I had no desire to be on the business end of a mixing console. We had people for that.

In 2009 I wanted to get some of these songs that were written on napkins and envelopes and the back of paper placemats recorded. I bought a TASCAM 8 track direct to disc recorder, a Mackie mixer, a bunch of synths and a drum machine. After many months of that, I decided it was time to get into this century and got Sonar, and of course the interface to use it, and dove in. I got to where I could make it play MIDI sequences back, and went on about my business. At this point though, I was still doing everything outboard, adding reverb as I played it in, doing EQ as I played it in.... all into that multitrack direct to disc deck. At this point I HAD Sonar, but rarely even launched it because I didn't have the time or energy for a second job, and learning Sonar from scratch, by yourself, was just that.

Then my friend Steve showed me BIAB. I borrowed his old version for a month and played with it. Then I bought a copy because it was so cool that the software would write background music. When I retired (New Year's Eve of 93 into 94 was the last time I played) I had no idea there was such a thing because I had no reason to care if there was or not.

Okay that gets you up to about 6 months ago when I wanted to use those MOTU boxes to mix on a mixer with sliders (again, what I knew). That worked okay, but I was still recording those mixes as a separate process. Enter the Behringer control surface, exit the MOTUs. However, as Matt pointed out, the control surface does not interface with RB. I want to be able to record those mixer moves, not sit and select 4 bars, raise it 2db, gain change to cresecendo and decrescendo.... in Sonar I can just slide the fader up and then down and the software records that move. That is why I export to wav and use Sonar to mix down.... the ability to boost here, leave it there for 8 measures, and then cut it back to where it was. All with the ease of a slider.

So to answer the question, it need to be asked in the opposite way. Don't ask me what Sonar does that RB doesn't. Ask what RB does for me that Sonar doesn't. And the answer is "compose".

When it gets to DAW vs DAW, you are in the same place as Ford vs Chevy. RB, Sonar, Protools, Logic..... at their core, do THEY really do anything different? The answer is no, so why does each flavor of DAW have the loyal following they have? All through these threads people are praising some different flavor of DAW. Ryzard is always talking about Reason. I don't even know what that is, but he likes it. Others like Protools....