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I totally agree on Sonar. There tends to be a lot of "fan-boi-ism" that comes with the Pro-Tools crowd, or even the Logic crowd. Nothing wrong with either application, both are great, but they are not, repeat NOT, in any way, special or superior to many of the other commercial DAWs. I'm running Cakewalk X1 Producer, and I have to tell you, I can't imagine using anything else. Now, admittedly, I've been using Cakewalk's stuff for years, so I'm used to their particular workflow, but I defy anyone to point me to any capability that their DAW of choice has that Sonar doesn't.

If you're reasonably serious (and it sounds like the poster is), I would suggest starting with at least Sonar Studio (which is their mid-grade option). There's nothing wrong with the basic package, it just lacks some features that you're going to want. You can also go with Producer and get everything you could want and more, but at just over $500, it may be more than you're wanting to spend if the software it new to you.

As for a program for musical notation, check out Notion. I use it and I love it, and it is only $99 (much more affordable than Finale. Now keep in mind, like Finale, these packages don't really come with powerful Virtual Synths/Virtual Orchestras, so the "sound" you're going to get it going to depend on what you choose to use as the virtual instrument. If you're talking about orchestral stuff (and given that you're needing notation, I'm going to assume you do), there are many choices, and the good ones aren't cheap. You can go for East-West Quantum Leap, or Vienna Symphonic, or East-Wests's Complete Composer's Edition, and never look back, but it's gonna be expensive.

If, however, you want one that sounds really quite good, and is a little easier on the wallet, give a listen to Miroslav Philharmonik. The strings, winds, brass, and percussion all sound quite good, in my opinion. The choirs leave a little to be desired, and some of the woodwinds could be more crisp, but overall, for $149, I think it's a good deal.

Clearly you're not a musician or you would have found this.

Pity they only work for ipads.

Clearly you're not a musician or you would have found this.

Now, Microsoft is focussing on providing a strongly-preferred application distribution system for Windows and extracting a share of the revenues that go to application distributors

Hmm, so similar to Apple's strategy. And nobody is developing apps for iOS huh?

Apple extracts a minimal fee used just to cover costs because they can make up their money in hardware sales. Apple on the desktop does not prefer App store apps by limiting access to APIs based upon whether or not the developer paid a fee to Apple. Apple on mobile devices is not dominant in the industry such that ignoring that market means not having a viable market, so Apple can't jerk developers around as much or they just go to Android.

You'd like to think that Apples dominance is in question, but at least in the states, you can pretty safely bet that if it's a smart phone, it's an iDevice. The developers are listening to the market, and many things are iDevice only. Here's one example that's relevant to me: Irig: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irig/

Will anyone ever see the performance advantage of a 4-core ARM chip outside of benchmarks?

I must admit I was very very sceptical of the iPad. I acquired a first gen one from the office fanboy, and I might have been somewhat converted to the platform. In almost all situations, I will admit that my cheapio netbook is much more practical tool (I've actually come to the conclusion that anyone using an iPad for 'business' is actually using it to play angry birds when no one is watching).

For me though (as someone who's an avid guitarist/pianist), the iPad is really rather useful, although a little limited at the moment. So, as an example, there's the iRig Amplitube app which turns your iPad into a guitar multiFX unit. On the iPad 1 it's a great little app, however there is a very slight signal delay compared to a Boss/Korg multi-FX unit, and it's also limited to being only able to run 4 FX at a time. I can *just* about cope with the delay if I wear headphones, but it's too much to deal with in a live situation imho. If the performance of the iPad3 is used to reduce that delay slightly, I'll be a very happy man (It turns out that running an iPad directly into a PA requires much less equipment than a multi-FX pedal, amp & cab!!)

So to answer your question, anyone running a lot of music apps on their tablets will notice the performance difference....

A strong second on the Pro Audio end here. I know this is a well worn topic that we've all re-hashed several times (much like the often discussed Photoshop vs Gimp topic), but there just isn't anything available on Linux that is going to touch what's available in the Pro Audio world for serious musicians and composers. As far as trying to get Sonar Producer X1 to run under WINE, there's just no way anyone can deal with the performance hit, I don't care what kind of system you're running, or how fast your Audio Interface is. Once you've got some major virtual instruments loaded, and you're making your system really work, there's just no way any kind of virtual machine is going to be able to work for you. Not trying to start another flame war, but I have to say this is definitely one of the reasons that I keep one of my computers on Windows 7 64 Bit.

But, I will say that my other computer is my own hand built server running Debian, with a nice little installation of Ampache which I can recommend highly if anyone wants to stream their own MP3's to themselves at work or to share with their friends/family.

Line 6 released the first POD in 1997... at least 4 years before Apple released the iPod. Now that you can plug your guitar into your iPod to do modeling, maybe Apple should just keep their mouths shut...

iRig Guitar Modeling Interface

"I'm not so sure you understand the general public. They don't care. They really don't. They've never once thought "I need to SSH into my box at home to...", or "If only this API were allowed". They read about the things they CAN do and go "cool!" and then they buy it. They hear about some artist that they don't care at all about being censored - and they don't care. They hear about some app they don't care about not being approved - and they don't care. They hear about some app they think would be cool not getting approved - and they're sad for 10 seconds, but they realize they didn't lose anything other than the possibility of an app, which may still become actual, and they move on to caring about things that actually affect their lives in a meaningful way - i.e. not a cell phone or tablet computer manufacturers policies."

I'm not a guy who posts "I agree!". I usually just nod and move on. Your post, however, describes perfectly the point I've tried to make a few times with varying degrees of success.

Slashdot is not the world at large. Here you'll find that small group of people who actually care about the small differences that they feel make Android phones superior. Nobody else gives a crap. I know the differences, and I don't give a crap.

I've been a computer hobbyist for 25 years, a senior systems analyst for the last 13. During the day I enhance and maintain pipeline scheduling and simulation software. I have three systems at home that I tinker with endlessly... and three months ago I bought an iPhone. It's terrific.

Sure it's a walled garden. But it's a pretty great garden. And now that this product is out, I'm even happier in that garden. iRig

I went from happy to thrilled at this announcement: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/teaser_20100506.php

I'm just curious how a guitarist is supposed to control this when his hands are going to be busy playing the guitar? I like the iPod as a synth/MIDI controller, but it doesn't make any sense to emulate pedals with it. Unless you're going to be stepping on the thing during a show?

I really don't understand it. I caved and got one recently. I know I'm late to the party, but the company-negotiated data plan was just too good. I don't own a single piece of Apple equipment except for that phone, and I'm very happy with it. The only thing I find a bit annoying is the crappy video codec support.

I went from happy to thrilled at this announcement: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/teaser_20100506.php