Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

What is Audiobus?Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

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Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Logic and the death of competition

Not really iPad or Audiobus related, but given that this seems like a very well versed, knowledgeable and active community, I thought I might ask.

Now that Apple are pricing Logic X.x at the $200 price point, do you think this spells the beginning of the gradual slow death of other dominant DAW players such as Cubase, Pro Tools, and others? Will they go the way of Sony ACID Pro, Cakewalk and others? I am just comparing the pricing to what I remember Logic being priced at in the past which was around $500 to $1000.

This makes a bit of an impact to someone like me who is on the fence as to whether to go with Cubasis with the plans to have a mobile portable iPad iOS/Cubasis solution which integrates seamlessly with a desktop Mac OS X/Cubase solution or commit to a new player in the iPad DAW space.

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Comments

  • edited February 2015

    For me? No - I just updated PT to v11. I'm looking forward to the Studio One updated to v3. At some point I hope to update Cubase to 8 Pro. I'll also keep up-to-date with Reaper. S1 Pro has been on sale at around $200 on and off. The recent PT update was $199 - and included a long reach back even to M-powered users. Cubase is the most expensive for me to update right now, and of course Cubase is widely used.

    Tracktion and Reaper are the main competitors in the lower price range, and the Tracktion is doing some interesting new things.

    Cubasis already integrates with Cubase via the project import. Works well.

  • Oh - I have Logic too. But I'm reluctant to say much about my thoughts on Logic. :-)

  • Logic Pro was such good value I bought it straight away and haven't updated my copies of Live and Reason. In theory though I don't like the way Apple are absorbing other companies and undercutting the competition, but it's hard to resist such a good deal.

  • Not really the "death of competition".

    Actually, the definition of competition.

    Market forces at work. Napster anyone.

  • edited February 2015

    @RustiK said:
    Not really the "death of competition".

    Actually, the definition of competition.

    Market forces at work. Napster anyone.

    True. But we have seen this many times in the past. A competitive marketplace becomes an oligopoly which then becomes a monopoly and the circle continues.

    Apple have a slew of other revenue streams with which they can afford to take a loss on Logic -- their main business is not making and selling the best music production software possible. Given Apple's stolid stance on price discounting they are very much aware that they could have kept Logic at the $499 full / $199 upgrade price points and not noticed any losses in Logic customers as the competition was priced similar.

  • Yeah, they sort of forced the hand of most of the competition vs gutting it (sonar and protools changing thier modems entirely in order to hit the $200 price point).

  • Have you really known Apple as the altruistic type?

    Did you ever think that maybe they are potentially about to release an entirely new DAW/production suite?

    Itunes store is nothing but an audition studio for developers-enabling Apple to hoover up like a bump in the bathroom.

    Market forces be what they may, ultimately this drives down the price of all others which is ultimately beneficial to the music consumer base.

    In my opinion.

  • edited February 2015

    The situation is that Logic is subsidized by the hardware it is designed to solely run on.

    We could say they might hurt competition on the OSX platform itself, but on the other hand, I feel it forces competing software to differentiate itself in truly useful ways.

    In other words, by having such a high quality for such a low price, it sets the bar, and the competition will have to do better or be intriguingly different in order to earn interest. In this case, it raises the level of competition.

    The opposite situation would be if they marked the price much higher for the quality provided, and we'd be left with their competition creating various levels of compromising crap below it labeled as "consumer" or "prosumer" with ridiculous and painful limit's to each, by which, in reality, the "consumers" and "prosumers" end up subsidizing the puny amount of "pro-users", who at the end of the day are easily able to write off the price of the "pro-user" version on their business taxes.

    So Apple creates a situation where everyone who buys their hardware equally subsidizes the price of creating a pro version of their software which is then priced cheaply enough that it is equally in reach to every user of any experience level with a Mac.

    This in turn creates a value proposition which propels the competition to have to do better than the bar they set for the price they do.

    I have a difficult time understanding how that is a bad thing.

    On top of that, understanding Apple's current software model being subsidized by hardware, I don't think they will charge for an upgrade to Logic for a long time, while still providing regular updates.

    I use Live and Logic quite often these days.

  • If only Apple took Music Production that seriously, I just think it's just one part of their thinking, like XBOX to MS, just a part, like here on iOS, what really shift's IOS devices, music apps, a few maybe, but I don't think most people rush to buy iPhones to make music. I think it's more the case that they fear falling behind, rather than anything else.

  • How the hell is Reaper supposed to make any money now?

  • Logic Pro is still going up against some giants, giants who offer different and sometimes better things in their feature list, and giants who can also adjust to market forces of supply and demand accordingly.

    Long story short, I think the impact of the low price point is minimal.

  • Apple underprices software to promote the overpriced hardware. Free OSX updates for example. It took Microsoft a bit to catch up but now they've seen the light too.

  • Undercutting the competition on pricing is one of the cornerstones of competing, that and.....ahem, sending someone round to take care of the competition, although to be fair logic is a bargain, could pay the entry price for sculpture alone.

    As far as hurting competition I'm not so sure, I love mac laptops, osx the build with those oversized, centralised trackpads with fantastic gesture support, thunderbolt, etc. I could buy 2 decent-ish windows laptops and maybe a cheap windows tablet for the price I pay for my mbp, yet I wouldn't even consider getting a different laptop, as I've got used to a good work flow with macs especially the laptops.

  • edited February 2015

    @Martygras said:
    How the hell is Reaper supposed to make any money now?

    Do you know reaper's history? It's very interesting if you don't. It's basically a one man shop who is not wanting for money from a very prudent sale of his first piece software. (aol bought Winamp for a large amount, then he created gnutella while working for aol!)

    I love reaper and see no reason to use anything else. I get the appeal of logic now, you get a ton of included content, but with reaper and one issue of computer magazine I have so much stuff I can't use it all! Reaper is awesome for exporting stems to auria, for mixing live shows to one file per song with one click, and for running really well on older hardware, all three of which are essential for me. Reaper runs great on my 2007 macbook as well as my 5 year old IBM laptop, and I've even run it on Linux (although not as smooth, but it does run).

    Yes, I'm a fan and it's been hugely productive for me, I've used it since pre version 1.

  • I have tried every DAW known to man, including Logic. In my opinion Reaper blows them all off the face of the earth. I just used it to produce/master my son's punk rock album.
    Unbeatable in every way because of the customisation options. You need to learn how to use it though! Reaper is actually free, because the licence never really expires. it's left to a matter of conscience. £200 logic can't beat that.

  • @supadom said:
    Apple underprices software to promote the overpriced hardware.

    A popular misconception. The new retina iMac is a good example - try matching the spec of that one for the same price.

  • Yep, that 8.5 billion in Q4 profits came on the back of their razor-thin hardware margins... ;)

  • Logic kind of dictates, the CA, acquisition is for for 'Logic' etc... But who knows some of that tech 're-synthesis' may be used in the autonomous 'iCar', for voice recognition, maybe even for mobile, mobile music production, mmmm, just a thought, now I'll pick my brains up.

  • @monzo said:
    @supadom said: Apple underprices software to promote the overpriced hardware.

    >

    A popular misconception. The new retina iMac is a good example - try matching the spec of that one for the same price.

    That Apple hardware is overpriced may be a misconception (or at least debatable) but that they price software attractively to sell hardware certainly isn't.

  • @supadom said:
    Apple underprices software to promote the overpriced hardware. Free OSX updates for example. It took Microsoft a bit to catch up but now they've seen the light too.

    I switched to a mac because it was the only affordable laptop with the features I needed for my work, I was primarily a UNIX performance/large scale cluster internal consultant, but I did Windows and Macs as well. I used VMWare on my PC and later on my Macs. Running multiple Linux clusters and Database clusters in VMs I needed all the performance and memory I could get. Went from a $4500 Thinkpad to a $2000 MacBook Pro with slower processor, but much faster overall performance. I was planing to dual boot it and run it in Windows, but I was quickly converted to OS X once I used it a bit, its really just a very pretty Berkley Unix for those that don't already know.

    I've been a full MSDN subscriber since MSDN first came out and was both a Windows 3 beta tester/developer and an NT beta tester/developer. I've managed several windows data centers and trained SQL Server DBAs. You could say I was a Windows power user when I switched.

    It really depends on what you need, I agree that most people that get Macs simply don't use all the features in a Mac and therefore don't get near their money's worth, but very few PC users do either. I have a Maxed Retina MacBook Pro now that I am disabled, love the speed and can't live without the retina display, but I don't really need the Performance of the PCIe flash which is at least twice as fast as SATA SSDs anymore, but 800 MBs is kinda nice.

    Not pushing anyone to switch to a Mac, if you have a bunch of PC software and are comfortable on a PC, get your $800 i7 PC and be happy with it. Getting a PC is the right move for most people, especially Gamers IMNSHO.

    To be completely honest, 95% of the people with computers could do everything they need to do on a $250 chrome book.

    Back to the main point:

    I use Logic Pro X Primarily because of its price. I've run into more than a few pros that use Logic Pro X for at least part of their work flow, it really shines in the early parts of the work flow. Many have said they record the base tracks in LPX because its so much easier and faster and then they move to Pro Tools for the Mixing and Finalizing because the Pro Tools plugins are much better for mixing. For me LPX is all I use on my MacBook Pro, but I'd love to get Pro Tools as well if I had the money, but if I had the money I'd probably spend it on a new Guitar, Amp, or most likely an iPad Air 2 instead. (yes, I'd buy one in a second)

    See LPX selling a lot of Macs and getting a lot of GarageBand users to update, don't see it killing the big guys. It won't cut into their sales much either unless Apple takes it a lot more seriously. Got my fingers crossed on the Camel acquisition.

  • edited February 2015

    @Tovokas said:
    Yep, that 8.5 billion in Q4 profits came on the back of their razor-thin hardware margins... ;)

    I doubt a large percentage of that is down to laptop and desktop PC sales, but their business dealings can be...controversial...

    @syrupcore said:
    That Apple hardware is overpriced may be a misconception (or at least debatable) but that they price software attractively to sell hardware certainly isn't.

    More than likely true, or it may be down to a different pricing strategy - where instead of charging £700 for software that sells a relatively low number of copies and gets pirated by everyone else that uses it, they create something that most people can afford and it sells lots of copies. They make the same sales, and as they're digital products they still make the same profits.

    The main decision for me to move to Macs though was software related - tired of paying through the leg for design software I discovered a range of ludicrously cheap Adobe-killers, and the money I save in software costs nearly pays for the new iMac I'm buying this week.

    As someone who sits in front of a computer all day, they are providing an excellent hardware and software platform for me to earn a living. I've got through countless Dell and other well-known manufacturers of PC's and laptops (at prices not that much cheaper than a Mac, and sometimes more expensive) that get hacked, fall apart, or generally start playing up after 12 months. In comparison the Macs we've bought tick along happily forever.

    I have no sympathy for hardware companies like Dell that might suffer a loss of sales due to Apple's enticing deals, after years of experience with their support system and crappy products. And I have no sympathy for uncaring software houses like Adobe and Quark who really couldn't give a monkeys about their customers.

    The app thing though - I am concerned about the prospect that Apple are hoovering up third party talent and products. Short-term gains for companies that sell-up, long-term issues...maybe....for customer choice.

  • @monzo said:
    ... In comparison the Macs we've bought tick along happily forever...

    My Mac Classic still boots up (sloooooooly with a clock speed of 8MHz) after 25 years.

  • @jimbomull said:
    I have tried every DAW known to man, including Logic. In my opinion Reaper blows them all off the face of the earth. I just used it to produce/master my son's punk rock album.
    Unbeatable in every way because of the customisation options. You need to learn how to use it though! Reaper is actually free, because the licence never really expires. it's left to a matter of conscience. £200 logic can't beat that.

    Would you move to Logic now that they are priced similar? Looking at their site, Reaper is $225 and Logic with all its extras is $229. (Its actually cheaper in may case as Reaper is in USDs)

  • @Pianokey88 said:
    My Mac Classic still boots up (sloooooooly with a clock speed of 8MHz) after 25 years.

    I had one of those - my first 'proper' computer!

  • @jimbomull said:
    Reaper is actually free, because the licence never really expires. it's left to a matter of conscience. £200 logic can't beat that.

    It's not free, it's free to try and they don't make it stop working after the 30 days. So can you continue to use it, yes, but it's not free.

    @telecode101 said:
    Would you move to Logic now that they are priced similar? Looking at their site, Reaper is $225 and Logic with all its extras is $229. (Its actually cheaper in may case as Reaper is in USDs)

    Reaper has 2 licenses, this is for me where the not free comes in. If you make less than $20,000 per year on music he asks you to buy the license that is $60 which works for 2 full versions, after which reaper still works but reminds you that you need to buy another license. My version 3 license (after having one for version 1 through 3, I think, or something through 3) is still good at least 4 years later.

    If you make more than 20k per year on music, then he asks that you buy the $225 pro license, but there's no difference in the program whether unlicensed, cheaper license, or pro license. So it is down to choice. Considering I've paid cockos (reaper company) about $120 in about 8 years and made tons of recordings on reaper, I'd say it's a pretty insane value.

    I don't begrudge anyone for charging more or not charging at all, but reaper does everything I need and plenty more, so for me it's been the right choice.

  • @monzo said:
    'popular misconception'

    Not when it comes to memory mate

  • edited February 2015

    @supadom said:
    Not when it comes to memory mate

    True, their in-store memory upgrade prices are ridiculous. But I just buy the base models and stick the RAM in myself - cheap as chips then. Same with external storage, I just use bog standard hard drives and format them.

  • Dells and Acers and the like are cheap because Microsoft ruled the world for a long time. Microsoft made money by selling software. They worked hard to make hardware a cheap commodity so that they had plenty of systems for which to sell Windows software. Apple's margins come from hardware so they're doing the opposite. Joel Spolsky calls is commoditizing your compliements. It's a great read.

  • Price or no price, it comes down to what you desire. What you need. I've always had a Mac although I used Cubase for about 10 years. Logic Pro suits my workflow. That's the point. I am not using Logic because of its pricing. Cubase as I remember was more expensive than Logic and it's workflow suited me at that point. Logic's architecture, it's bundled instruments won me over and MY workflow and creativity blossomed.

    If you've invested in a Mac you know it's entry price point is much more than the average PC or whatever. The cool thing about the Mac is you get what you pay for. That has also translated to the iDevices. They cost a bit more but they are the dog's bollocks.

  • btw, Logic plays very well with Reason via Rewire.

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