Just an idea from a Reaper user

Hi Klemperer,

Thanks for sharing your views. I apologise that I've provided an even longer response.

I also found it interesting that NI discontinued Kore. I hope that AM can fill a similar need and I'd be interested to hear about areas where the Kore software is more/less useful than AM.

Multicore support will happen eventually, but for the reasons you state above I haven't considered it the highest priority. I would be interested to hear about the use-cases where multicore is an absolute requirement.

As for relative pricing, I think this is a complex issue that concerns the whole market. Since I'm neither an economist nor a multi-tier marketing expert it's difficult for me to provide a coherent response to your points. But from the perspective of the guy leading the creation of AudioMulch it's relatively simple: I want to best serve my customers, and as such my priorities are to stay in business and continue to improve AudioMulch for the people who pay for it. That's not just about having money coming in but also about retaining a focused user base rather than trying to be everything to everyone. So far the $189 price has been working well. There are a number reasons behind the current price (a combination of who I consider my users are, how much it costs to develop AudioMulch here in Australia, other products in the market, where AudioMulch is heading, simplicity of a single price and single target user base, etc.) At the current price I am happy to report that sales have been good and the business is sustainable. I am confident that I can continue to grow AudioMulch to better serve musicians at the current price.

Beyond that, I have some other random thoughts that I've written as a result of my morning coffee. Apologies for the length, but perhaps there is something worth considering here:

My view of the current price war (NI, Waves, Apple, Digidesign, etc.) is that these companies are now at a scale where it is possible to shift bulk units and saturate the market at low prices. I do not see the kind of technical innovation from these players that we saw 10 years ago. They have mature products, good access to the retail channel, they have brand recognition etc. They also recognise that it is profitable to sell their (mostly) already developed products in high volumes at low prices to the low end of the market. Perhaps this also means making products that are general rather than specialised (c.f. discontinuation of Kore). Where this will end, I don't know -- one theory is that the Mac (or maybe even Windows PC) will be dead in 5 years so better cash in the existing product lines before the ship sinks.

So, from my point of view, "2011 pricing" is more a function of the maturity of certain companies and product lines than any kind of real reflection of what it costs to develop software. You could argue that no one could afford to develop something so specialised at the scale of Logic Audio or Reaktor and compete at their current prices -- of course this is great for the big players. You might say it's a problem because it makes AudioMulch look expensive to some people at $189. I don't see it that way -- I see the other tools as unrealistically under-priced compared to their true value as stand-alone software products. In Apple's case, Logic Audio is a way to sell more Macintoshes. For NI and others maybe it's the market maturity cash-in strategy I mentioned above. It's a bargain bonanza for consumers and that's great. But at the same time, based on sales over the last few years I don't feel that overall people are finding AudioMulch too expensive to purchase.

As for offering a lower priced version of AudioMulch, I do consider it from time to time. But it would not be aimed at "people not making money from music." I respect Reaper's approach, but I don't really agree with the ideology -- that somehow the primary value of music software is to fit into a money making chain. I'd much prefer to make great software than affordable software, although I try to do both. My view is that if you want a good tool, or instrument, you pay the price that it costs to sustainably produce it. If you want a good guitar you don't get to buy it cheaper just because you're not making money from playing it. The value of a musical instrument is in it's utility to help you make music, not as a tool to make money. So, I don't like this idea of splitting the users into "makes money"/"doesn't make money" from music. Either way it costs me the same to produce AudioMulch and to support each user. I don't care if my users make money, I care that they make music. But if they are otherwise identical but can't afford the price, well, I acknowledge that that's an unsolved problem.

To give you an idea, some options I've considered for producing a lower-priced version are: (1) a time-limited student licence that can be upgraded to the full version later (max/msp has a 9 month student licence for example), (2) a "lite" version with less features. I've never been completely clear on how to do a lite version or it probably would have happened already, but the idea would be to omit features that are generally only used by high-end users rather than to cripple it with limitations. e.g. perhaps only 1 midi in/midi out, limit to stereo or quad audio i/o, single core (when multicore is available), etc. (3) geo-pricing with per-country prices linked to some kind of price index.

Apologies for my long post. Hopefully it gives you some insight into my thinking.

Best wishes,

Ross

I think it's fairly a good explanation especially in the regards to the bigger companies selling their products underpriced. I mean you can get Komplete 8 for nothing nowadays or even Logic Pro has dropped in price and it's a software packed with some features and technology dating back to 20 more years ago (I was there in the atari st scene).

I personally am more than happy to pay for audiomulch. It's really nothing compared to all the stuff I've made with it and I'm happy that it isn't following the trends like most software companies seems to follow. (beatslicing apps, mpc style drum machines, side-chain comp, dubstep influenced synths,ect). I mean I don't dislike these features, some of them are useful and fun to play with but most companies just follow trends instead of going for innovative things.

As for reaper well I don't think Justin Frankel needs the money anyway (or that he does it to make a living). I mean all the money made from Winamp. Seriously!
He deserves compensation for his work for sure but come on.

@paradiddle: I guess "underpriced" is not really fair -- I'm sure the bigger companies sell at the price that is profitable for them. They have positioned themselves such that their prices makes sense for their business models. As for Reaper -- I have no gripe with Reaper, I assume it is a profitable enterprise, I doubt it's a charity exercise, and I'm fine with that -- everyone who uses it seems extremely happy.

As an addendum to my previous message: lest I come off sounding like a business mercenary: I am extremely grateful to everyone who does purchase AudioMulch -- the income from sales allows me and the (sometimes) team to keep developing it, which is something I enjoy a great deal.

I don't think people ever saw you as a business mercenary. As far as I remember, audiomulch was in beta for a long time and free to use for 3 months but then you would come out with a new beta version extending the 3 months trial and that lasted for a long time.

With the risk of this becoming a Reaper discussion....

I hazard that Reaper aren't using a dual pricing system to support Reaper sales. It's a virtually unenforceable system and the short term benefit can only be to users who see far enough ahead to know that Reaper's freebie status won't be forever.

My prediction: Reaper will eventually shut the door on this pricing policy, or sell to someone else who will do the same. Reaper are trying to get market share as fast as possible and this is the fastest way to do it.

Reaper is a good product but there are many other good alternatives, so that isn't the only reason I bought a licence. It's because it's cheap. Which is actually not a very good reason. By paying that knock down price I don't really feel that I've bought future security. I can't get rid of the nagging suspicion that Reaper is using its 'generous' policy as a means to sit on the fence. And if the last 'new version' is anything to go by (basically a bug fix with virtually no new features), I'm feeling even more insecure.

"My prediction: Reaper will eventually shut the door on this pricing policy, or sell to someone else who will do the same. Reaper are trying to get market share as fast as possible and this is the fastest way to do it."

Actually the owner of Reaper sold his Winamp software to AOL for tens of millions of dollars so I doubt he is in any hurry to get market share, sell his program, or change his ethos on pricing.

If Ross wanted to make a killing all he would have to do is lower the price range to fit into the $100 prepaid debit card, purchase some banner ad space on popular sites like KVR and let a continuous stream of whim purchases roll in. The hobbyist musician will probably start having doubts about a purchase as the price of a software starts to get into the same ballpark as a low end car payment.

@Flower Pot: Just my thought... and who knows what he's thinking. But my quick answer would be "the owner of Reaper sold his Winamp software to AOL for tens of millions of dollars".

My point is that AM development, as slow as it's been, doesn't feel like Ross is treading water.

As a total and complete newbie - AM is the first and only music program I ever bought, after diddling a bit with Garageband - I would say that the one thing AM is missing, if that's the right word, is promotional muscle. My guess is that most people who would like to know about it, who could use it, who would likely get a real kick out of using it, who would appreciate its directness and hands-on approach, who would enjoy playing with it in the ways that are unique to AM - most of these people don't even know about it. Or if they do know of it, they don't really have a good "feel" for its workings and advantages and strengths because it's hard to find out. If one makes the effort, one can watch some YouTube vids and learn some things, and there are a few reviews here and there, most of them just listing a bunch of features and written by people who have not actually played with the program extensively.
In contrast, companies like Native Instruments hound potential customers like me. I have found that they pretty much follow me all over the Web, their ads showing up on YouTube and other sites I visit - even the NYTimes, as I recall - and their own website is chock full of stuff. I never bought a thing from them, but somewhere, somehow, I must have registered at their site and I have never heard the end of it. My guess is that some of the other companies are making similar efforts, at least advertising fairly heavily.
This is not to criticize Ross, not at all, it's just an observation. I do believe, thought, that were more people to really understand AM and its virtues and were they able somehow to see more of it in action - especially in making dance/beat-oriented music, which is where the money is, I suspect, and what most other software makers focus on (as opposed to drone-ambient-type genres) - then I suspect many more people would invest in the product. One small bit of evidence to support this is the fair number of people who try to emulate GirlTalk (I forget his real name), who makes some very popular and catchy music with AM. A bunch of them show up on YouTube, you'll find, and it's there, I think, more than on this official AM site, that they trade tips and help each other out.
In short, I'd argue that it's less cutting the price of the software and more getting the word out that would lead to more sales of AM. If, indeed, that's an objective.

Here's my idea for a lite version - it's very simple: everything but vst plugins

This is perfect for amateurs who don't need the additional complexity of plugins as well as casual semipro/pro users who occasionally use it as a stand-alone source for creating samples. Not to mention users often find restrictions of self-contained environments inspiring (just look at reason, grooveboxes, chip music, etc).

The native modules are both unique and self-contained enough to justify a purchase, while the vst support will be an enticing upgrade path for beginners who become more advanced or semipro/pro users who find they want to use it more extensively.

@revo11: and only stereo (multichannel for upgrade)

@winslow17: Over the years I've really struggled to get others to see the merits of AM. My experience is that newbies tend to choose software based on:
- what everyone else is using i.e. cool factor
- what they happen to stumble on without looking too hard e.g. garage band which comes bundled with OSX
- what people feel is 'industry standard' e.g. pro tools and even Max/Msp (universities seem to prefer Max)
- what happens to be floating round re: cracks

The choice isn't really based on a logical process of "I need to do this, therefore I should consider these factors in the software I choose". So what you're saying here about 'promotional muscle' makes sense.

But I think the key would be to find a way of bringing across what is unique about AM and really pushing that. There are loads of competitors, many very good such as Ableton (I'm not an Ableton user but have to admit they've created an app which is very user friendly and useful). Ableton offers a lot, but it isn't AM. Why? Obvious to anyone who's used AM, but hard to bring across to a newbie.

What makes AM unique?
- No.1: The metasurface. I ran a workshop recently where an advanced Ableton user marvelled at the metasurface. It really is unique and at least for me, marked a whole new inspirational step forward for AM.
- a graphically 'transparent' working process which allows you to easily see the signal path i.e. you can trace a finger from input to output. This tends to get messy and is a negative for complex patches, but for beginners it's easy to understand. When I was starting out, AM really helped me get to grips with hardware equivalent concepts (interconnects, sends etc). When I got to use hardware more, it was like I'd been there before.
- 2 D patch based 'programming' which approaches the power of Max/MSP, but is much quicker to learn. Like Max/Msp, AM has good and clear documentation, but AM has a much more accessible learning curve. It's also cheaper than Max (but not Pure Data of course, but Pd's documentation is impenetrable in comparison)

At the moment I feel that AM has a certain 'geek' status which unnerves beginners. It looks difficult. Whilst, conversely, to a more advanced user it might seem not as useful as Max/Msp. Basically it tends to inhabit a no man's land between what a beginner and an expert might expect. So the important thing would be to emphasise unique qualities rather than try compete with mainstream apps.

Where would one get the idea tha Mac or PC will be dead in 5 years? Please, i want to hear more.

@strunkdts: I've answered on a new thread.
http://www.audiomulch.com/content/pc-and-mac-dead-5-years

Let's keep this thread for the marketing discussion.

@brendan bussy

Max/msp is not for everyone, no matter how much they put it to make it more user friendly (cycling 74), the software has a steep learning curve.

Max/msp is more in the vain of reaktor with low level components. Audiomulch is more about patching instruments and effects together (high level). I think it's quite unique in it's field with an emphasis on live. I can go up on stage with nothing on the screen and in 20 seconds have something running. No sound interruption when patching and I can record it to disk while it's all happening. To me that's the power of audiomulch!

I always think of it has a secret weapon. :)

"- 2 D patch based 'programming' which approaches the power of Max/MSP, but is much quicker to learn. Like Max/Msp, AM has good and clear documentation, but AM has a much more accessible learning curve. It's also cheaper than Max (but not Pure Data of course, but Pd's documentation is impenetrable in comparison)

At the moment I feel that AM has a certain 'geek' status which unnerves beginners. It looks difficult. Whilst, conversely, to a more advanced user it might seem not as useful as Max/Msp. Basically it tends to inhabit a no man's land between what a beginner and an expert might expect. So the important thing would be to emphasise unique qualities rather than try compete with mainstream apps."

@brendon bussy: on the "universities seem to prefer Max" -- I do sell quite a few AudioMulch licences to universities. Of course there is always the "teach the tool vs. teach the concepts" argument and if the requirement is to teach max or protools then there's really no discussion.

But there are plenty of Music Tchnology concepts that can be taught with AudioMulch, and it's much more accessible than Max or Pd. A well known max person once said "oh, you mean it's like max but my students will understand it." Obviously AudioMulch is a useful sound processing/mangling tool if you're doing any kind of electroacoustic/concrete sound composition, and it's also useful for teaching sound design, introductory interactive music systems performance etc.

For example, I would use it in an introductory music tech course to teach live sound processing to students with an instrumental performance backround (and it's been used with high school students for the same kind of thing). My impression is that these are the bulk of tertiary music students, and they are unlikely to get through a max or pd course unless they are already serious computer geeks.

I don't really buy the "audiomulch is for geeks" thing. All the geeks I know are using supercollider or writing their own computer music systems. To a lesser extent they're using max msp. I don't see AM as for these people at all. AM is for people who value making music over geeking out on computer stuff. If you think this is unrealistic, let me know -- perhaps I'm not doing my job as well as I think.

@ross : "Of course there is always the "teach the tool vs. teach the concepts" argument and if the requirement is to teach max or protools then there's really no discussion."

My problem with institutions, and I can only speak from my experience here in South Africa, is that they tend to see teaching the application as the 'be and end all' of sound training. So for example I'll be approached to teach a sound course, but what transpires is that the people who make decisions just want me to get the students up and running with a software application. No access to any other equipment and no time allocated to exploring sound - in its broadest sense: conceptual, performance, hacking etc etc. So those students who don't get into the software just don't feel that electro acoustic sound is for them. Opportunity lost. So the software chosen tends to be key to the success of the teaching.

My other gripe is that the institutions I work with here purchase software based on what 'people are using overseas' and at well known institutions (Stanford etc). Which is fine - no problem with Max. Except that they don't allocate the necessary time for the students to get up to speed with Max. And when the students graduate they invariably don't continue using Max. Here the primary factor is cost (the South African rand isn't a strong currency). So, once again opportunity lost. The argument might seem then to use PD instead, but PD is so little known here that it's an argument that goes nowhere. However if they can afford Max, then they can certainly afford AM. Here again they don't know what AM is. And it's a real pity. Where teaching time limit and budget is an issue, AM aught to be a consideration.

@ Ross: "I don't really buy the "audiomulch is for geeks" thing. All the geeks I know are using supercollider or writing their own computer music systems. To a lesser extent they're using max msp. I don't see AM as for these people at all. AM is for people who value making music over geeking out on computer stuff. If you think this is unrealistic, let me know -- perhaps I'm not doing my job as well as I think."

I guess that depends on our definition of geek :) In SA I'd say the perception of a geek is anyone who uses anything other than Ableton. So what I'm saying is that the perception is that AM is in-accessable. Not that it actually is.

And this comes down to first impressions. How long does a first time user take to 'get' the gui paradigm - in this case, the patch based interface? I remember when I first started using AM, some 12 years back now, I really struggled until a friend demonstrated a few key concepts, then everything started flowing quickly. One I remember: that a patch cable only from left channel out was mono. I can't remember why this obstructed my progress, but somehow it was one of the key AM facts I needed to know. I'd never used much hardware before so didn't have clues from that direction, and I'd argue that many of today's first time users wouldn't have either.

From the little AM workshops/teaching I've done, I'd say that first time users are mystified by the interface, but after I demonstrate a few key concepts, they're away very quickly. In fact they really don't need to actually understand what they're doing in terms of synthesis theory. Patching quickly becomes a creative process where 'sound things' get joined up randomly just to see what will happen. Overdriven sound, feedback etc don't really matter as long as sound is being made and the exploration is interesting (in fact it made me think that I miss my own learning process where I was less concerned with input level and more concerned with making cool sounds).

In all of this I've found the metasurface to be key. In the last workshop I ran, the students really took off as soon as I showed them how to use the metasurface. It was as though they'd been shown something unique, somewhat mysterious but fun to use and it really energised them. I'm not exactly sure why; perhaps it provided a conceptual space for working more freely with the 'sound objects' they'd made in the patch pane, an opportunity to play with sound whilst listening rather than looking?

I'd say that the key is AM's first impression to a new user. Particularly when there isn't an experienced user at hand to give those first clues.

This is a very interesting discussion. Just recently, I finally got around to purchasing my Reaper license. I don't think I abused the license conditions (I hadn't been recording that much, and the developers did say that v4.0 was in the works), but the fact that I could investigate an uncrippled version of the program before buying was a deciding factor.

It was quite different with AM, which I purchased two years ago (I think), after reading the Sound on Sound review and then checking out the trial version. The way the review described the program made it really appeal to me, I guess because it suggested to me that AM is something you can play and improvise with in real time. I think it's a bit like a modular synthesizer - it's easy to lose yourself in manipulating parameters and plugging one thing into another, until you inadvertantly generate a most fantastic soundscape. (I must be really old-school, as I mostly play analogue synthesizers - I'm not even all that good at using MIDI.)

However, although I could see AM's potential, it's taken me until now to really get to grips with it. And I think that, for me, that's because it's both simple and complex. I love the simplicity of the interface, and its clean lines, but at the same time there's an incredible depth to be explored. I knew that it would take a lot of hours sitting in front of my laptop, far away from my synths, to get comfortable with it. Luckily, I've had quite a bit of spare time recently, and so have been doing just that. And now I know why I liked what I heard about it: it's an instrument, and playing with it is really quite inspirational. I don't find it geeky at all. Like all instruments, there's a lot of technique to acquire, of course, but at the same time it's very immediate.

Okay, that's my rave about AM (preaching to the converted, I know). The talk about pricing models made me think about why I so readily bought it at the time, even though once I'd seen the trial version I could tell that it would take me quite a while before I had any kind of clue as to how to use it. And it's what Ross said. This is for making music - or perhaps better, composing music - and as such, doesn't have the same kind of objectives as DAW software, because the goal isn't predetermined. You can use Reaper, Cubase, Logic, ProTools or whatever to engineer your music. There may be different workflows, and some different tools available, but I don't see that the programs themselves are an integral part of the compositional process, any more than a Tascam, Fostex or other multitrack tape machine was. (Of course, maybe I'm just ignorant, and stand to be corrected. And perhaps Live is a bit different.) And then price-point competition becomes much more significant. I think the Reaper approach is pretty good, and a lot better than "we'll bundle this Lite version 'free' with the hardware you just bought, but it's so lacking in features that once you figure it out, you'll be absolutely jonesing to buy the pro version for hundreds of dollars".

Reaper is a great price, especially if you're not a professional, because the competition is so overpriced. AM is a great price because it does something completely different, and pretty magical at that, which I suspect would be lost if a Lite version were ever to be offered.

I can second what Ross is saying about geeks. The latest geek trend is to go back to C programming as a music environment. Now that we reached a point where almost everything is possible in the DAW, everyone's collectively realized that the limitations we had that defined interesting new parameter spaces and shaped new styles. For geeks, by leveraging their technical training, they achieve something that's outside the parameter space that everyone else is working with.

As for the AM audience, my impression is there are a surprising amount of mashup artists (probably partially thanks to girl talk). There's also electroacoustic/improvisational musician types and noise/drone artists. Finally, a smattering of random other types that may not fit into these (I would put myself here).

Regarding the use of max/msp vs. audiomulch in academia ... I think one failing of academic music is that it tends to focus on what's teachable rather than what's important. From a teacher's standpoint, you can stretch max/msp out into a semester's worth of lectures easily, but it's hard to justify "one lecture teaching AM, the next six months are for exploring and practicing it on your own". When I took these sorts of classes, people would be really impressed whenever I showed work that had even a tiny bit of musicality to it, because most students' projects were designed around the tool instead of the other way around. Anyway, I'm glad that people are buying AM licenses in academia... hopefully this is changing.

Incidentally, for my final project in one of these classes, I basically re-created bubbleblower in max/msp. The instructors were like, "can we take this patch? we want to demo it to [semi-well-known-artist in the area]" =)

"because most students' projects were designed around the tool instead of the other way around."

I couldn't agree more with that. The tools are there to be used not to impose how we should do the music. I honestly am not fed-up with audiomulch cuz of the possible connections between contraptions or vst effects. Most of the time, I just use the onboard contraptions and I still come up with something interesting each time.

I can understand the need for max/msp cuz anybody fluent in it can pretty much do a custom tool that are specifically tailored to their needs or if they wanna use a special hardware such has a motion detection thingy or whatever.

@revo11 "I can second what Ross is saying about geeks. The latest geek trend is to go back to C programming as a music environment."

Agreed. But what I'm concerned about is not so much what a geek really is (a deep and possibly disturbing question ;), but instead the perceptions of a new user who might see anything outside the common paradigm as a bit scary.

"Regarding the use of max/msp vs. audiomulch in academia ... I think one failing of academic music is that it tends to focus on what's teachable rather than what's important. From a teacher's standpoint, you can stretch max/msp out into a semester's worth of lectures easily, but it's hard to justify "one lecture teaching AM, the next six months are for exploring and practicing it on your own".

Fully agreed. The perception of many is that teaching the application is all you need to get into a field like electro-acoustic music. In academic buying departments this is a belief often reinforced by the constraints of budget i.e. "we bought you the software, now you're saying you want a microphone? what for?" - a perception that the software provides all (an arts institution I taught at recently was at the time the biggest purchaser of mac hardware in the region, but couldn't find the money to buy a sink for cleaning paint brushes).

But software can be central to making electro acoustic in conjunction with practical skills such as how to use a microphone and conceptual skills - how to work with rhythm. Probably the most successful workshop I ran along these lines involved building an audio installation with a group of students, where some focused on the digital side and some more on the construction side - the point was to design and build the installation using a range of tools.

I've often been challenged that music making 'can't be taught', but I feel strongly that it can - but not in the way I was taught classical music i.e. a list of do's and dont's. But instead by creating interesting challenges - tasks which help people to find their own direction and the tools they feel they need to accomplish what they want to.

Personally, I would love to develop a semester course using AM as a primary teaching tool.