Bitwig Studio announced

[ZenPunkHippy]

Again i love business theory so it's fun for me to think about different ways to approach things.

It's an interesting topic for sure.

I guess we have established models that are generally known to work i.e. start at full price of $349 with an actual street price of (say) $299.

Deviating from this known model takes a lot of courage since others are not really proven (yet ...).

Peace,
Andy.

[EvilDragon]

Also, technically REAPER costs $225

Well, if you earn more than $20k a year just by using Reaper, it is.

[felonytrance]

Again i love business theory so it's fun for me to think about different ways to approach things.

It's an interesting topic for sure.

I guess we have established models that are generally known to work i.e. start at full price of $349 with an actual street price of (say) $299.

Deviating from this known model takes a lot of courage since others are not really proven (yet ...).

Peace,
Andy.

But since it is a simliar product (at least from the little info we have) to Live I doubt they will be getting many Live users unless they have cash to burn and time to kill playing with a new program.

When I speak of business theory I am not confining my thought to the software market.

Looks like I'll be waiting on a live 9 upgrade price to see where thing go from here.

Hell there is not even a public beta, was just excited in the beginning and this killed it. Oh well

[ZenPunkHippy]

... we still don't know if BitWig is Live 9 in disguise

Whassat? Hmm a knock at the door. Wonder who #'%${%&'+'${'%&NO CARRIER

[christianmusicmaker]

A bit pricey...

I guess they have to pay wages and feel it is at least worth £300, it probably is. Problem is the market they are getting into (on MAC at least) is desparately competitive on price and on Windows is perhaps even more competitive as a result of many other established product offerings including (out of the blue) DP.

Motu already appear to have a respectable userbase of Windows and MAC users for many of their existing software and hardware offerings so they have a considerable headstart even though the products differ in the workflow offered. Chunks in DP (while it's no session view) offer a decent level of compositional variety and likely a far deeper feature set for MIDI and Audio all round for maybe £100 more. One can get DP for £250 - £280 now though and get DP 8 for free AFAICT.

I think long term Bitwigs price point could work but not without a very generous cross grade price. Without that, progress with buyers will surely be pretty slow.

Bitwig might also have misjudged the market. I am fairly certain most users interested in Bitwig are not just users of Live but also more traditional DAW's. Well...that means an incredible effort is required to make BWS a success as few will cross over at that price. For many (like me) price is a barrier but even more so transferring projects and learning another DAW are even bigger issues. A jaw dropping intro pice could be essential.

I cannot see Live users dropping 350 Euros for this when they know Live 9 is likely to show up sometime soon.

Many like me are not interested in using BWS as their main host or Live on stage but are interested in the compositional aspects it appears to offer. But at that price I am not seeing enough to nearly justify a purchase. Seems there are many on this thread that agree.

I think BWS will still do well but it will be a much harder task if no intro price / crossgrade is offered.

Bitwig might see BWS as a product only for the Live crowd but...that IMO is a mistake. Traditional DAW users are interested as well, maybe more of them than Live users. I seriously doubt there are a huge number of Live users out there who will buy BWS instead of a Live 9 upgrade. Even with a reduced crossgrade price Bitwig have their work cut out for them, but a cheaper entry point will at least get the ball rolling a lot faster.

[LawrenceF]

No idea how they might price it but generally speaking, Reaper's $60 price (and no copy protection) is a wild card, not the model of the market. Presonus seemed to do pretty well with a $400 list price at 1.0 so I actually wouldn't be surprised to see the Wigs do something similar.

Street price, sales price, etc, is usually a bit less early on anyway.

The way I see it is they can set a good list price now, or deal with complaints later when they raise it. Probably better to set it higher now and just have sales and incentives and similar so people feel more like they're getting a deal.

[hibidy]

I was just wondering if they were even alive anymore.

[concealed identity]

I can't imagine a TV or car manufacturer getting away with releasing very buggy products like some software vendors do. Their beta testing must be much more efficient. Granted they don't run on different OS's and various hardware but nonetheless either closed software beta testing is pretty sloppy in certain companies or these companies are in a rush to stick to their release schedules.

To be fair, electronics companies have entire departments dedicated just to testing certain products. I knew someone who tested cell phones for a major company, and he basically just had to drop them a certain number of times in a certain number of ways and then report the results. There were other teams to test the software, screens, buttons, etc. And that was just for the cell phone department.


Also, why are you all assuming that the price one website listed is the actual price of the product? Bitwig haven't announced anything yet, and websites put in random prices as placeholders for preorders all the time. I have no idea why you would think Bitwig would tell some random online shops a price and not announce it to the public.

[hibidy]

Do open betas really always work or is that just mostly perception? I mean, do most people just want the new version early and (if it's buggy) just kinda go back to using the stable release version (if there is one already) or do most people actually keep using it and keep reporting bugs? You kinda do have to use something to test it, not just play with it a little.

Is it better to have a hundred dedicated testers or 500 people who might maybe might sometimes use it occassionally once the initial novelty wears off? Dunno.

Now, I don't understand your point at all.

How many of the "dedicated" have gotten it right in the past?

[Shabdahbriah]

Do open betas really always work or is that just mostly perception? I mean, do most people just want the new version early and (if it's buggy) just kinda go back to using the stable release version (if there is one already) or do most people actually keep using it and keep reporting bugs? You kinda do have to use something to test it, not just play with it a little.

Is it better to have a hundred dedicated testers or 500 people who might maybe might sometimes use it occassionally once the initial novelty wears off? Dunno.

Now, I don't understand your point at all.

How many of the "dedicated" have gotten it right in the past?

There's a lot of variables in that 'term'. I beta-test a whole bunch of stuff, and the odds of me "exploring" and thoroughly "testing" every single parameter of an app, to the point of 'failure', is pretty remote. What I find, I find, and report. That's all anyone can do. 'Something' might slip through the cracks.

[no pun intended]

I think "LawrenceF's" question has relevance from a "what motivates" beta-testers/testing, and its over-all viability.

[2c]

[hibidy]

Well, I rest my case

On a serious note, I used to do that. It's more about being "good ol' boys" than getting the work done much of the time. If the problem isn't getting all the favorites up in a lather, fixing can become rather laxed.

I find it no surprise that reaper is as stable for me as it's been. Of course the flip side is ableton (at least used to) have public betas and the last version was a mess for many.

2c

[Shabdahbriah]

Of course the flip side is ableton (at least used to) have public betas and the last version was a mess for many.

2c

I'm still on v7-something... There are some add-ons/goodies to entice me, but I will not even "evaluate" Live v8. I need to PAY to extend my Live v7 license though, if I load it again, which does not please me.

[trimph1]

Of course the flip side is ableton (at least used to) have public betas and the last version was a mess for many.

2c

I'm still on v7-something... There are some add-ons/goodies to entice me, but I will not even "evaluate" Live v8. I need to PAY to extend my Live v7 license though, if I load it again, which does not please me.

Don't mention that around me!!

[munchkin]

Reaper has public betas which I don't normally take part in but I did with DIVA because it was a new product and I was intrigued. I didn't experience any problems when I tested it a lot in Reaper. I subsequently bought it.

It seems to me that bugs generally cause problems when they crop up in normal use so open betas are a way to catch this. In my experience closed testing still ends up missing bugs that end users have to report anyway. I'm thinking Sony Vegas Pro, Live, Sonar here. There are so many threads here and on user forums complaining of bugs with every new release of these three. Why weren't they caught by the beta testers?

Adobe has a regular cycle for their releases. They plan far ahead and I'm sure other developers do so I imagine the pressure to stick to deadlines occasionally over rides beta testing. Which adds to the end user having to report problems. An open beta where the user completes a carefully designed report form might make bug eradication quicker in the long run.

Concerning the price, if Bitwig cost $200 then they make $10,000 for 100 sales less costs. A recent Sonnox group buy got nearly 500 people and their products aren't cheap or new. If it's a good DAW then if they sold 50 a month that's $120,000 a year less costs. If I earned $60,000 a year before tax from my music I would be very excited. But somehow creating commercially viable music or art isn't thought of as challenging as software creation. I beg to differ.

[munchkin]

Oh and I hear it uses iLok!























Kidding.