Poll: what OS do most people use for music production?

[tsenkov]

I am trying to figure out what versions of Mac OS X and Windows should I support with my plugins.

Your vote consists of max 3 options.
Please first set your OS as vote option #1 and then select which, in your opinion are the 2 most used OS's in the music production industry.

Thank you for your input!

[Ben H]

You could start a poll and ask members here to vote on what they use.

[tsenkov]

Awesome idea! I apologize I didn't do it in first place - I didn't know this option exists.

Could I ask someone to delete this topic, so I can repost it as a poll? I think I should be able to edit, let me check...

[Ben H]

You should be able to just edit your first post to include one.

[tsenkov]

Thanks @Ben H!

[Ivan_C]

Would be even better to put in a forum section where people who actually do music production can see the poll

[tsenkov]

Would be even better to put in a forum section where people who actually do music production can see the poll

You are absolutely right.

To be honest, my idea initially was to search already collected data and I thought "Well, plugin developers are the people I should be asking, because they might collect that kind of data from their users.".

Do you know if the topic can be moved to another section? Ah, someone posted something similar 30m ago in the 'Computer Setup and System Configuration', but only for Mac: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 6&t=450001

[random_id]

I have gotten support requests from every single operating system (except Vista, no one likes Vista).
I was thinking that I could drop support for XP and OS X < 10.9, but I don't think I can. Too many people continue to use these systems.

[tsenkov]

I have gotten support requests from every single operating system (except Vista, no one likes Vista).
I was thinking that I could drop support for XP and OS X < 10.9, but I don't think I can. Too many people continue to use these systems.

Thanks for sharing that. I've talked to several people in the last couple of days and it seems the main reasons for older OS X are:

- Machine is too old to run newer OS's (usually they haven't tested it);
- They would have plugins only working on older OS X (<10.9);
- There is nothing they need in the new OS, so potential downtime for update isn't worth it.

I am just starting out and haven't released anything, yet. But the tech I am using isn't buildable under anything < 10.9 Mavericks.

[myelectronica]

certainly off-topic, but somebody knows how much people are using DAW to create music? any study ever done on this topic?

[tsenkov]

certainly off-topic, but somebody knows how much people are using DAW to create music? any study ever done on this topic?

I've researched how big the market is, and while I can't say how many people are using DAW's, the first-line revenue, globally, is about $350M for DAW's and around $80M for plugins.

[fluffy_little_something]

Wow, W7 has more users than all OS versions together
I suppose I would focus on W7 and increasingly W10, W8.x will eventually be skipped by people who are still on W7.

[Numanoid]

So there is 60 Win users and 26 OSX users

That means there are more than 2 Win users for every OSX user

I knew it!

[myelectronica]

certainly off-topic, but somebody knows how much people are using DAW to create music? any study ever done on this topic?

I've researched how big the market is, and while I can't say how many people are using DAW's, the first-line revenue, globally, is about $350M for DAW's and around $80M for plugins.

Where did you get this number. Is this a per year revenue? Assuming average price of a DAW would be around $200, this would make 1,75M paying users a year (assuming all new, no upgrade). I read 1/4 DAW users are paying users, this would lead to 7M users a year. Lots of people keep a DAW more than a year. So I would expect the number to be higher. In any case, this number sound really little, no?

[tsenkov]

So there is 60 Win users and 26 OSX users

That means there are more than 2 Win users for every OSX user

I knew it!

Honestly, I expected even smaller share for OS X. But what I am not sure of, is how much does the average OS X user spends on music production software, compared to the average Win user. My guess is that OS X users spend more, on average, which would ultimately equalize the importance of the 2 platforms.