strategy for success in the daw business

[sl23]

Meh, all this blather and the main thing I'd want from MUX is for it to be an 'inside out' Mulab, ie with all the recording/sequencing stuff available inside it as self-contained little modules. Ho hum.

Sounds interesting, what would the benefits be over the current setup?

[MuTools]

@whyterabbyt & sl23: Please make a separate topic for this.

[MuTools]

jo i think you should take a leap of faith and put yourself out there a little more. rise to the occasion. be a hero. this is your life jo. you can get more out of what you are doing and retain your dignity and your focus.

Thanks. It resonates. Working on all this.

[heks]

Sorry, @heks and yes, Jo: The look and feel is one of the reasons why I finally decided for MuLab. I tested StudioOneV2 before and within that all-in-one-look I lost orientation (though it's pretty!) Cubase offers much more possibilities, but the screen is painted with controls reducing working area to almost zero. Finally MuLab's simple but powerful GUI, reduced to what I need, not only is working fine but much more: It's inspiring to me! Composing is fun again!
So please, Jo, continue your great work!
Anyway it might be useful to spend some time with marketing effort like SEO of your website.

I may not have put my thoughts over correctly. Imagine websites from 2002 to most present sites, imagine standard TV compared to HD or UHD. I'm not suggesting work flow or stuff like that, to me its as though MuLab is viewed in low resolution. Does that make more sense?

[syntonica]

Hire help to make more sales to pay for the help to make more sales to pay for the help... Oy vey! I'd rather Jo spent money on rent and food than on Internet vampires...

Re: SEO Just sprinkle the pages with more "buzzwords" so that the search engines can associate them with you. Using brute force lists of keywords should be out, hopefully... What a previous poster said about searching, just add that as a bullet point feature, if it isn't already. If there's anyone here that works in SEO, maybe they can throw in a few tips here. It's been ages since I had to deal with it.

Re: The look. I love the look of Mu immensely--simple, easy on the eyes, uncluttered, etc. There may be a few bones you can throw to the masses regarding eye candy options, but they would be covering up natural beauty with ugly makeup.

The fact the MuLab has just the essentials is a big draw and why I chose it over all the other DAWs out there (I've tried Logic, DP, Live, Cubase, Studio One, PT, Renoise (better watch out for those guys! ), etc. You name it, I've tested it.) I'm sure Jo has a list of even more "essentials" users want to see and we'll be seeing them as his time permits.

And, finally, when version 8 drops, I've got my checkbook ready!

[mgiambro]

First impressions are soooo important, I have to admit for a few year's I've looked at MuLab but as it had a "Fisher Price" look I didn't bother delving into it (my loss ) .

I agree about first impressions and the "Fisher Price" look was pretty much my first impression. However, since starting to use MuLab the look of it has grown on me and this is a tricky balance. Part of the appeal is that's it's clutter-free and very usable. Any drastic change to the UI could be detrimental to that. Also, Bitwigs UI is thought by many to be one of the best of any daw. MuLabs is not too dissimilar.

I think the main problem Jo has is marketing. Not enough people are aware of MuLab/MUX and their capabilities.

[Zexila]

For starters hire professional sound designer to do bunch of up to date and pro sounding patches, not all flavor of month EDM ones tho, some great example of great all rounder is Aiyn Zahev and Hive's factory library and Joseph Hollo and Spire one is ace too. Honorable mention goes to Xenos from this forum (also in Hive factory), he knows how to do up to date and not generic too much.



Not many folks are into synthesis and sound design and having great factory sounds is the ticket, especially for beginners, they would get MuLab knowing they have most of the sounds they need to make music they want and get inspired with.

Another suggestion is more templates aiming on different genres.

More generous MuLab free restrictions with at least 8 tracks, seriously, 4 tracks and constant white noise is mood killer, give people something to work with for real, they will buy it if they got hooked on it and could actually make music worth bouncing down and not be annoyed by white noise bursts, you need to step up in free DAW market a little, Tracktion kinda left plenty of dust behind with T5 Free, MuLab always get's the same "Kinda nice, but limited free version", if for ones it got "you can do plenty with free one", that would change some things for sure and word of mouth would do the rest for sure, especially on places like this.

[nenneb]

My hints for SEO for you, Jo:
Move the videos from the intro-page to a sub-page.
Write short, but describing text on the intro page using a number of keywords 3-5 times (DAW, recording suite, MIDI, Audio, VST, flexible, easy to use, inspiring ...)
Add some pictures with describing text (that pops up when the mouse is over it) using the same keywords.
Put the same keywords (but not more than 5-10) in the page header. (meta name="keywords" content="DAW,....")
And finally (but most difficult):
Try to get backlinks from as many pages as possible. Important ones are more important: magazines, news-pages, ...
(I put one on my page, though it's not important ...)

[Zexila]

Really think focus should be on fun and guys starting out, what that means in terms of features, well, for an no music theory knowledge or instrument, started today, want to have some fun before frustration kicks in, what would you need really from a DAW to give you the most pleasurable experience?

Definitely something like Cthulhu, Cales, Chrodz and similar, maybe integrated into Mulab's own virtual keyboard or on the point module/device, also in Cubase you can even pencil in chords in piano editor, new Logic and some other DAW's got scale quantize there too, some even don't let you pencil in note that doesn't fit in scale, that's all essential stuff for any beginner to have major blast without knocking head too much in frustration.

Already posted FR for [FR]Layered Editing/Ghost Notes, which is seriously essential too.

Next would be as suggested on the point patches/sounds, also ready to go templates for various genres, followed by tutorials on You Tube how to actually do some of them.

Seeing that Clip Launching FR is on the top, that would be amazing too.

MuLab is geeky too much with all the modular thing, it looks really simple and it should really be that simple to have fun with it, without getting too hang up on wires behind the scenes, really think MuLab can be "that toy DAW for kids" and in the same time geeky one for ones that aren't afraid to go behind.

Wouldn't you just love you could teach 9 year old or total beginner fast how to make an actual track and enjoy every second of it or just jam away playing something that sounds actually decent, load template with on point tracks with on point sounds coupled with appropriate modules that makes all the fun to work with few clicks away.

[MuTools]

Thanks nenneb for your SEO hints, i'll discuss this with someone i'm going to contact soon.

Thanks Zexila for sharing your interesting thoughts. I'm regularly thinking about the concept too and i agree there is a potential pitfall by combining that easy on the eye UI with the modular depth, which may be less easy/obvious for many users, i underestimated that when designing this concept. I'm aware of that pitfall and i'm thinking in the background on solutions for that.

[solipsvs]

separate mux from mulab?

[urvieh]

Mux in mulab is the reason why I change to mulab. The modularity allows everything. It is incredibly easy to get involved in the topic. I have worked with cubase, live and reaper for many years. Mulab makes sense and also teaches what is behind the scene. A perfect system for beginners, in my opinion.

[Grizzellda]

I just watched Jo's latest vid for the Grain Player and it is really quite cool...some pretty dope sounds there...

See Jo, this is what you ought to be doin' more of, right? I mean - what are you anyhow, some kind of Hollywood dude?

I didn't think so. Maybe just keep doing what has got you this far and rejoice at the things you have actually achieved!

[sl23]

Hear hear! Greed is often the reason for downfall. Take it slowly and be sure before accepting help from people you don't know!

[solipsvs]

greed? i wouldnt listen to that jo. hollywood? what does hollywood have to do with this? these are the types you dont want on your team honestly. those who see an attempt at making a fair profit as somehow contrary to the original drive to release a product like mulab have issues with profit. the truth is, you need money in this world. until money doesnt exist that is. there is absolutely nothing wrong with attempting to get more from what you do. do some see it as greed? they live in their own bubble. ok jo maybe you could go live as a beach bum in portugal and never buy anything again. you can just take your laptop along with you and give mulab away for free lol