Has Apple killed Logic?

[analog8]

I read a thread on this over at Gearslutz which got me thinking.

Now that Apple has included every plugin with Logic Pro for $999, will anyone develop plug-ins for Logic anymore?

If you were (say) George Massenburg, would you write your next plugin for Logic knowing that Apple is trying to put you out of business?

On the other hand, relying on (a) shareware or (b) a big company like Apple to come up with all the cool innovative plugins is a bad idea. Next year something else will get Jobs attention and they will stop throwing R&D time at music apps.

The interesting question that then comes to mind - with the recent purchase of Bomb Factory, is Digi gearing up to do the same thing?

[auxsend1]

The interesting question that then comes to mind - with the recent purchase of Bomb Factory, is Digi gearing up to do the same thing?

Exactly. Amp Farm anyone?

As for Logic, I wonder if it helps that developers can make Audio Unit plugins that work with other Mac DAWs (no PT of course).

I wonder how much effort goes into releasing an Audio Unit version of a plugin once you already have the TDM/RTAS version.

[Dan Pinder]

The only plug-ins you could develop for Logic are AU, which aren't exclusive to Logic, so how would this affect Logic's long term viability? I would be more concerned if they insisted on using a completely exclusive and proprietary format like MAS.

Aside from the fact that Apple decided that having 3 versions of a product plus a few bundled versions and a handful of enablers all at extra cost was stupid (...and it was) only Emagic wrote their own "internal" plug-ins. Including the code for these plug-ins within Logic and using a key to enable them removed a great deal of potential installation/availability hassle and was kind of an inspired move, if you ask me.

[Tone]

"Has Apple killed Logic?"

No but Logic pro will kill Steinberg, MOTU and many others. How on earth can Steinberg compete now? The reason Apple did this is so they can sell more computers (remember Logic is not available for the PC). They have in the process massively devalued some nice music algorythms which the other companies have to charge good money for in order to survive. I'm a Logic and TDM user but this is not going to be good for me in the long term. Digi is in a different place because of it's market dominance with pro audio hardware but I really want them to come up with a much more feature rich for music programming version of PTs.

[analog8]

The only plug-ins you could develop for Logic are AU, which aren't exclusive to Logic, so how would this affect Logic's long term viability?

You are looking at it from the technical perspective. Sure, AU is open and theoretically you could sell AU plugins to non-Logic users. In reality, only Logic and DP are the major DAW's supporting AU as far as I know.

The problem is the business side. Apple relies on hardware sales. Apple can throw in Logic and fifty plugins for free if they like. But by doing that, they devalue the software and reset customer expectations on what audio software costs.

As my original question posed - if you were a leading developer with a brand new revolutionary $499 plug-in and a limited amount of development resources, would you (a) put your efforts into RTAS/TDM or (b) put them into Logic/AU?

With the new pricing, are Logic Pro users going to balk at paying for plugins when their entire software setup only cost them $999? Long term, if plugins for Logic start to dry up, is it still a compelling DAW?

Someone already mentioned that Apple is going to hurt Steinberg with Logic Pro. I also think that Garageband will kill off a lot of the low end music apps on Mac, which is another side effect of Apple's approach to the market. Is it healthy for one company like Apple to dominate the market?

[Philthy]

Anyone have numbers on market penetration by platform?

I don't know anyone who use Logic here in my little corner of the business.

[ozinga]

I think it is the otherway around.
Apple will sell more Logic with this new price ( I ve already bought 3 more)and developers will pay more attention to a raised user count.
I mean RTAS/LE did not kill TDM development so why should reduction of Logic price should?It would only kill the sales of SX and DP for new starters.
Oz

[ozinga]

ALso
I think Steinberg and Motu will hit back with an answer if they are not stupid.
This is a good thing for all of us.it means prices might come down.Remember Akai CDs(650mb max) were $300-$400.Not counting the crazy Miroslav Vitous prices.Now for 300 we get a 3gig libraries with the virtual instrument that comes with it.Why? Someone did it and others had to follow.
Oz

[analog8]

How can Steinberg and MOTU match Apple's offering and stay in business? Steinberg already had enough trouble staying afloat they had to sell the whole company...

As for virtual instruments being cheaper than samples, I disagree. The main reason the sample companies moved to $300 virtual instruments instead of $99 audio CD's was to stop piracy. At NAMM I didn't see a single sample CD in the East West booth. They are still selling the same sort of samples and loops they used to sell, they are just calling them instruments now and selling a lot more of them because they can't be copied as easily.

Prices coming way down is good if you think pro audio software is a commodity that can be sold in volume. But the idea of using commodity audio software doesn't get me very excited. If commodity audio products were any good, I'd be mixing on a Tapco console using Behringer fx and Chinese mics that I bought from Guitar Center...

I guess in a couple of years we will see what the outcome is.

[james123]

I think Apple has made things interesting again. I think it's great for users to have all of the formerly separate audio instruments and plug-ins available at the same price as Logic was standalone. I mean you get a great SW sampler, a bunch of cool audio SW instruments, and a great reverb that are seamlessly integrated into the application. If Logics user base increases, then that will only spur more plug-in development for AU.

Digi bundles plug-ins with Pro Tools and that hasn't hurt their third party platform, so I don't necessarily see that for some reason there won't be any third party development for Logic and AU anymore. You really need third party solutions for EQ and compression since Logic's bundled ones aren't the greatest.

Taking a long term view on this, and seeing that 3ghz Dual G5's are coming in the not too distant future only means that Native systems will continue to chip away at the TDM model and pricing structure. I have a gut feeling that some really interesting stuff will be coming out of Apple/Emagic over the next year or two. If Apple can keep Emagics engineering team intact and can come up with a better HW front end with low monitoring latencies that's rock solid, then I think Digi may finally see some real competition and I think that will be a great thing for consumers of audio SW and HW.