Live Price oops pls remove, posted in the wrong place(sorry)

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 8:19 am

IMHO, Live is a bit expensive if bought directly without an upgrade option.
499 Euros is a lot of money. As Live will attract more musicians sure it will bring prices down. Charging for upgrades it's common in the software industry, otherwise you would have to pay an yearly support fee (very high around 20-25% of sowftare price) to have access to free upgrades.
Live has less MIDI capabilities than others, like Cubase (for me still number one in MIDI) or Logic. Cubase SL that's more than enough for most of people doing music is well under 400 Euros, while you can find SX for less than 700 Euros. Logic Express is at 329 Euros. Logic Pro is 891 Euros and Apple charges 49 Euros to go 'Universal'...that's a shame (they change hardware - you pay)!
However, Live give us Impulse and Simpler out of the box, coupled with its revolutionary workflow and Loop/Clip management that's unique in the DAW marketplace. I find that the Warp/Transpose capabilities of Live are more precise than what Cubase offers (even in version 3).
Live can be used the very moment you install it.
I have to say that the upgrade prices are well below any other offering. When you buy any kind of Audio/Midi hardware you find Live Lite and you can upgrade (recently has been 199$) for a fraction of the price. The Live Lite copy you find in the box with your Audio hardware is not paid is there for marketing reasons.This gives you access to a full Live copy for a competitive price.

If I would be the one doing prices there I will :

1. Leave the price untouched and add Operator for free, plus more presets for Simpler,Impulse and Operator (live packs).
2. Reduce the price to 399$

Sure the overall quality/compatibility of the product should be improoved. We experience too many problems, glitches, that sure sometimes might depend from the high number of cracked musical software that works with Live (VSTi an so on) but most of the times problems happens with demos of companion software as well, and even if Ableton cannot be held responsible of all software problems sure there's more to be done. Maybe this difference between what you paid and what you got upsets people.
In the end I still think that Live as it is in 5.0.3, a part some issues (I still have to mix down my 5 songs) in the MIDI/VST/Stability area does what I paid for. It's not perfect, but does a very incredible thing : It changes my music workflow, I can compose a draft music piece in hours, opposed to days!

- My 2 cents
- Pasha

KX · Post by KX » Tue Mar 21, 2006 10:42 am

I agree with all that you have written
Ableton should include Operator into Live for free

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:57 pm

KX wrote:I agree with all that you have written
Ableton should include Operator into Live for free

Good to know someone agrees

BTW it seems everybody's happy with the current pricing...

Thanks KX