Steinberg getting real on pricing - finally !

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
rarelyseen
Posts: 55
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2007 3:11 pm
Location: here

Post by rarelyseen » Thu Feb 12, 2009 9:58 pm

Apple's pricing for Logic is unrealistic. What else do you want? Pay 9.99 EUR and have a Mac included? Pffft. Where do you live?

I wouldn't mind a cheap deal either, but Logic including all synths plus Mainstage and whatnot smells like: no way that this is paying off - except you get the balance from the profits you made from computers or motorcycles.

Honestly, I'd rather give Ableton the few bucks extra if this helps them to stay in business and make this great piece of software even better. I left Logic behind years ago and never looked back. The low price does not make it more appealing either.

As far as the synth package goes, the Logic synths are good, but the GUIs are a nightmare. I never really used them, so why should I pay for them anyways? I have my own plugins, thanks.

xh9o
Posts: 188
Joined: Fri Jan 30, 2009 3:18 am
Contact:

Post by xh9o » Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:52 pm

vicz wrote:Logic Studio £312
Ableton Suite £527.53

You get a LOT more in the Logic box.

em its silly to compare these two, as apple uses logic for selling A LOT more of their crappy "computers". its a "manipulative" campaign price and maybe also the most disgusting part of their whole strategy. but thats the "free" market: a war.
-

Image

feel her fountain....
she dies.

live7 battery synthlite2 matrix1000 synplant operator moogfilter transverb lofi retrodelay

j250x
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Oct 01, 2006 1:42 pm

Post by j250x » Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:50 pm

leedsquietman wrote:
Ableton give a good educational discount, more so than some other companies. And, they even offer educational UPGRADES. I don't know about Logic, but Steinberg and several others do not. You can buy the original product with educational discount, but any upgrades must be full price (for upgrades).
Well I emailed Ableton to ask if I could get an educational upgrade to Live 8 when it's released and they said I would have to pay the full upgrade price.

otnooishphoo
Posts: 146
Joined: Thu Feb 12, 2009 7:34 pm

Post by otnooishphoo » Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:59 pm

Hidden Driveways wrote:Nuendo is still $1799.00 USD. Riddle me this, Batman.
TDM SUPPORT

vicz
Posts: 663
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 3:41 pm
Location: UK

Post by vicz » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:06 am

xh9o wrote:
vicz wrote:Logic Studio £312
Ableton Suite £527.53

You get a LOT more in the Logic box.

em its silly to compare these two, as apple uses logic for selling A LOT more of their crappy "computers". its a "manipulative" campaign price and maybe also the most disgusting part of their whole strategy. but thats the "free" market: a war.
Well in your humble opinion it may be silly to compare those two but there comes a time when people decide the quality premium is just too high. People buy Macs or BMWs or Mercedes because they are better as well as more expensive. At the moment DAWs are sufficiently different from each other for some to be able to credibly claim to be better than others, but as they all become the same by aping each others features, as they will, the price differential will fall and so will the base price. This happened long ago with word processors. It is happening now with video editing software. And if someone like Apple is prepared to subsidise the price of Logic to gain market share it will be very difficult for niche players like Ableton to survive, however good their product. Just ask Netscape. And Apple, who you clearly dislike, are one the few companies who have managed to retain their differential as all other PCs and phones have become the same. But you will be glad to know that will surely not last for ever...

And if you don't like the free market, go live in China and the state will tell you which DAW you will have. And it will suck.

vicz
Posts: 663
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 3:41 pm
Location: UK

Post by vicz » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:16 am

six_o_clock_crow wrote:
vicz wrote:Hmm well you have been trying to persuade a Live user to use Live :roll:
Indeed.

Tell you what... here's where Ableton are missing a trick.

They should drop the price of the Suite to £100, but remove one feature: session view.

Then perhaps everyone will be happy and they will have a whole load of new customers... :roll: :roll: :roll:
You could buy Logic Studio and Traktor or Fruity Loops and still have change compared to Suite...

Fledz
Posts: 166
Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 9:40 am
Location: Sydney - AUS

Post by Fledz » Fri Feb 13, 2009 4:28 am

Sweet. People have a shortage of money these days so it's about time software started dropping in price.

I'm all for competition. The cheaper software is the better off the consumers are (up to a point of course).

Airwave
Posts: 86
Joined: Thu Aug 17, 2006 6:46 am
Location: Near Brussels
Contact:

Post by Airwave » Fri Feb 13, 2009 6:52 am

I asked Ableton the exact same question about a year ago, and never got any kind of answer.

Ableton Suite is way too expensive, and there are too many packs and options. One single pack for the musicians/producers at 499 and one single LE pack for beginners and dj's at 179 is enough.

In total I spent 2000 Euros for my Ableton software. The way they rewarded me?? they never answered my complaint e-mail. So, why do we have to pay so much. And now the upgrade price GO UP FOR ME? And the newly-added features won't leave me any choice as there are a lot of features that I requested myself, just like you.

Ableton turned into a Berlin company that lost its soul, with Gerhard Behles as its icon, although I'm sure he's not holding all responsibility alone.

I feel ashamed to teach Computer assisted music running Ableton software, and that's what I'm doing now, though, while I wish I could teach my students how to use Logic Express, that's better featured as the ableton suite is, with a 200 Euros price tag.

To the Abes: it's not because you have good skills and great interface ideas, mostly requested by your loyal customers, that you can be greedy.
OOPS

six_o_clock_crow
Posts: 244
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2007 7:48 pm
Location: Portsmouth: small town near Havant & Waterlooville, UK
Contact:

Post by six_o_clock_crow » Fri Feb 13, 2009 9:23 am

Airwave wrote:I feel ashamed to teach Computer assisted music running Ableton software, and that's what I'm doing now, though, while I wish I could teach my students how to use Logic Express, that's better featured as the ableton suite is, with a 200 Euros price tag.
Out of interest, if you feel that way, why are you using Ableton Live then?

vicz wrote:You could buy Logic Studio and Traktor or Fruity Loops and still have change compared to Suite...
You could indeed. But you'd end up with a completely different workflow, because you'd have no session view. I was joking before, but I think I'll say it again seriously now: you could buy Renoise instead of Pro Tools HD and have change. Or how about a Tascam 4-track instead of Live? After all it's cheaper, and they both enable you to record music...

You could buy a scooter instead of a car and have change. But while they could both get you from one location to another, you couldn't take your kids out in the scooter, you couldn't carry lots of shopping home in the scooter...
Fledz wrote:Sweet. People have a shortage of money these days so it's about time software started dropping in price.

I'm all for competition. The cheaper software is the better off the consumers are (up to a point of course).
Which goes back to my earlier point: within this thread, there seems to be an arguement that Ableton need to drop their prices in order to compete with other software. However, this just isn't the case. There is software out there which will allow you to do SOME of what Live lets you do, but there is nothing out there that compares to session view. There is no competition, ergo Ableton do not have to compete.

Obviously, we would all like things to be cheaper, or for moe content to be included. What I am saying is, there is no incentive for Ableton to do this all the time their unique live performance angle goes unchallenged.

You hear stories of people defecting between Cubase/Logic/Sonar all the time because the feature sets are so similar. People vote with their wallets when they get hacked off at the way development of their sequencer is going. Don't seem to hear many of those stories from Live users.

Which brings me to an obvious question: if all these other package are so great then go get 'em. Sell your Live licence. But I bet you wont, because you know that you couldn't work without Live, because there is nothing comparable out there.
HARDWARE:
Vaio laptop / M-Audio Transit / Zoom H2 /
Alesis M1 Active 520's / Sennheiser EH2200's
Behringer BCR2000 / misc. instruments & toys

SOFTWARE:
Live 7 / Sound Forge Audio Studio

hoffman2k
Posts: 14718
Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2004 6:40 pm
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Post by hoffman2k » Fri Feb 13, 2009 9:43 am

Airwave wrote:I asked Ableton the exact same question about a year ago, and never got any kind of answer.

Ableton Suite is way too expensive, and there are too many packs and options. One single pack for the musicians/producers at 499 and one single LE pack for beginners and dj's at 179 is enough.

In total I spent 2000 Euros for my Ableton software. The way they rewarded me?? they never answered my complaint e-mail. So, why do we have to pay so much. And now the upgrade price GO UP FOR ME? And the newly-added features won't leave me any choice as there are a lot of features that I requested myself, just like you.

Ableton turned into a Berlin company that lost its soul, with Gerhard Behles as its icon, although I'm sure he's not holding all responsibility alone.

I feel ashamed to teach Computer assisted music running Ableton software, and that's what I'm doing now, though, while I wish I could teach my students how to use Logic Express, that's better featured as the ableton suite is, with a 200 Euros price tag.

To the Abes: it's not because you have good skills and great interface ideas, mostly requested by your loyal customers, that you can be greedy.
Can I take over your job? I'm more motivated and I'll be a breath of fresh air to the students compared to your attitude ;)

Greedy.. So what would you have paid to have this all in hardware?

rarelyseen
Posts: 55
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2007 3:11 pm
Location: here

Post by rarelyseen » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:01 pm

Airwave wrote:I asked Ableton the exact same question about a year ago, and never got any kind of answer.

Ableton Suite is way too expensive, and there are too many packs and options. One single pack for the musicians/producers at 499 and one single LE pack for beginners and dj's at 179 is enough.

In total I spent 2000 Euros for my Ableton software. The way they rewarded me?? they never answered my complaint e-mail. So, why do we have to pay so much. And now the upgrade price GO UP FOR ME? And the newly-added features won't leave me any choice as there are a lot of features that I requested myself, just like you.

Ableton turned into a Berlin company that lost its soul, with Gerhard Behles as its icon, although I'm sure he's not holding all responsibility alone.

I feel ashamed to teach Computer assisted music running Ableton software, and that's what I'm doing now, though, while I wish I could teach my students how to use Logic Express, that's better featured as the ableton suite is, with a 200 Euros price tag.

To the Abes: it's not because you have good skills and great interface ideas, mostly requested by your loyal customers, that you can be greedy.
Bollocks! How can you have spent 2000 EUR? Ableton Suite costs 699 boxed. All previous upgrades were 99 EUR. There are 7 Live versions. You do the math. And if you're a teacher, you surely got an educational price, so stop whining idiot.

aeon
Posts: 227
Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 10:26 pm
Contact:

Post by aeon » Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:07 pm

six_o_clock_crow wrote:Which goes back to my earlier point: within this thread, there seems to be an arguement that Ableton need to drop their prices in order to compete with other software. However, this just isn't the case. There is software out there which will allow you to do SOME of what Live lets you do, but there is nothing out there that compares to session view. There is no competition, ergo Ableton do not have to compete.
provided you actually use session view when writing music.

not everyone does.

surely to capture the 'floating voters' - those who like Live's environment, or enjoy its workflow benefits, but don't really use Session view - Ableton do need to 'compete'?

particularly once you take into account the gradual shift towards fully-fledged DAWdom. MAX aside, the past few iterations of Live have been about introducing more regular sequencer features. and i think part of that is about trying to capture a particular segment of the market, people (like me) who liked Live but wanted more traditional / basic features.
Obviously, we would all like things to be cheaper, or for moe content to be included. What I am saying is, there is no incentive for Ableton to do this all the time their unique live performance angle goes unchallenged.
an idea i floated in the Feature Requests forum awhile back was a 'Live' version of Live. less traditional sequencer functionality, less full-studio-in-a-box stuff, just a straightforward, stripped back, session-view-orientated version. this could work for the DJs, it could work for producers who use more than one software suite and don't need another DAW, and it could work for the live performers who want a basic, small, stable, fast program for shows.
You hear stories of people defecting between Cubase/Logic/Sonar all the time because the feature sets are so similar. People vote with their wallets when they get hacked off at the way development of their sequencer is going. Don't seem to hear many of those stories from Live users.
well, we are in the Live forum.

;)
Which brings me to an obvious question: if all these other package are so great then go get 'em. Sell your Live licence. But I bet you wont, because you know that you couldn't work without Live, because there is nothing comparable out there.
i think you're missing two other points here.

firstly, lots of producers use multiple apps. i've got Live and REAPER and i collaborate with someone who's running Cubase. being fluent in more than one language is always a good thing - it only opens new doors.

secondly, you may think there is nothing comparable to session view out there, but then playlists in Cubase are pretty neat. REAPER's per-part and per-item FX are cool, and the routing map is incredible. FLStudio's peak follower predated any other cross-channel-modulation system. Cubase's Offline Processing is fucking essential.

and (forgive me if i'm wrong), i think all of these functions were, at some time or another, exclusive to their particular program.

which by your reckoning means that Steinberg, Cockos, and Imageline could have charged whatever they wanted for their products, because there would have been nothing 'comparable', so they wouldn't have to 'compete'.
digitally yours

andydes
Posts: 2917
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: Bremen

Post by andydes » Fri Feb 13, 2009 2:06 pm

aeon wrote: which by your reckoning means that Steinberg, Cockos, and Imageline could have charged whatever they wanted for their products, because there would have been nothing 'comparable', so they wouldn't have to 'compete'.
They did, Cubase 4 was $899. Hense the discussion.

You're comparing Live directly with Cubase, Logic etc because you personally don't use session view. Interesting idea, as you aren't utilising the main differentiating feature(s) of Live. It's like if I bought the suite, but continued to use all my old VSTis instead. Couldn't really complain about the price of it then could I?

True, the most recent additions have been trying to capture more of the potential standard DAW crowd, on the basis that people will be won over by the ease of use once they've tried. They're not quite there in providing everything that traditional DAWs can, but they have to be careful not to ruin the overall concept and piss off existing customers.

aeon
Posts: 227
Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 10:26 pm
Contact:

Post by aeon » Fri Feb 13, 2009 2:12 pm

They did, Cubase 4 was $899. Hense the discussion.
'was' being the operative word.
You're comparing Live directly with Cubase, Logic etc because you personally don't use session view. Interesting idea, as you aren't utilising the main differentiating feature(s) of Live. It's like if I bought the suite, but continued to use all my old VSTis instead. Couldn't really complain about the price of it then could I?


but i'm not complaining about the price - i'm just saying it's not really sustainable to argue that Live doesn't have to 'compete' with other packages.
digitally yours

andydes
Posts: 2917
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: Bremen

Post by andydes » Fri Feb 13, 2009 5:23 pm

aeon wrote:
They did, Cubase 4 was $899. Hense the discussion.
'was' being the operative word.
Weren't you talking about when the packages had more unique features?
aeon wrote:[
You're comparing Live directly with Cubase, Logic etc because you personally don't use session view. Interesting idea, as you aren't utilising the main differentiating feature(s) of Live. It's like if I bought the suite, but continued to use all my old VSTis instead. Couldn't really complain about the price of it then could I?


but i'm not complaining about the price - i'm just saying it's not really sustainable to argue that Live doesn't have to 'compete' with other packages.
No you're right. Of course they have to compete. I just find it odd when people (not really talking about you) go on about how much more you get for your money in Logic (and probably now Cubase) and then state that they'd much rather work in Ableton because it's intuitive, fun and frees up creativity. To my mind that's worth more than the extra features that logic provides. The whole gapless audio, on the fly recording style that makes up the core program must be a real bitch to maintain whilst trying to add everything all the other daws can do and keep the interface simple.

Post Reply