MOTUnation.com

bone, you nor I have the real numbers on MOTU's income statement. But I can tell you that given the advertising that they put out every month in the print trades, they have to be doing well. Marketing budgets like that aren't cheap.

It seems to me that Opcode used to have some pretty nice full page adds every month in the magazines as well. This is NOT an indicator of a companies solvency.

WSVP wrote:

bone, you nor I have the real numbers on MOTU's income statement. But I can tell you that given the advertising that they put out every month in the print trades, they have to be doing well. Marketing budgets like that aren't cheap.

It seems to me that Opcode used to have some pretty nice full page adds every month in the magazines as well. This is NOT an indicator of a companies solvency.

True, it's not an indicator of anything except what is necessary to do business. If you have tomatoes, you need a truck. If you have surfboards, you need a beach. If you have digital audio workstations, you need slick ads in major trade journals.

But what's the point of this grim prognosis? MOTU has survived the prognistications of many over the years. There were always those who thought that Opcode owned the industry, and that Vision was the only serious workstation. MOTU couldn't possibly survive such competition. Nobody could have predicted the absurd battle of egos of which Opcode was the victim; that's just chance. But had Opcode survived, MOTU would still be exactly in its same position and market share, I think, because from the start it appealed to a certain type of musician more than any other sequencer or DAW. Those with a certain professional fastidiousness are attracted to the organization and completeness of DP. They like it because even if it hiccoughs occasionally, it compliments their own training and workmanship, and enables them to bring a precision and control to their work that expresses exactly what they want. I should speak in the first person, for I'm describing myself, yet it's something I've seen mirrored in many other DP users I've met.

Someone in another thread spoke of Logic in glowing terms, sincerely of course, but had reduced the basic need of a DAW down to simply pushing the button, recording a take, and if it's not good enough, repeating. That's not the mindset of most DP users. It's not a glorified tape deck. It's a grid on which an auditory experience is painted. I really think the same can be said of Logic. Perhaps Pro Tools, among all the DAWs, typifies the glorified tape deck the most. Users who need most of all just to push the button until they capture the take are going to be drawn to Pro Tools. But those who like to dither with their creation are drawn to Logic or DP--and each for differing reasons.

Without going into all those reasons, I think few would argue with me that they do exist, and that because of them, DP's place is secure. All this talk of a struggling MOTU is mere speculation through the filter of someone whose reasons have changed, personally, and who is forgetting that the rest of us still have our reasons and motivations. Little version inconsistencies are not going to flummox us, though we may get angry at being distracted when we'd rather be doing music.

Well, what I think or you think or he or she thinks is of no consequence to what happens. It's just conversation, and there's nothing wrong with good conversation--even idle speculation. It gives us time to rethink what we do and why. But to anyone who lets their speculations elevate their heartbeats into a frenzy of anxiety or even panic... don't. Everything is ok. We all find the place we want, the DAW we like, and the company we keep. We're musicians, and music is a lonely art when done this way, for we all love collaborating and playing it with others. DAWs kind of steal that intimacy we love from us. It forces on us the composer's solitude, making our musical interaction less frequent and more appreciated. Maybe we make up for it by coming here to jawbone a little over whatever we fancy. It's all good. I like to talk to other musicians, but I'd LOVE it if we could just play a little quartet now and then. But speculation on MOTU's demise will do if we can't haul out some Mozart or cover some Pink Floyd via TCP/IP.

Nothing here... just staying up talking when I should be getting some sleep for more music tomorrow.

Shooshie

WSVP wrote:

bone, you nor I have the real numbers on MOTU's income statement. But I can tell you that given the advertising that they put out every month in the print trades, they have to be doing well. Marketing budgets like that aren't cheap.

It seems to me that Opcode used to have some pretty nice full page adds every month in the magazines as well. This is NOT an indicator of a companies solvency.

Perhaps. Or in the case of Opcode it was likely to be a case of extreme mismanagement. In a well managed tech company large scale advertising marketing is usually the last thing where money is spent, and only if you have the revenue pipeline to support it. Otherwise your cost-of-sales will quickly spiral out of control and you do end up in trouble.

Granted MOTU could be equally mis-managed, but point to any evidence demonstrating that is the case. All indicators seem to show the opposite: robust marketing, a growing product portfolio, new features added to DP while keeping pace with Apple's architectural changes, etc. Bottom line though is because they are privately held, it is all just conjecture.

In any case, I have to get back to DP 5.1. One of the Waves 5 plugins is causing DP 5.1 crash and I'm trying to get enough info together to get something over to Waves tech support.

But we know what cosmetic changes DP has undergone to look a little like Logic.

Which ones would those be? DP looks nothing like Logic, thank god. Logic looks like pure crap.

WSVP wrote:

Pro Tools started feeling the heat from DP when the dual G4s made 100 channels of audio possible for an absurdly small amount of cash outlay by comparison. It's funny that Digi is having to position itself to take advantage of its "lite" version in order to compete with DP. Why buy $30,000 of hardware and software to do what DP does for under $1000 on the same Mac?

This is a good point Shooshie

Companies like SSL, NEVE, Studer, Otari and Avid/Digidesign have built a business around providing a high end product at a "very high" price to serve "few" people. Just like what happened in the desktop publishing world the developers who want to survive in the DAW world will have to make a high end product at an "affordable" price to serve "many" people.

Making this transition is not always as easy as it seems. People tend to hold on to the value they attach to things. Older people hate paying todays prices for things they remember paying a fraction of the cost for decades ago. The same is true in reverse, Imagine what it will be like for a company to conceive of selling something for $900 that they were selling for $200,000 5 years ago. Even though logistically it can be done, most companies don't make this transition well.

Very excellent point. And I would add that with hybrid products like SSL's Duende and UAD cloning classic Neve console modules, givein you console grade plugs that can run with DP and that don't put a drain on your CPU, there will be more chinks in Digi's armor.

And M-Audio is crap hardware compared to MOTU.

Resonant Alien wrote:

But we know what cosmetic changes DP has undergone to look a little like Logic.

Which ones would those be? DP looks nothing like Logic, thank god. Logic looks like pure crap.

I kinda dig the Logic skin.

DP has made no changes to look like Logic.
The only major gui changes I recall were the Seq Edit window, and Consolidated windows, which were more like PT.