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Behringer announces Music Tribe DAW

Larry Shelby

By Larry Shelby
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Jim Roseberry

Jim Roseberry

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Behringer gets a lot of flack for their past business practices (much of which is deserved).

In the past decade, Behringer has absorbed some good companies, technology, and personnel (TC Electronic, Klark Teknic, Midas, etc).

These days, Behringer is releasing original designs like the X32 series, Wing, etc... that are feature-packed decent quality pieces of gear.

The Klark Teknic 1176 and LA-2A clones are both excellent (especially given the low cost). 

If you play live, the X32 series is used by many commercial sound companies.  Was at a venue this past Friday night... and the FOH console was an X32.

 

There's a trend recently to develop your own DAW application (UA, Behringer, Presonus, etc).

Unless you're 101% committed, it's re-inventing the wheel.  

It's like trying to compete with Kontakt.  

It can be done, but it's a herculean task. 

Even if successful, it'll take years to catch-up to the competition.

 

Behringer has the resources to develop a new DAW application, but is that the best use of their time/resources?

They're admitting up front, that it's going to take a long while (18-months) for initial release.

How long before it's able to compete head-to-head with the best DAW applications?

From watching other DAW applications over the past 30 years, you're talking 4-5 years of sustained/committed development.

 

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Starise

Starise

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The interesting thing to me about DAWS is that most of them are still around after 30 years with more recent ones (Bitwig) coming along later. I guess the incentive is there. Smaller companies like Mixcraft are still around and updating. If they weren't making money I don't think that would happen.Cakewalk came close to being a name in Wikipedia with only a historical meaning. Many of the Asian countries economies are more stable than ever meaning you probably have millions of future potential customers. No one DAW seems to dominate, they all have a place. Behringer gear wouldn't be my first choice right now in the home studio market. I think one of their interfaces still uses ASIO for all. They have taken the PA house gear by storm. I use an X32 elsewhere and it works very well.

If their emergence into the house and concert systems market is any indication, the  home studio market competition has good reason to be concerned. For instance if they come out with an interface at half the price of Presonus with the same latency numbers and a free included DAW................ you don't have to think much about that one.

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Grem

Grem

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8 hours ago, Jim Roseberry said:

From watching other DAW applications over the past 30 years, you're talking 4-5 years of sustained/committed development.

 

Yes they will have to be in it for the long haul no doubt. But if they do like Presonus did, and keep the dev team rather small, it make take a while, but it will be more solid code (assuming the devs are good!) and cost effective.

 

7 hours ago, Starise said:

if they come out with an interface at half the price of Presonus with the same latency numbers and a free included DAW................ you don't have to think much about that one.

No, don't have to think much about it at all. Millions of new users would jump at it.

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Starship Krupa

Starship Krupa

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On 3/8/2020 at 1:59 PM, slartabartfast said:

Coming up with the definitive perfect DAW for everyone in the now crowded field is just plain not going to happen with this effort, and driving the competition out with a zero price point seems unlikely. To the extent that plan succeeds we should start a pool guessing which current offerings will disappear first. I am betting not ProTools--any more than one would expect cubic zirconia to replace diamonds in the engagement ring market. This market is to a large extent controlled by a wannabe mindset that needs the most expensive thing that all the famous producers use.

Nobody is going to come up with the "definitive perfect DAW for everyone." Nobody (at least nobody in their right mind) is trying any more. We can't look at the music and software market of 2020 with 1997 glasses any more. It's not about becoming or challenging the Industry Standard, it's about carving out a significant enough niche. You're talking about which current DAW's are going to "disappear" if Behringer's vaporDAW ever becomes a reality. Look to the recent past. In the years, yes yearS, plural, since BandLab have had Cakewalk on the market with the freeware subscription license, how many DAW's have failed as a result?

People make music in their homes, in small studios, using the tools that feel best to them. Many more people have computing devices and know how to use them, are comfortable with using them. They're used to using media creation software. The market has grown, it's way, way larger, and it's not about what's in all the "professional studios." The DAW that used to be a thing that people used to record and edit audio is now something that is used to compose or create pieces of music out of various pieces that could be samples, MIDI files, loops, live performances. Some programs are stronger in certain areas than others, some programs have idiosyncratic workflows that appeal to a solid but not dominant following. Companies don't have to "own" the market in order to survive if there are now 10X the number of users of DAW's than there used to be.

Remember all the wild speculation about what a "game-changer" it was that the mighty SONAR was going to be free as the wind? The "little guys" like Mixcraft and Mu-Lab and Tracktion were pretty much doomed, weren't they? Well, I guess if you like the way that Mixcraft works, as a primary tool for an important hobby, it's still gonna be worth throwing $35 at an upgrade license.

I'm saying a lot of things off the cuff here myself, but I'm curious where you are getting that impression about the market being "controlled by a wannabe mindset that needs the most expensive thing that all the famous producers use." Kids you know personally, forums? It's not my perception beyond the usual human herd mentality, everyone always wants what the cool people are using, be it a Strat with a Floyd, a Jazzmaster, whatever tool/toy the people we want to be like are using.

On 3/8/2020 at 7:49 PM, BLHBLB said:

Not aware of any "Pro" DAWs that are "free" since there is a lot of cost involving development/maintenance/support/updates

Hey, the old Cakewalk forum from early 2018 is on the phone, it wants its obviously well-considered armchair quarterbacking about the software industry back.?

I was explaining this kind of thing all the way back then when certain people were just baffled at how a multinational music gear and software company that was already comfortably marketing 3 freeware DAW's (iOS, Android and web-based) and whose established business habits included acquiring and rehabbing famous respected American musical trademarks, and who had multiple other revenue streams and whose principal was the quite personable and switched-on scion of one of Singapore's most successful entrepreneurial families, could possibly survive if they were freeware licensing a zombieware Windows DAW they probably didn't pay terribly much for in the first place. How could it possibly be expected to work? ?

BandLab would surely go broke, Cakewalk's quality would surely suffer, because how will you cover the development and support costs with no licensing fees???

Y'know, like how Google failed and their Chrome browser did so poorly in the marketplace because they didn't charge people to use it. Remember?

Oh wait, no, they are one of the most wealthy and powerful companies in the world and Chrome is the most popular browser. Hmm.

Wait, no, Google has other revenue streams, and Chrome integrates with and promotes them really well. Maybe Cakewalk could be doing something similar for BandLab. Maybe the amount of cash required to keep Cakewalk afloat with the devs and support working in decentralized offices is small enough that just the word of mouth and brand awareness by itself makes it worthwhile. Like how Tostitos pays many millions of dollars to put its name on a college football game and gets paid zero from the ticket sales, yet they keep doing it because it's good for the brand. One kid makes a zillion-seller using Cakewalk and mentions it in an interview and  right there is enough brand recognition to pay for the whole shebang.

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Starise

Starise

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17 hours ago, InstrEd said:

18 months if they are have no set-backs for initial release is quite a long time. CbB will have how many more updates in this time-frame?

 

Well...yes and no. You do realize it's March 2020 already and we just had Christmas. You will wake up in what seemed like a few months and it will be 2023.

The way time is moving for me I will  attempt to say "are we there yet?"  and we were already there :)

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Tony Carpenter

Tony Carpenter

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I want to go back to stand alone digital recorders that you can hook a mouse and keyboard up to it, and a monitor, get rid of Mac or PC out of the equation.  Roland VS series recorders were fantastic, hell a few hit records were recorded exclusively on a VS880 !. The trouble is, the more options you have, the less you do, ask me how I know... :=/.   The company that makes a stand alone device with great preamps built in effects.. oh wait... Wing?... LOL..

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msmcleod

msmcleod

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55 minutes ago, Finnbogi Ragnar Ragnarsson said:

Behringer actully did offer Tracktion with some devices.  https://www.tracktion.com/news/behringer-bundles-tracktion-4

Interestingly, the Audio/MIDI engine for Tracktion comes with the JUCE framework, which is free, up to the point where you're big enough to have to buy a developer license (which Behringer already are). But even then, it's peanuts compared to developing your own... and it's cross platform.

IMO they'll use that to start with, and bolt on a bunch of hardware support for things like the Wing console.

Either that, or they'll do another Ardour fork like Harrison Mixbus.

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