2020 was Reason's best year ever, apparently!

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bxbrkrz
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08 Jan 2021

Should we feel good and happy about Reason Studios having a marvelous time in 2020? That's the real question, for some :puf_smile:
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miscend
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08 Jan 2021

DAW companies should all publish all their sales figures. I don't get the secrecy at all. There should be charts published of top selling DAWs.

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bxbrkrz
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08 Jan 2021

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The top secret selling daw?
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danc
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08 Jan 2021

miscend wrote:
08 Jan 2021
DAW companies should all publish all their sales figures. I don't get the secrecy at all. There should be charts published of top selling DAWs.
Music software is not overseen by an industry governing body (like financial services or travel companies), so they can do what they like in terms of keeping product sales and market share statistics quiet.

They'd need some convincing to share this off their own back - and every DAW company would have to join in to get a true market share valuation.
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miscend
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08 Jan 2021

bxbrkrz wrote:
08 Jan 2021
Image

The top secret selling daw?
I've heard some VST developers say their largest userbases are on Ableton. But that might be because FL Studio users are secretly using warez.
Last edited by miscend on 08 Jan 2021, edited 1 time in total.

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Enlightenspeed
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08 Jan 2021

miscend wrote:
08 Jan 2021
DAW companies should all publish all their sales figures. I don't get the secrecy at all. There should be charts published of top selling DAWs.
Interesting. Who do you think would benefit the most from this?

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miscend
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08 Jan 2021

Enlightenspeed wrote:
08 Jan 2021
miscend wrote:
08 Jan 2021
DAW companies should all publish all their sales figures. I don't get the secrecy at all. There should be charts published of top selling DAWs.
Interesting. Who do you think would benefit the most from this?
Well plugin developers and financial investors.

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Enlightenspeed
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08 Jan 2021

miscend wrote:
08 Jan 2021
Enlightenspeed wrote:
08 Jan 2021


Interesting. Who do you think would benefit the most from this?
Well plugin developers and financial investors.
How are you thinking they would benefit exactly? I honestly can't see any good reason for doing it.

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bxbrkrz
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08 Jan 2021

miscend wrote:
08 Jan 2021
bxbrkrz wrote:
08 Jan 2021
Image

The top secret selling daw?
I've heard some VST developers say their largest userbases are on Ableton. But that might be because FL Studio users are secretly using warez.
If FL Studio users were pirates supposedly, it would make sense they would use pirated VSTs too. So it would be impossible to evaluate their size via VST sale numbers/userbases.
I personally don't believe FL studio fans are pirates, secretly or not, imho. Their upgrade policy is pretty cool, from what I remember.
Also,
If you are a VST dev and any DAW can open your product, how does that help knowing the sale numbers of any DAW dev/companies. Your latest VST EQ can be used on Cubase, Reason, Ableton, FL, etc.
757365206C6F67696320746F207365656B20616E73776572732075736520726561736F6E20746F2066696E6420776973646F6D20676574206F7574206F6620796F757220636F6D666F7274207A6F6E65206F7220796F757220696E737069726174696F6E2077696C6C206372797374616C6C697A6520666F7265766572

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EnochLight
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08 Jan 2021

Well, posting it on his personal account makes it no less factual than if he were to post it on Reason Studio's corporate account. I mean, unless you subscribe to the idea that he's lying. See - the thing about people thinking that it's made up so they can sell for a buyout is laughably out of touch with reality, as an audit of the books - which would happen during such a thing - would easily reveal otherwise. But... people are going to believe what they believe. If we learned anything from the last 4 years, it's that people tend to make up their own reality and believe it.
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bxbrkrz
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08 Jan 2021



"Reality" :puf_smile:
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dannyF
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08 Jan 2021

Great. Now put folder tracks in the sequencer

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QVprod
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08 Jan 2021

hurricane wrote:
08 Jan 2021
Oh c'moooooooooon. When a CEO posts about the supposed success of a product he is personally in charge of, it is never a personal post, ESPECIALLY when that post is posted on a very public platform.

He could have just written it on a sticky note and left it on the fridge for just him and his wife to see - that would qualify as a personal post.
Welcome to the age of social media. I assume you don't post accomplishments on social media? Most people do. Let's not confuse personal and private. They are not mutually exclusive. Board members and investors don't need a twitter post. I'm pretty sure they have more direct means of communication with data. I own a small amount of stock. I periodically get updates... and not from social media.

Let's be reasonable about this. Pun intended. If his post was truly about marketing or making a huge public statement, why would it be on his own account that only has 1660 Followers? Reason Studios has over 71K followers and they didn't even retweet it.

Not everything has some huge motive behind it...

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hurricane
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08 Jan 2021

Well, due to current circumstances, where Reason Studios are owned by a Venture Capitalist, and where they're about to enter year 4 of this acquisition, and where the exit strategy's criteria FOR EXIT has probably been met (see Niklas' announcement), then yeah, there is a motive behind it. Verdane's partners want a return on their investment - I mean they're not going to keep Reason Studios forever. Granted, holding periods have gotten longer, this is *just* year 4, but I think the CEO's proclamation is the start of things and we can expect Reason Studios to be acquired in the next 2 years.

If this was still Propellerhead, with Ernst tweeting about record sales - that would be a completely different story.

But whatever - believe what ya'll want to believe.
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miscend
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08 Jan 2021

Enlightenspeed wrote:
08 Jan 2021
miscend wrote:
08 Jan 2021


Well plugin developers and financial investors.
How are you thinking they would benefit exactly? I honestly can't see any good reason for doing it.
Testing. You can't do extensive testing in every single DAW on the market, but it makes sense to do the bulk of testing on the DAWs with largest marketshare.

It's helps with product planning, if you know what DAWs most people are using and how many units you're likely to sell, you can specify your future products appropriately and spend accordingly on R&D.

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QVprod
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08 Jan 2021

hurricane wrote:
08 Jan 2021
Well, due to current circumstances, where Reason Studios are owned by a Venture Capitalist, and where they're about to enter year 4 of this acquisition, and where the exit strategy's criteria FOR EXIT has probably been met (see Niklas' announcement), then yeah, there is a motive behind it. Verdane's partners want a return on their investment - I mean they're not going to keep Reason Studios forever. Granted, holding periods have gotten longer, this is *just* year 4, but I think the CEO's proclamation is the start of things and we can expect Reason Studios to be acquired in the next 2 years.

If this was still Propellerhead, with Ernst tweeting about record sales - that would be a completely different story.

But whatever - believe what ya'll want to believe.
Again, we're talking about a personal twitter account... Why the heck would a potential buyer with any common sense care about a personal twitter post with no sales data :lol: . I think we can assume people or companies with enough money to consider buying RS could care less about a twitter post from a CEO with very little social presence. He's not Elon Musk. He only has 1066 followers. I have almost as many followers on Instagram. If it came from the Reason Studios account, then you'd have an argument.

Regardless, I think there's way too much care about who owns the company. Pro Tools, Cubase, and Logic seem to be doing just fine after all of their acquisitions. And if Reason is doing good enough to be sold, then I'm not understanding the skepticism on numbers that a buyer would have a good look at before making the transaction. We're still in a pandemic and they're still hiring people. That's a good sign. You'd have to really want them to fail to see otherwise.

As far as we users are concerned, all that matters from this is the software we purchased continues to work and be supported, as well as continued development of all those lacking features we like to complain about.

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miscend
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08 Jan 2021

bxbrkrz wrote:
08 Jan 2021
If you are a VST dev and any DAW can open your product, how does that help knowing the sale numbers of any DAW dev/companies. Your latest VST EQ can be used on Cubase, Reason, Ableton, FL, etc.
Not every DAW implements the VST standard in the same way. And Steinberg couldn't possibly specify VST in a way that could account for every possibility or eventuality. So if you make a plugin and only ever test it in Ardour, it could crash when used in other DAWs or maybe the side-chaining won't work at all in Cubase etc etc.

Just like game developers plan their games based on the platforms with most marketshare. If they design a game around a high spec enthusiast PC, it may be impossible to get it to run well on base consoles.

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hurricane
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08 Jan 2021

QVprod wrote:
08 Jan 2021
That's a good sign. You'd have to really want them to fail to see otherwise.
But you see, this isn't about bad sign vs good sign or prosperity vs doom and gloom. This is about a very quiet VC CEO signaling that the things he was contracted to do by the VCG have been achieved. Step 1 - check. Now on to step 2. Verdane's plan for Reason Studios is progressing and apparently going as planned. Taking it as merely a good sign that Reason is doing well is just half of the story, and in my opinion, not the main story they want to tell. Most people read his statement and thought purely superficially "Yay! Reason is doing great!". Yes, it supposedly is doing great. A much more interesting story is what's going on behind the scenes, and WHY Verdane want Reason to do great - it isn't to make YOU happy. It's to make their partners happy. After Reason Studios gets sold Niklas is going to move on to his next project. And then he'll tweet about how well THAT is going. So why would we care? Because we don't know where RS are going to end up. Could it be Apple? Yeah, it could. They get a big fat offer from Apple and you better believe they're going to take it. Then what? You'll have a month or two to use Reason, then it'll be discontinued for you, on Windows.

Or nothing's really going to happen, and simply Reason is doing great!!!!! Well then, yay! Rejoice!
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esselfortium
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09 Jan 2021

It must get tiring to make the same post so many times in every thread on here.
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EnochLight
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09 Jan 2021

hurricane wrote:
08 Jan 2021
we can expect Reason Studios to be acquired in the next 2 years.
By Apple, right?
hurricane wrote:
08 Jan 2021
Could it be Apple? Yeah, it could. They get a big fat offer from Apple and you better believe they're going to take it. Then what? You'll have a month or two to use Reason, then it'll be discontinued for you, on Windows.
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QVprod
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09 Jan 2021

hurricane wrote:
08 Jan 2021
QVprod wrote:
08 Jan 2021
That's a good sign. You'd have to really want them to fail to see otherwise.
But you see, this isn't about bad sign vs good sign or prosperity vs doom and gloom. This is about a very quiet VC CEO signaling that the things he was contracted to do by the VCG have been achieved. Step 1 - check. Now on to step 2. Verdane's plan for Reason Studios is progressing and apparently going as planned. Taking it as merely a good sign that Reason is doing well is just half of the story, and in my opinion, not the main story they want to tell. Most people read his statement and thought purely superficially "Yay! Reason is doing great!". Yes, it supposedly is doing great. A much more interesting story is what's going on behind the scenes, and WHY Verdane want Reason to do great - it isn't to make YOU happy. It's to make their partners happy.
Dude, lay off the Agatha Christie novels :lol: Literally every for profit company wants to make a profit. Venture capitalist or not. This is not an altruistic relationship. Reason Studios has always been a for profit company as is pretty much every other company you buy products from. They provide a product you’re happy with so they can sell you something else. That’s how business works. Again, you’re thinking about this too hard...

As far as Apple buying Reason... I’m a Mac guy anyway, but it’s probably not Logical. I’m sure your Windows version is safe.

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zoidkirb
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09 Jan 2021

Spending the last 4 years integrating VST into Reason, and then becoming a VST itself, only to disappear into the closed Apple ecosystem? Nah I don't buy it.
Will a big company buy them up at some point? Maybe but does it really matter...

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antic604
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09 Jan 2021

zoidkirb wrote:
09 Jan 2021
Spending the last 4 years integrating VST into Reason, and then becoming a VST itself, only to disappear into the closed Apple ecosystem? Nah I don't buy it.
You don't have to, because that wasn't their plan :)

IMO, it was something like this:
  • RE tech was designed with several features in mind: centralised login & password formultiple vendors, one shop & coordinated marketing and sales, easy hosting & automatic updates, virus and piracy protection, easy development, deployment and distribution, possibility to compile and run on any OS and hardware, incl. not computers (e.g. synths) - that must've sounded interesting to investors who wanted to build an Apple-like position on the music-making market
  • Props built a tech for easy "conversion" of REs into VSTs and web (and probably the other way around, too), with Europa VST being first a showcase for that; in my opinion it was never released to make money (the price was ridiculous) - it's purpose was for other devs to see the tech
  • their CTO gave an inspiring speech & presentation 2(?) years ago at Juce conference, painting a world where REs run as plugins, run on the web, run in hardware synths/fx in cooperation with Elk OS
  • they've opened up and gave free access to the RE environment/API and created a dedicated team to manage and develop it further
  • they've created the RRP, so that non-Reason users would be interested to tap into the RE shop, thus creating potential interest for VST devs to get on there - not because they can't make VSTs, but because the RE platform provides lots of current & potentil advantages compared to VST world (as per earlier points)
  • things like adding VST support to Reason, launching the Suite version, releasing a string of new Reason Studios' REs are all pieces of the puzzle - they either strenghten the RE platform (e.g. Players are really special even in the VST world, Complex-1 or Friktion can compete head-to-head with equivalent VST offerings) or simply provide diversified complementary source of funding
  • I've no idea what future they were building for Reason; I've a feeling that it was supposed to be phased out slowly with RRP taking its place, but in the meantime they've seen its potential and appeal and decided to also focus on its development
Obviously all of the above is just a speculation, but doesn't sound that far-fetched to me.

So, whatever Verdane's plans for their investment are, I wish for them to work out because it's also in our best interest :) :thumbs_up:
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bxbrkrz
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09 Jan 2021

miscend wrote:
08 Jan 2021
bxbrkrz wrote:
08 Jan 2021
If you are a VST dev and any DAW can open your product, how does that help knowing the sale numbers of any DAW dev/companies. Your latest VST EQ can be used on Cubase, Reason, Ableton, FL, etc.
Not every DAW implements the VST standard in the same way. And Steinberg couldn't possibly specify VST in a way that could account for every possibility or eventuality. So if you make a plugin and only ever test it in Ardour, it could crash when used in other DAWs or maybe the side-chaining won't work at all in Cubase etc etc.

Just like game developers plan their games based on the platforms with most marketshare. If they design a game around a high spec enthusiast PC, it may be impossible to get it to run well on base consoles.
The gaming platform with the most market share is Windows, on the pc. Developing for multiple platforms at the same time can cyberpunk you. I don't see how it is the same for a VST developer, developing only for the VST format. Sure, not perfect, but not at the same level of complexity as AAA gaming dev.

Let's say you get an email from a Reason Studios user. You, VST dev for top dog DAWs only, need to google whatever a "Reason Studios" user even is. You got zero complains from Ableton users and the others. Your priority/time looking into and fixing that Reason user problem is low priority. But no issues with Renoise users. You'll never know about it, you'll never have a need to know how many Renoise users you have. You are a VST dev.

Fun fact. I had to make sure Renoise, a DAW I know by name only, would even support VST. I went to their site. The first image I see was Reason Studios as a VST 3 plugin for their marketing, and why Renoise is top dog: Renoise can run Reason :D
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Enlightenspeed
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09 Jan 2021

miscend wrote:
08 Jan 2021
Enlightenspeed wrote:
08 Jan 2021


How are you thinking they would benefit exactly? I honestly can't see any good reason for doing it.
Testing. You can't do extensive testing in every single DAW on the market, but it makes sense to do the bulk of testing on the DAWs with largest marketshare.

It's helps with product planning, if you know what DAWs most people are using and how many units you're likely to sell, you can specify your future products appropriately and spend accordingly on R&D.
Ok, that's a reasonable benefit for plugin developers... just about... sort of. In truth, plugin developers have to be able to rely on the platform rather than the DAW which is hosting the platform - in other words the SDK rather than the host, and if it turns out that the host isn't implementing it correctly then that is on the host developer rather than the plugin developer. For RE's this is a moot point of course, but the host gets the bad rep if a big name plugin doesn't work on it when it works elsewhere.

Also marketshare is not necessarily the most accurate barometer for assessing the most likely target audience for sales - if we are talking about AUs then the biggest is Garage Band. If we're talking about VST's then it's probably Audacity. Neither of these programs is likely to be seen as a useful yardstick for knowing which standard to develop for.

So, I would disagree, respectfully, and say that Reason (RE's), Logic (AU), Cubase (VST), and ProTools (AAX) are the standards you aim for when developing for the specified platforms - knowing which other implementations of each platforms do what/what/where etc is of little to no consequence, and in fact would be a little bit dangerous and counterproductive to do so, because the host developer may have abstracted the plugin platform towards their host, leaving potential backwards compatibility pitfalls. Let's say that Studio One add some stuff on to their version of VST to help with preset browsing, hypothetically, of course. Now, Steinberg control VST, it's their platform - and they decide that they are going to add some SDK features to help with preset browsing and it will work in an entirely different way to the Studio One preset type, and in fact lead to a complete rewrite of all the browser code for Studio One and any plugins that have followed the Studio One example. Ultimately, it's not smart for a plugin developer to become too closely coupled to secondary developers.

Anyway, we're coming way away from our little "microtopic" here. :mrgreen:

Have a thought about this next, what is the disadvantage of publishing the sales figures for all the major DAWs?

Cheers,
Brian

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