No notable audio production software or soft synth plugins is Japanese, which is weird, considering that many of their synths are digital in nature (thus contain basically a soft-synth).
Same thing in cameras, Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Sony built amazing camera yet the camera software is basically stuck in the 90s, not to mention stuff like Instagram...
While establishing a "cause & effect" here seems very hard, from my personal experience working in software field in Japan, I think the winning concept here is actually the combination of removing middleman and paying good salaries. Japan is very very behind in IT/digitalization compared to most western countries. This doesn't just mean it's behind in product portfolio and quality, but that perception of software engineer & managers and still quite behind. The respect that a lot of software engineers enjoys in US/EU is not quite there yet in Japan(and salary often reflect this).
The C-suite usually doesn't have a firm understanding of software/IT world, and instead ends-up hiring a lot of "Scrum-experts/Agile coaches" and hires software engineers from consultancy or recruitment companies for cheap. There's ofc companies that doesn't fall in this category, but for middle-sized companies in Japan (which is the bulk of the economy), this is the true state of things. Middle-men in Japan have therefore been way more encroaching on this, and they have the incentive to not improve the respect/social standing the software engineers have.
"Removing managers" in this article does not mean the same thing as it would in US/EU, conditions are different.
Synth1 is well-known in electronic music.
>> "Same thing in cameras, Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Sony built amazing camera yet the camera software is basically stuck in the 90s, not to mention stuff like Instagram..."
I aim the camera. I press the button. It puts the resulting readings from the sensor in a raw file on the SD card. This has worked without fail for thousands of pictures. The rare times I need to use anything I can't get to with a physical button, they're all easily accessed on a single screen by touch with the i button. What else do I need? They keep piling connectivity junk on, but airplane mode shuts it down.
Capture One/Lightroom and Affinity Photo/Photoshop will have those features with higher quality long before they reach non-phone cameras. They work with the raw data right off the sensor. Nothing done with the limited power of an on-board processor will beat a good raw processor in pulling a good photo out of subpar conditions.
The iPhone can do three-second exposures free-handed, and have them come out pretty sharp without even trying to hold the phone still. That is not something you do in postprocessing.
That's really the point. If all I had was a phone camera, I would be glad for all this software support. For all the times I have my DSLR, the 10x bigger sensor obviates the need for all of that.
Like, you're literally describing all the extra effort and gear you have to have to do this on your camera. Wouldn't it be better if you just... didn't need any of that?
I've seen some of the absurd lengths people go attaching things to their iPhones just to reach parity with an entry-level DSLR and a few attachments that cost less than the iPhone rig with the cost of the camera included. I looked into the lenses on the 12. The longest is a 35mm equivalent of 85mm. I would need a grip add-on and a lens clip with no image stabilization just to approach the stability and reach of my 70-300mm lens on an APS-C sensor. That's just for wildlife photography, and not even the longest lens. Most serious wildlife photographers go for a full frame and 600+mm primes. And that's just one use case served by the photography platform that "big cameras" are.
You don't know what you don't know and it shows.
The argument is that DSLR software is lagging far behind what an iPhone can do. The point is that DSLR software needs to improve, not that you should use an iPhone.
Why would you not want the same to be applied to a bigger lens?
I would like to see a full-size camera with some extra smarts though.
Even the stuff on there already uses too much power. Nikon's SnapBridge uses BLE and still cuts how many photos I get on a charge by 90%. That's without spending any time doing anything in the camera's software. I turned it off so I didn't have to charge the battery after going out for a walk with the camera. And you think I want to do more on that battery?
If the scene is challenging at all, the JPEG may look fine, but the RAW will look like it came out of a 1990s webcam. No dynamic range. Fuzzy focus. Harsh/blown out highlights and muddy shadows.
There is astounding computational sorcery that smartphones use to make that tiny dot of a lens and sensor produce acceptable photos and videos.
Traditionally in Japan, you would, for example, simply print straight from the camera to the printer. You can see all the support for this if you look in your camera's settings. Putting a PC in the middle is more of a Western style of working. The PC software is bad because the people who write it don't use it themselves and don't really see why anyone would want to, when they could simply skip that step altogether.
Where is my upload to Instagram feature for example? Why didn't they add this if they want to avoid needing a PC?
While I'm not sure what country they develop their software in, the company is Japanese.
Have you tried KORG Gadget? It's incredible and a solid DAW/virtual studio in its own right. Basically a killer app for the iPad, and it's also available for macOS.
All of KORG's music apps are fantastic, and basically reason enough to buy an iPad: Gadget, Module, ODYSSEi, iWavestation, iPolySix, iMS-20, iMono/Poly, iElectribe (and its Wave and Gorillaz variants), iKaossilator and iM1.
In addition to PC/Mac/iOS, KORG also has even ported several of its music apps to the Nintendo Switch and 3DS/DS. Definitely fun to make music on a gaming handheld.
KORG is one of my favorite music software/virtual instrument/plugin developers, hands down. And they've been on fire in terms of hardware synths over the past few years as well, both with new/affordable analog as well as classic reissues.
You're listing hardware companies though, we'd have to look at Japanese software companies to see. Now I agree Sony and others struggled to absorb software and considering they were very high grade hardware device manufacturers the delta was damning. It's a different approach I guess