Look at the top 10 apps in the Mac App Store. That list is always dominated by Apple's applications like Logic and iWork because of this pricing strategy. Nobody else can afford to sell a DAW for $200 and make money. IMHO it's some kind of anti-competitiveness but I don't know if there's a term for it. Maybe it's just a fact of life when Apple owns and controls the entire software/hardware ecosystem.
Also, don't forget that most of the Apple Pro Apps came about because pretty much none of the creative market vendors were initially on board with OSX, that only happened later when they saw OSX grow.
Companies will find ways to compete. Just look at the $30-$50 apps that emulate stripped down versions of Photoshop (Acorn, Pixelmator) - yeah, they aren't near the full feature set of PS, but they get 90% of us what we need and for way less money. I'm sure audio apps already have some of this going on in the market.
Are many independent developers really in the business of creating DAWs anyway? There seem to be far more developing instrument/effect plugins. The more people that use DAWs, the larger the market for plugins becomes. The net effect for independent developers could be positive.
Besides, if independent developers cannot find a way to compete, perhaps they should reconsider their business. It's not like they're competing with Microsoft's monopoly in the 80s and 90s. There are many other platforms (some much more popular than Apple desktop) on which they can develop, and Apple won't compete with them there. That's still a huge potential market share.
Lots of people will need a new mac for this. I know I can't run it on my Mac Pro 1,1
Kicks off here: http://9to5mac.com/2012/07/23/mountain-lion-installed-on-a-m...
I haven't looked, but I bet the Microsoft equivalent is (will be?) dominated by their apps, like the Office suite. It's not unfair, it's just the reality of such markets.
A supermarket's home brand would probably also be the most successful brand in their stores, too.
Plus? No, _first_. Apple is a hardware company. They sell computers. Their software, while excellent and profitable, IMO exists only to sell more hardware.
All companies have a core competency & purpose. Everything else must feed that core; a product may be excellent on its own, but must still support the core. Deviate from that core, badness happens. Logic Pro is awesome on its own, but was created to give a niche a reason to buy into the Apple ecosystem, buy hardware, and buy more hardware.
For example, if you want to record your band at home, you might have six microphones just to get started (vocals, guitar, bass, snare, kick, and drum overhead). Outboard limiters and microphone preamps are not out of the question.
On the other hand, if you do everything with software samplers and synthesizers, then you just need a computer, Logic, and some headphones.
Now you'll argue that a bottom of the barrel high end amateur grade mic might be only $50. But you'll still need cables, probably a preamp, some kind of (expensive) interface box to input 6 audio channels in phase (can't just plug in 3 stereo usb sound adapters... well, usually...). A decent stand or boom is probably $75 for a hunk of metal. Suddenly paying $50 for a cheap mic is false economy if the support infrastructure is setting you back $300... may as well buy a decent $200 class mic... to go with your $200 software.
Unless you're solely a vocal group you'll probably need to mic and input instruments.
My sister used to play the viola (more or less a big violin). A pro grade mic costs $400. Not a viola with a mic installed. Not a package deal of mic and cable and preamp and all that. No, just the custom designed weirdly mounted mic. Before permanent professional installation of course. This is probably an extreme, obviously its hard to mic a stringed instrument without screwing up the resonance sounds while the musicians face is inches away from the mic. I bet you could mic a brass instrument for a quarter the cost.
Never mind the fact that if you actually earn a living doing this, the Reaper license is $225 anyway.
P.S. I think the $50 for a cheap mic is too low, and $100 is the lowest you should pay (probably for an SM57).
P.P.S. There are lots of ways to mic a Viola, no need to get a special Viola mic.
You may not, but most of the productions, from the Billboard top-100 to independent stuff, are choke full of plugins. And a lot of "physical hardware" can't be told apart when A/B with quality plugins (Waves, UAD etc).
>You can get this to run a project on the cheap, but it's still going to cost you $1000+ for a good mic and +600+ hardware like compressors, limiters, equalizers, monitors, and mixing boards. Plus you have to get cabling, power conditioners and cases to hold and connect everything. My last "Home Studio" ran me nearly $10,000; Logic was the cheapest thing I had to buy and that's when it was around $700.
If you want to record Led Zeppelin, maybe.
For a 4-piece rock band, Logic, a mixing board, a audio interface, a pair of monitors, a few mikes, stands, rack unit etc, will do it for around $3000-$4000.
And for electronic music (including hip-hop), you can just make do with Logic, an audio interface, headphones, monitors, a MIDI keyboard and one-two mikes, for around $1500 total.
With that being said, it's not cheap if you add other things you have to buy, studio monitors, a fast computer, and good midi keyboard (and that's the minimum for a full in-the-box musician).
(And you'll probably want at least one more controller, whether a Launchpad-style thing, a fader box, or Akai pads.)
LOGIC!!!
A proof of that is that android still doesn't have descent audio performance. Yet it is able to do everything else.
[ADDED]
Thanks for adding those, I was looking at them after I wrote my question. Its kind of hard to know which is a solid option from the reviews and what I'm seeing online.
It also isn't Photoshop.
For MIDI work PT is several years behind Cubase, Logic and Ableton. Everybody has their own favorite. I've found Logic to fit my workflow very well and is not any less of a professional tool than the other DAWs I mentioned.
Logic btw is horrible for external midi or was at least up till version 9. I've lost count the times it mess's up with my virus ti.