bandso
Didn't one of the more revered members of this board recently state that mixcraft was the be all end all of DAW's and all others suck in comparison?
 
 
No offense to mixcraft users. It may be a perfectly fine DAW. It's just the string of posts that hit this forum by an unnamed member were way over the top.

Yeah... I remember that, lol. I wasn't me.
J

bitflipper
It would not be historically inconsistent for Pro Tools to be gone and forgotten in 20 years. Logic could disappear even sooner; all it would take is one meeting in an Apple boardroom. Steinberg may be a big fish in our world, but once they became part of Yamaha they became a footnote in the company annual report - and could be abandoned with the same ease as dropping a motorcycle model. Same for Cakewalk: last time I read a Roland annual report CW didn't even warrant a separate line item.

Good point Bit - being a small part of a big company could swing either way!  

Pro Tools by the sheer numbers
Sonar
Cubase
Sony Vegas.  (It already handles multitracking, and I can see Sony making it a full DAW with the already superb video engine.  It is the only product to receive any updates in the last 4 years, outside of SF10 being ported to Mac.)  

"And for those who think I am being too severe by suggesting that only 4 will thrive, look at the state of music notation software.  There have been dozens of products in the market over the years, and now it comes down to only 3 significant players: Finale, Sibelius, and MuseScore (open source).  That s the natural progression of platforms.

Finale  = ProTools
Sibelius = Cubase
MuscScore = Reaper

and there ain't no fourth player."
 
I know this is about DAWs but since you brought up music notation software, I tried MuseScore and found it a bit clunky. If found Notion (notionmusicdotcom) software and love it!  I'm doing some big band arrangements and I can really crank out the notes, etc. with this software. And I got it for $80. So I would consider this the fourth player.
 
Wal

Interestingly it was announced today that Steinway & Sons were being taken private by the private equity leveraged buyout company Kohlberg & Co.:
 
http://www.usatoday.com/s...-kohlberg--co/2479355/
 
Is this "good" for Steinway? Anytime I hear "private equity leveraged buyout" I tend to get kind of nervous.
 
What if the the same happened to Avid?

More than enough.  The big boys from 10 years ago are all still here - Protools, Steiny, Logic, Cake and FL Studio.  Even the other "mac only" product is still going.  Once you have a big enough user base, it is profitable to do upgrades.  I don't see what earth shattering change would wipe them out.  FLS is a small company, their product is cheap and easy to use.  PT is the standard.  The others have solid backing and seem to make money.  They may get smaller or larger a bit, but until someone comes up w/ a new model, they seem secure.
 
@

FCCfirstclass
 
Sony Vegas.  (It already handles multitracking, and I can see Sony making it a full DAW with the already superb video engine.  It is the only product to receive any updates in the last 4 years, outside of SF10 being ported to Mac.)  

 
The irony in this statement is that it would be a complete 360 if that happened.  Vegas WAS originally an audio only program before the rise of VSTs and they built the video portion on top of that  later.  It explains why it is superior when it comes to audio editing to other video editors.  With that said, most of the audio features  have not changed  since the program was owned by Sonic Foundry with the exception of a few more third party plugins borrowed from Sound Forge and a few features for video like surround sound improvements.  Sony has neglected both Sound Forge and Acid (their D.A.W.) with no sign of being eager to move forward.  Unless they pull a massive surprise, I highly doubt they would backtrack after working so hard to get Vegas accepted as a video tool.  I would expect a major upgrade to Acid or even a multitrack D.A.W. - like Sound Forge before that happened.  Vegas and Acid are already very similar on the audio end since the audio engine and effects are practically identical.

reason will still be about as well, can't realy see any of them going anywhere tbh

especially since Reason finally addressed one of it's biggest weaknesses, the ability to record external audio without resorting to hacks.

 
Seven years from now?
 
AmpliTube Studio.  
 

 
Tubes never go out of style.