New Models for Audio Software

The software business, within the audio market, is governed by the fact that most end-users are musicians. Music’s most widespread consumption is that of popular music, which is known to be made by amateurs. This music is practiced mostly within the informality, a field where the use of software without licensing seems to be the rule.

As a result, the market for audio software licenses is restricted to institutions and big studios around the world, and a few hardcore aficionados who acquire them whenever they feel the product deserves it. What could be the result of this situation for developers, and how does it affect the field in the developing countries?

The software developers have been battling for at least twenty years in establishing a business model for their products. However, every software market means a different work field, and a whole set of different characteristics. Microsoft and Adobe have established themselves as truly sustainable and rich corporations. Even though there is a widespread use of their products without a license.

In every work field, the use of software without a license means, at least, some publicity. For the most demanding software, the publicity might be such that it might represent growing markets for companies who hire these software users, and must use proper licensing. Of course, the success of the developer’s business depends not only on the demand for the product, but also the legal status of the work field in its jurisdiction.

The Latin American case, in the audio software field, is a particular one. Although their publicity through unlicensed use is huge, much bigger than the one in developing countries, this isn’t reflected in license sales. There are still a big number of institutions and studios which work within informality, and don’t require licensing. Besides, some high-end tools meant for experimentation and electronic studies aren’t demanding.

In Montréal, there is an audio software developer called Plogue. Their main product, Bidule, is a piece of software meant for plugging audio processors and generators together. Theirs is commercial, privative software, currently running its beta stage. It is the third product of the brand and the only one they are working on, since they stopped development on the others. Bidule came out in april 2002, when it was at an early beta stage. Since the program reached a functional version (end of 2004), they are now selling early-bird licenses using Share*it, which has been a success.

Their software has in itself a way for users to build their own audio devices. A document in Bidule is a patchbay, where you can plug different bidules, or modules, together. Each of these can be an audio, MIDI, or spectral device, as well as 3rd party formats, such as VST (Virtual Studio Technology), ReWire, and AU (Audio Units). Bidules can be grouped together to form a new bidule that you can reuse. This way, instruments and effects can be built, re-used and shared.

Plogue, at their site, have a repository of groups, where every user can upload/download and build new groups based on these ones. Their beta stage, as it usually works, is hosting at www.plogue.com a community of users who discuss around the use of the program, suggest new features, report bugs, and upload new creations. Some have even been hired to work on its development too. However the work it is in an early stage, so it’s still unknown whether the company will have a long-term sustainability or not.

Bidule is a pice of software with varied practical uses. Its graphical interface helps the user understand easily audio and MIDI routings, so it is very practical to teach audio processing. Some patchbays and/or groups might replace traditional audio processes, ant therefore replace equipment. Others, might process or generate sound in ways that no hardware can do. However, one of the best uses for it is building some new functions with bidules and groups for other software, since the program runs along with most sequencers and DAWs (Digital Audio Workstation). The most popular of these, namely ProTools, Ableton Live and Propellerheads Reason, sort out their limits when the user runs it along with Bidule.

Creativity, in this era, is already beyond the scope of arts. New businesses success depend tremendously on the creativity of the businessman, himself becomes an artist. For an experimental piece of audio software, which is bringing a new way of creating music, you must be creative if you want to build a market. Bidule is known already in many countries since it exists within the cyberspace. Through the internet, a deal has been reached with an academic institution in Colombia, a deal which means formal exposure for the product.

What can this mean for the future of Bidule’s market? Academic institutions in developing countries are being charged too much for licenses because of taxing and of course, they don’t have the acquisition power an institution of its kind has in another country. So a deal becomes fairer, if it is done without involving money. In this case, Academia de Artes Guerrero in Bogotá builds Bidule’s interface in exchange for the licenses for the institution. A deal which means for the academy, its first international relation. For Plogue it means exposure in an entire new context, and it might be the dawn of a new market model. These kind of deals can give as a result individual sales, and if this is the case, these kind of exchanges might be considered a new approach to educational licensing.

As it has been told, the software economics for the audio developers has been constantly reinventing itself. Developers exist of every kind, some of them working within an educational institution and giving away the software for free (York University), some of them giving away one product as means of publicity (www.tobybear.de, www.pspaudioware.com), some of them do in a strictly commercial model(www.native-instruments.com). As a master rule of marketing, before one can invest in offering a product, it must have demand from the market. New inventions, and in particular new musical interfaces, must sort this problem out. Inventions such as the Theremin, which has been around for more than eighty years now, are still being marketed in custom-basis. Moog Music, the pioneering synthesizer manufacturer, still can’t afford a massive production of Theremins.

This story is about building new roads for new automobiles in a new land, which is a lot of work.