I've heard some here mentioned that they like the Adobe subscription model because they got a "discount" for $20/ month. This might be OK for ONE application but if more vendors jump on this easy revenue SCHEME the cost will add up quite quickly. I.E. aside from free tools, the 5 main applications on my video/DAW:
-Vegas 12 Pro
-Boris RED
-Cubase
-Reason
-Corel Paintshop Pro

Support Apps:
-Izodope RX3
-Mercalli Video Stabilizer
-Red Giant Plural Eyes

Free Tools:
-MSI Afterburner Screen Capture
-OBS Screen capture
-BB Flashback Screen capture
-Eagle CAD circuit design
-Open Office
-Handbrake
-Image Burn
-TeamViewer
-VLC Player
-Bamboo Dock

Exculuding the support and free tools, If Vegas, Boris, Cubase, Corel and Reason charged a "reasonable" $20 per month that would come out... do the math... a whopping $1200/year every year. How anyone can say that's a deal for hobbyist? Even at $15/mo comes out to $900/yr.

So say support apps start their "affordable" $10/mo subscription plan that comes out to an additional $360/yr.

Totals: This comes out to $1560/yr and $1200/yr total BS.

@Byron K ... Good points .. tell that to John_Cline who believes that $17/month is cheap!

>By the way, beside my experience with video editing, and graphics design, I am also an audio engineer, and I advice you to try Studio One from Presonus .. its an amazing DAW.

I am familiar with Studio One. My favorite thing about Studio One is its ARA Melodyne integration (which Tracktion and Sonar also share). Just amazing. I mixed audio for several years on a Presonus mixer and really didn't like the sound. I have no experience with the sound of the mixer in Studio One.

Mixbus is a relatively new entry into this race. What it is is that Harrison Consoles (mostly known for post production consoles, but big in music as well) have integrated one (now two options) of their mixers into the Ardour open source DAW. What is the advantage of this over other DAWs?

Well, what it gives you is a real high quality analog mixer sound. Most DAWs sound the same, which is to say theoretically perfect. You need to leave headroom because if anything overdrives it sounds pretty terrible. With Mixbus you can do your gain structure a lot hotter and in fact, it sounds best this way. The layout and sound is exactly what an old timer like me is used to.

Equally important is that since all your compressors, EQs, etc. in place like they would be on any large console, control and automation is really good from a control surface. I use the new Behringer X-Touch. You can do a lot of the mixing process by feel rather than stepping through menus and using your mouse.

A lot of people are recording their music on something else then transferring in the stems to do their mix on Mixbus because they like the sound but would rather record and write on a format that they are used to.

What I dislike in Mixbus is that there is no Rewire or ARA support (they use something called Jack instead), so you can't integrate Melodyne correction. That is a really big deal to me since I've been using that a lot.

What is cool though is the way they do layered audio. If you punch in, the audio from the original track is still there (much like overlaying a video in Vegas or a graphic layer in Photoshop). The same thing if you past audio into a track. You can look at the stacks of layers if you like in another edit view. This makes punching in easier than I am used to.

Anyway, by using Mixbus and the X-Touch, I have this really cool audio setup which feels very much like an old fashioned studio with flying faders and labelled knobs for EQs and limiters. What I'm trying to get used to is going back to punching in mistake corrections instead of just immediately going to the graph in Melodyne.

Another long term plan that Harrison has yet to implement is their own custom control surface. It will probably cost a fortune, but I will probably spring for it anyway. The plan is for a control surface that looks and functions a lot like one of their mixers, but is just sending control info to their software. That way you would have a nice looking and functional desk in your studio which would stay relevant as the software evolved mostly on the DAW and plugin end.

For anyone interested in this, here are some links:

The original $79 Mixbus:
http://harrisonconsoles.com/site/mixbus.html

The new larger console (modeled after a Harrison 32c)
http://harrisonconsoles.com/site/mixbus32c.html

"tell that to John_Cline who believes that $17/month is cheap!"

If you're in the business of making videos for a living, $17/month is nothing. If you're a hobbyist, then maybe it's a bit rich for your blood.

> "If you're in the business of making videos for a living, $17/month is nothing. If you're a hobbyist, then maybe it's a bit rich for your blood."

I believe you missed the point that was trying to be made.

If you use Vegas Pro, Boris RED, Cubase, Reason, & Corel Printshop Pro and they all wanted $17 a month it would cost you $1,020 a year. That's not counting plug-ins because GenArts has gone subscription and what if 4 other plug-in makers followed and they all want $17/mo? Now it would cost $2,040 just to use your personal computer. But you know they want more. What if they all wanted $49/mo like Adobe? Now it would cost $5,880 a year for only 10 software packages!!!

So your $1000 computer that you were going to keep for 5 years will cost you $29,400 over those same 5 years just to keep the software running with only 10 software packages (and you know you have more than that on your PC right now).

The subscription model is not sustainable! If every manufacturer demanded a subscription fee, pretty soon you wouldn't be able to afford to run a personal computer. It's a slippery slope that mathematically doesn't end well for the consumer.

~jr

+1


Yup. Hopefully the math and voice of reason is starting to resonate with people who don't quite get just HOW EXPENSIVE these monthly fees would be in total.

It's the same with cell phones, internet, cable tv, car payments...

Renting everything is not financially healthy!

+2. Not to mention that I typically buy software during introductory specials or during yearly Black Friday or Cyber Monday special sales which typically save at last half the price. I bought my Resolve Studio dongle one eBay from a guy who had gotten it with his Black Magic camera but used other software. I do whatever I can to save money. Yes, I'm a professional, but I can't afford subscriptions to all the software I use. I use way too many software packages for that.

I use Cakewalk sonar Platinum which is its subscription service now but it doesn't bother me. Not much different than paying for the next version every year.

I just hope they don't dump Vegas altogether, unless catalyst is just the next step.
WSS

@Westside Steve .. it is totally different because the software will stop working if you don't pay the subscription fees ... how can you say it is not much different?

Proshow Producer does a subscription model that doesn't bother me at all. That is, you pay for all updates from the point of sale to the same date next year. After that, your software still works but you can't update until you renew for another year. When you do, you are good from that new date of sale to a year later. Blackcat Software does the same thing with their SoundByte program.

It is the need to subscribe in perpetuity or it stops working that is evil.

Paying a "little" each month becomes normal and we accept it. Little by little the "little" becomes bigger, and like the frog in slowly heated water we eventually cook.

It is the need to subscribe in perpetuity or it stops working that is evil.

this is the real nub of any subscription software arguement. if it dies, there's no point to it.

i occasionally do photo assignments - not often, but reasonably regularly. they are pretty much quarterly, or four monthly. for these i use lightroom. but to expect me to pay a subscription just to have lightroom work when i need it is laughable. adobe lost me and so will ANY software that dies when i don't pay. corporate ransomware....

@John_Cline "If you're in the business of making videos for a living, $17/month is nothing"

Again, $17/month is nothing in your country and in all developed countries, however, in other part of the world, $17/month is a big deal because life cost is also cheap is such countries.

On the other hand, and as other posters said, seven $17/month will mean a lot to you when all other software companies start forcing the subscription model .. I hope you understand the point!

I've basically told Adobe off thanks to their service based model for software. I use some packages every week but not consistently. I wasn't about to spend $25 per month just to get the latest Adobe Photoshop and Acrobat Pro. That comes out to $300 per year for something that doesn't change very much in a meaningful way to me. And after refusing to sell the upgrades to older versions, they cut off Adobe CS2, CS3 and CS4 customers and I think Adobe CS5. As a result I looked at alternatives. I found that the version I had worked just fine for several more years and still does. Same goes for Acrobat Pro.

Unless you're working in the industry and using Sony Vegas every day, it should work pretty well for quite some time. Question is handling video formats and 4k files along with optimization for hardware. It's why video manipulation is arguably the most difficult industry to track. But I'm not going to pay monthly for Adobe Premiere and up my need to pay Adobe $50 per month or $600 per year. We haven't even talked about general business needs. While I love Vegas, I'm not getting hooked into paying monthly. Time will tell whether this software as a service business will be worthwhile.

Here's another situation. I love the idea of the program Mixbus from Harrison Consoles. What they have done is to integrate models of their wonderful mixing consoles into the shareware DAW program Ardour. Instead of inserting plugins sparingly in order to get an audio mix, you just use the built in EQs, compressors, aux sends etc. You can still insert VSTs, but often you don't need to. Since everything is consistent and in the same place, the integration with a control surface is really great. You can run the gain structure hot like a real analog console and the overdriven peaks when you do this sound really good instead of horrible. A portion of the proceeds go to the guys who are developing Ardour, so the relationship is very cool and symbiotic. They also have extra plugins that are extremely good. They have a bass eq that will follow the pitch so that you don't get peaks and valleys over the range of the instrument. Their de-essor is the best I've seen. The licensing is keyed to your user info. You can use it on as many PCs as you don't mind seeing "licensed to Your Name on. It works on Macs, PCs and Linux machines. Very cool in so many ways!

The problem is that it isn't quite ready for prime time. The mixer can't be scrolled from top to bottom and with the only option being complete channels on the screen at once, the display gets hard to read, especially on my laptop. There is no decent time stretch or automated pitch and time options. Melodyne won't currently link.

Still the idea is really great, and I wanted to play with it and be a part of its development. They have both subscription and outright purchase options but I believe the software still runs if your subscription lapses.

I bought the software and their plugins, and then I upgraded to their new 32c mixer model. I like Mixbus very much, but I would not consider them if I had to pay monthly. The software isn't completely useable yet for me. I can't make it monthly expense.

The New Sony Catalyst Edit is similar in that it is also software that looks promising but simply isn't ready for prime time. From the bit I tried of the demo before it timed out, I could see that if I was to try to use it on my work, I would get stuck and have to go to something else for parts. I wouldn't be able to clean the hiss of the sound, do photo manipulations, or use a bunch of important video filters.

It seems stunningly obtuse for Sony Creative Software to move to a subscription model when at this point, quite frankly, users would be paying a monthly fee to be beta testers aiding in development.