YouTube interview/podcast with Gregor Beyerle

[Jens]

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This video has only 106 views currently and is much more informative than chatty. But keep in mind that Gregor Beyerle is now a marketing guy with a background in sales at PreSonus.

10 minute
His versatile road from touring musician to PreSonus employee.

25 minute
More cooperation between DAWs, e.g. Ableton link for live shows

44 minute
Plugin backward compatibility and plugin crashes

56 minute
Fender/PreSonus situation vs Gibson/Cakewalk (hiring vs firing)

59 minute
Discussing the 2024 video and returning to rather bigger releases ("strategic shift")

62 minute
AI discussion (assistive vs generative)

 

[Crossinger]

Thanks for sharing the link.

Interesting statement: that infamous announcement video one year ago was based on the assumption that more people decide in favor of subscription over perpetual licenses. Now that this did not happen, they allegedly reverted back to the former release scheme.

 

[Vocalpoint]

Now that this did not happen, they allegedly reverted back to the former release scheme.

At least this is (finally) a logical explanation for where we are at - and ties off a whole raft of rumors and the whole backwash from that Fall 2024 video.

While I get the need for subscriptions and ongoing cash flow to keep the DEV teams stocked - the reality is that no one is interested in supporting that model if there is no real "value" proposition.

It is VERY hard (practically impossible) to keep a user base like this - excited - if they cannot turn around enough exciting stuff fast enough.

So it appears for all intents and purposes - we are rolling back to the traditional release schedule and this now begs the question about what happens to the sub model - and even worse - the Annual Updates plan - which now feels even more like the much despised Waves Update Plan - which I rarely ever consider paying for.

VP

 

[TimC340]

That was a really interesting video - I learned a lot about Gregor that I didn't know!

I'm not sure how much we learned about the immediate future of Studio One, except that it's not going away. Gregor was very firm that the market for perpetual licences far outweighs the subscriber market, and that presumably suggests a slight change of direction in Studio One's marketing (and maybe that's true for other DAWs too), but I entirely get his point that content subscriptions (Splice, SSL, Native Instruments/iZotope) have hugely widened the horizons of home recordists, and that to buy that content would cost outrageous amounts of money! The only one I have is EastWest Composer Cloud Plus, which gives me many, many thousands of $ worth of very high-quality sample content - which I could not even contemplate buying.

Incidentally, I found it very surprising that these guys thought Apple had much more of the market than it really does (estimating 45% vs the actual 14%).

 

[Vocalpoint]

Incidentally, I found it very surprising that these guys thought Apple had much more of the market than it really does (estimating 45% vs the actual 14%).

The "market" blurb was VERY interesting. Just glad that someone finally said it.

VP

 

[SwitchBack]

14% can easily be one studio rig vs. 6 school kids. Statistical one-liners are completely useless

 

[OneBass]

Thanks for sharing this podcast.
I too learned a lot about Gregor from this interview,
I found his/their comments on the pros/cons of AI interesting, particularly that if AI "takes over the world" that there'd always be a counter-culture that [tries to] bring back the "messy/organic" sound that existed before AI came on the scene.

Problem is, it's a snap to program messiness into a given AI-generated track or even intentionally train an AI on "messy music".

 

[TimC340]

14% can easily be one studio rig vs. 6 school kids. Statistical one-liners are completely useless

In sales, Apple only has 9.2% of the global personal computer market in terms of units sold. The 14% figure relates to OS market share for October 2025 only - it's market share is normally very close to the units-sold figure. Lenovo has the biggest market share at 25%, followed by HP (20%) and Dell (15%). Windows has roughly 70% of the OS market.

 

[SwitchBack]

In sales, Apple only has 9.2% of the global personal computer market in terms of units sold. The 14% figure relates to OS market share for October 2025 only - it's market share is normally very close to the units-sold figure. Lenovo has the biggest market share at 25%, followed by HP (20%) and Dell (15%). Windows has roughly 70% of the OS market.

This is not to start a debate here, I just want to point out that these numbers don't tell the whole story.

Firstly these are overall sales numbers with no regard for intended use of units sold. Audio production is a bit of a niche market for, frankly, not the cheapest computers available. The lower end of the PC market simply doesn't cut the butter here. Secondly we shouldn't be talking about units sold but about units in use. Apple computers tend to have long lives, and then a second life. How different from the average fleet laptop.

So, the more interesting numbers would show the OS count for DAW installations, from the DAW developers themselves. Gregor's initial estimate will have been influenced by that. But I seriously doubt that those numbers will ever be made publicly available.

 

[Craig Anderton]

This is not to start a debate here, I just want to point out that these numbers don't tell the whole story.

Traditionally, the Mac's market share in the music industry has been far greater than its market share overall.

 

[Jeff]

When I first saw the video, I thought, 18 month upgrades, I'd spend the $150 to that as long as SO remains competitive to Cubase. Why, I want real upgrades that either make SO easier, better, or to integrate AI a section at a time. He seems to imply that something will happen soon.

 

[Brop]

Considering plugin and instrument developers generally cite about a 50/50 PC to Mac split I think that's a bit more indicative. S1 probably does lean more PC because of Logic but I highly doubt Mac is below 20%.

 

[Crossinger]

S1 probably does lean more PC because of Logic but I highly doubt Mac is below 20%.

Logic Pro is also currently struggling with its user base, with numerous unfixed bugs (e.g., ARA does not work with Apple Silicon), few new features, and a lack of general improvements that the community has been demanding for a long time. The usually scheduled update expected at end of November has also not been released. The user base is grumbling.

(Disclaimer: I'm currently not a Logic user, but with my M4 Mac I was tempted to switch back to Logic. But at the current situation it does not look like a good idea.)

 

[SwitchBack]

Here's a story about a Dutch steel factory, where every craftsman in the instrument workshop had exclusive use of a personal lathe. Precision lathes were/are big, heavy and very expensive machines, but on reaching retirement every craftsman was allowed to keep his lathe, delivered at his home compliments of the company. Where at first glance this looked like just a very generous gesture of a company to loyal employees there were two twists that made the story interesting to me, and worth remembering.

Firstly, after many years of use and wear lathes start to show play, to a point where a successor craftsman would need a new and probably more modern lathe anyway to produce anything good.

Secondly (and the reason the old lathe wasn’t replaced sooner), having worked with that one lathe his entire career the old craftsman would know it like the back of his hand and he could, despite wear and play, use it with the precision of a brand new lathe. Craftsman indeed!

DAWs, with all the features they offer nowadays, are still just a tool, not a goal. It surprises me every time how much emphasis there is on upgrades at updates, the whole DAW getting shunned when there isn’t enough new stuff to get excited about. In my book bug fixes and improved stability win over new features every time, especially when the latter get in the way of the former.