Consolidating music software. What do you think?

Lately a lot of effort is going into making product/item pages better and more useful. To that end, I want to ask you all specifically about music software.

It's no secret some level of consolidation needs to happen. Try searching for "fender telecaster" on the site and you'll know what I mean 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

We want to bite off software first, bc it might be the most clear-cut case. Here's the premise to discuss:

There's not much value in old/unavailable/previous version software.

Think about something like iZotope Nectar or FL Studio. We're thinking of consolidating the reviews and pro artist usage of ALL the different versions and editions into one master page per each software. Why are we doing that? Because

1. old software is typically hard to get (outside of torrents maybe), and
2. software generally improves pretty drastically with every revision.

The majority of the pro artists on EB spotted using an older software version are not bc someone spotted that exact version, it just happened to be the latest version at the time.

I know there is maybe a little archival/historical reasoning to keep old versions intact, but if these item pages are to get better, we posit that it's better to see a lot of artists and reviewers that have used any version of the software, as opposed to keeping track of the spaghetti mess of granular versions and editions.

I also know this breaks down a little at the review level - perhaps someone was reviewing features in iZotope Nectar 2 that have been changed in version 3. To combat that, we are thinking to add a little note to the bottom of each review referencing the version, before we consolidate them. So as you are reading through reviews, at the bottom you will see a little note like "This review was written about [specific version]"

So, basically this means we will maintain one "master" page that mostly represents the latest version - e.g. FL Studio 20 - and to a lesser extent it also represents older versions, though again we believe those are less important in the big scheme of making Equipboard be a useful resource. We will ask that if anyone is submitting the "master" software item to a pro artist, or writing a review of it, that they just mention in the review/sub if it's a specific older version or edition.

Does anyone have any huge issues with this? Or can you live with it?

I'm 3+ years deep into Equipboard, and this will easily be my favorite improvement you guys have made in this span. I thought this day might never come... oh these aren't tears, the sun got in my eyes... I swear! ;)

I'm 100% behind the greater good of getting a single consolidated artist tally for each of the major DAWs. The compromises will be worth it.

That said, I have 2 questions:

1. Will there be anything put in place, technically or otherwise, to prevent users from constantly creating new gear entries for different software versions and editions?

2. It's reasonable for a user to want to display their DAW edition, and maybe their version # on their own Equipboard. Is there anyway, in this new single-entry world, that DAW edition and version # can still be displayed, somehow, on our personal EBs?

There's a reason people put their DAW version # in their signature in other forums; it saves people the trouble of asking exactly what they're using when someone is having an issue. I realize EB's current focus isn't on being a community where people ask for tips and advice @ the volume and depth of old-guard music production forums, and that may not ever be a goal here, but I often check people's EBs when they ask questions, and being able to say things like, "hey, there's a good compressor in the edition/version of DAW X that you've got, give it a try before buying something more"... well, it's cool.

So yeah, back to the big picture, I love this proposal and what it will do for DAW gear pages. What edition/version Martin Garrix is on isn't that relevant, he's got the most expensive edition and the latest version, like every other megastar... but letting users display their DAW edition and version #, easily, on their personal EB still has value, and if there is anyway to preserve that metadata behind the scenes, and continue to capture it for new personal EB entries and reviews, for the benefit of deeper features down the road... well, that would be great.

EDIT: down the road, handling reviews the way Amazon does, where you can filter down to just see reviews from people who have the exact same make/model you are interested in... well that would be awesome. I realize very few products here have a volume of reviews that would necessitate that sort of thing right now... but it would be a shame to add something like that 5 years from now, and not have the edition/version metadata from the first decade of EB reviews available.

excellent.... my suggestion (and this could work in a modified form for any item) is a drop down for each major DAW that allows you to select either the version number, 'long time user' assuming its an artist who has been with that software for multiple updates, or 'unspecified' if you don't know and can't find out

I´m totally up for this. Good idea 4 improvement.

As long as we could still sub-identify the specific editions, I wouldn't mind. I enjoy the historical posterity that the separation currently provides.

excellent.... my suggestion (and this could work in a modified form for any item) is a drop down for each major DAW that allows you to select either the version number, 'long time user' assuming its an artist who has been with that software for multiple updates, or 'unspecified' if you don't know and can't find out

Basically this.

As long as we could still sub-identify the specific editions, I wouldn't mind. I enjoy the historical posterity that the separation currently provides.

excellent.... my suggestion (and this could work in a modified form for any item) is a drop down for each major DAW that allows you to select either the version number, 'long time user' assuming its an artist who has been with that software for multiple updates, or 'unspecified' if you don't know and can't find out

Basically this.

he lives

I'm so stoked you all are on board with this. Working on the code as we speak, then it'll probably take a few days to get the major softwares consolidated.

Great ideas all around. You all convinced us to save the "old version association" along with the review/sub, just so we have that info until we decide the best way to use it on the font-end for filtering or whatever.

ps. Yes indeed the one and only eyesee lives 🙌

did you say filtering? Low pass filtering?

did you manage to get that mixer serviced yet?

did you say filtering? Low pass filtering?

I was thinking more parametric.

notch/peaking then, eh?

notch/peaking then, eh?

Exactly. I may want to suppress Ableton Live Standard frequencies around in the 7 - 10kHz range & boost Live Suite around 11kHz. Results will sizzle.

did you manage to get that mixer serviced yet?

Long story short, no.

email me, I'll make it right.... its only money, I'll straighten this out for you, I feel bad; j i m m a r c h i @ gmail.com no spaces obviously.... I'll even give you my cell via email we can fix this man

Exactly. I may want to suppress Ableton Live Standard frequencies around in the 7 - 10kHz range & boost Live Suite around 11kHz. Results will sizzle.

might need a maag for true sizzle

The consolidation has begun!!

Starting with smaller software just to test out the data integrity. We took all your advice and reviews are 'tagged' with an older version, if the review happened to come from an older version.

(We are storing the old version tag for artist subs as well, but only showing it on reviews for now)

iZotope Nectar and iZotope Neutron have been completed. You can see the little "latest version" tag below the item name, that tells you the software has been rolled up into a master version.

https://i.imgur.com/w4Nta3r.jpg

If you all are so inclined, we'd love help identifying families of software versions that need to be unified. I'm aware of the big DAWs, but other things like iZotope RX I'm less familiar with... do all those need to be one!? 😯

If you all are so inclined, we'd love help identifying families of software versions that need to be unified. I'm aware of the big DAWs, but other things like iZotope RX I'm less familiar with... do all those need to be one!? 😯

I'm in your boat as I'm very analog and if i want a real master I go to Jeff Lipton, one of the Tarsia bros or Phil Nicolo.... no t-racks or izotope here, although I do have that one suite of repair tools that denoises, declicks and pops etc, whatever it is..... you get some weird, wildly messed up stuff as a mixer as it turns out, I have no control over the screwy stuff that people record... but otherwise I've gone 90% analog at this point

If you all are so inclined, we'd love help identifying families of software versions that need to be unified. I'm aware of the big DAWs, but other things like iZotope RX I'm less familiar with... do all those need to be one!? 😯

Took a quick look at how RX family has evolved, here's what I came up with:

https://imgur.com/HLVts0l

Anything with the RX name that doesn't match the editions listed here is most likely a plugin within one or more of the editions.

I think this consolidation is a great idea. On several occasions I have not entered software "gear" for an artist, because when an interview says "I use cubase because I like the workflow" I have no idea which version they are referring to. I'm not interested in tracking down the current version at the time of the interview, and even if I did, maybe they weren't talking about the latest, maybe they didn't upgrade to the latest, for reasons. I'd rather not make a bad guess that might be wrong, so I just don't submit it.

Also, as mentioned already, while I might be interested in getting exactly the pedal or synth an artist used on some album, if I learn that DJ Wotsit used some old version of Logic in 2001, I'm not going to track down the ancient version to try and replicate "that sound". Personally, I don't care if somebody used bitwig 3.1 rather than 3.2, it's probably not significant.

tl;dr this is great

Personally, I don't care if somebody used bitwig 3.1 rather than 3.2, it's probably not significant.

exactly.