How does music software work?

0:51 welcome back to love music more.Today I want to talk a little bit about the musical ecosystem, the products that go into

1:16 making music, production, and I want to kick it off with the reason why I'm inspiredto talk about this today, the iLok.For those of you that don't know what the iLok is, I'm so happy for you.That's a great place to be in your life.Unfortunately, I have had to deal with this thing since I started using Pro Tools inlike 2009, and it's awful.

1:40 Essentially, what it is is it's a little USB stick that you must always have pluggedinto your computer in order to use any of the software that you rightfully purchased.And so right now I'm recording on Ableton Live, something I'm not very familiar with becauseI left my iLok at my in-laws place during the holidays because I am a stupid and I liketo bring my recording gear everywhere I go.

2:04 And of course, when I bring my recording stuff everywhere I go, I'm going to makesome mistakes.And I did.And so that means I've got six hours of driving coming up very soon to pick up something thatliterally should be able to be authenticated just simply through my browser.But why did we get here?It's because the music industry is so, so scared of piracy because music was one of the first

2:29 targets of piracy across the board.Not just piracy in terms of like Napster or Pirate Bay recording, recorded music, givingthat out through torrenting, but also music software, so cracked software, which I actuallythink got a bad rap and we've gotten kind of further away from to some degree.

2:55 But essentially what it was was waves, one of the top plugin companies, used to have theirmercury level, which is like their highest level plugins floating around the internet cracked,meaning anybody could download it, anybody could use it.However, those cracked plugins created so much music out there in the industry and onboarded

3:21 so many people into music production that in a lot of ways, waves benefited from a bunchof users basically getting a free trial of their plugins.I know that they wouldn't agree with that because clearly all of their policies thereafterhave been so scared of that happening again.And I understand why because they look at it and they they calculate all of these people

3:47 if they would have bought our $10,000 mercury package, we would have made millions of dollars.But in reality, a lot of the people that were using that stuff were like 20 year oldsthat had no other choice.They didn't have access to studio grade audio plugins.Same deal with Pro Tools.Pro Tools is terrified of people using their software without consent, without authentication,without a frickin' iLok.

4:13 Here I am, I pay my whatever $350 a year plus every year since 2009 and I forget my iLok once, which is super, super rare.I hold that thing in highest regard and because I'm scared of this exact situation.But it's funny because now I'm having to learn Ableton because they locked me out of Pro Tools.And if you don't know what Ableton is, it's just a competitor of Pro Tools, it's anotherDAW.

4:41 Something that's more in vogue, but do you know why?It doesn't require an iLok.They're not scared.And I think that there's something to be said about everything, really, like competition,creativity, making things, having a company, being scared versus being aggressive, tryingstuff, understanding that you might lose in the short term in terms of revenue likethe Waves Mercury.

5:08 But if you lean into that moment and you instead treat that as an opportunity for a lot ofpeople all around the world to start using the stuff that you made, they're going tobecome loyal customers if you treat that well.Waves did not.They did not handle it super well.And I have watched them as a company fall.You know, they're still important, they're still big, a lot of people still use their stuff.

5:32 But they have not been able to keep up with a lot of the young gun plug-in companies becausethey haven't leaned in, you know, even stuff like aberrant DSP, which is a really smallplug-in company.And most of their stuff is like $25 or $50 Valhalla Reverb, same deal, $50.They are just beloved brands because they keep it simple.And a lot of plug-in companies realized that authentication is a rabbit hole.

5:59 It's something that you can end up losing customers if you obsess over too much.The people that are going to pirate are going to pirate anyway.And a lot of the people that pirate early on are the people that do not pirate later.Because think about it, if you're using pirated software, you're not working in a commercialsetting.You're not allowed to use pirated software on a commercially released record.

6:24 That's typically part of the contract that you sign as a producer.So you're working on underground stuff.They should be able to do stuff for cheap.And so the authentication ends up cutting off almost like the upstream talent, the peoplethat are underground coming up, and then frustrating the professional talent.

6:47 Because honestly, like I would pay an extra $50 a hundred bucks a year, maybe more.If I could just use Pro Tools like a normal trusted adult, like I don't have to plugin the stupid USB stick.And then it would just reduce the overall anxiety of my life.So honestly, I might even pay more to not have to be like my precious iLok USB stick.If I lose this, I lose all productivity until the dreaded day comes right now.

7:14 And you know what?I'm going to figure out how to use Ableton.And next time I make a song, will I open Pro Tools, or will I open Ableton?We'll see.We'll see how well this goes.But I would have never gotten here if Pro Tools didn't create the situation that whereI go on my Thanksgiving holiday, I forget my backpack.And now I cannot use your service that I've been using dutifully for like decades.

7:41 But that's part of the interesting weirdness of music products in general.Is that it is simultaneously a very future forward industry.It's invented a lot of great things.Like even lay away pricing and like pay as you go, a lot of that was invented in musicstores.It is also a scrappy, small industry, one where people are scared, where software is always

8:07 being invented, but rarely to like the scale of a Google or an Apple.We have some versions of those, like you can think like native instruments.A lot of those though are catering towards a different subset of music and recordingfolks.And I think that that's also part of what's going on with Pro Tools.

8:27 Pro Tools is owned by Avid, which is a like movie, an audio visual kind of company.And so I think that there's an edge of like, why would anyone possibly bring their Pro Toolson a laptop when we have the million dollar studio, you know, like just like an out oftouch energy versus Ableton is just like, we're made for DJs, take it where you go.

8:53 That kind of energy I think holds music back, but also the sense of like kind of chaosand following where the money is because a lot of them are trying to go for like, yeah,movie studios, post production, composers, like if people want to buy $15,000 synth stringlibraries.

9:16 It's just like a very different mentality and way of creating versus the at home creatoror somebody like me, you know, I got to be on the move, I got to be flexible.And I think that that's that's part of the rub is that a lot of these companies chasethe big whales and then ignore us fish.And maybe honestly, maybe that's just like a thing outside in the world right now that

9:38 I'm feeling of just the little guy is getting deprioritized, like richer people are drivingmore of the economy.And I think you're starting to see it like VIP lines and every little like surchargeand stuff to be comfortable or to skip the line.All those things it has been the reality and music for quite a long time where the coolest

10:03 stuff is dedicated towards those with the biggest budgets and those that are more likeenterprise, more like institutions, like if you are, if you're going to be puttingtogether an opera house or a performing arts center or something like that, people aregoing to bend over backwards.Obviously, there's big, big tickets, but there's just like a different level of service

10:24 and thinking about the customer because the customer's got deep pockets versus peoplelike, you know, producers that I think a lot of companies kind of take for granted andthere might even be opportunity there just like I'm seeing with Ableton.Who knows what music is going to look like in 10, 15 years what the creation is goingto be like, I don't know if AI is going to be a big part of it, but AI at the very

10:48 least is going to make it easier to make like, approachals.You know, I don't know if it requires as much bloat as it has.It's sometimes nice to be able to dip into those deeper features, but that is a companythat just kind of feels like it just builds on top of itself over and over and over againwithout ever reinventing.And so I'm worried about it.

11:10 And I'm also kind of worried about hitching my ship to that, the more that I, it's almostlike, have you ever left your phone behind?And then you have that feeling of like, wow, my phone was stressing me out.I kind of feel that a little bit with Pro Tools, we're going to see how this week goes.And if it goes really bad, I'm going to be driving at 6 p.m. up to LA to grab my backback and get home after midnight.

11:34 If it goes really well, you know, maybe I'll be an Ableton guy from here out.We shall see.But I say all of that just as like a little vignette into one of the many things that musiciansgo through.And that's part of the reason why I even started this podcast, love music more.It's not necessarily like rant or to tear down Pro Tools.Like really, I do love the service and I use it all the time.I use it religiously.

11:56 But there are others out there.What I really want to show though is like that deeper look at what everybody's dealingwith.Not just like, wow, the tour is so good.It's also like, you know, I'm on my 15th Crunch Wrap Supreme of the last two weeks.Like those kind of stories and vignettes are part of the reason why I started this podcastbecause I really believe that people will love music more if they know more about it

12:19 and know kind of what goes into it.And this is one of the weird things that goes into it.Like you wouldn't even know.And maybe next time you look in a recording studio, like vlog or video or whatever, you mightsee that little stupid iLok dongle, little silver USB stick stuck into the computerbecause without it, you rip that out of the producer's computer and everything crashesimmediately.How stupid is that?

12:41 It's not a spaceship.It's just recording software.Love you record.I don't know, but I think these things are interesting and interesting little vignettesinto, you know, what producers up against.And if you're a recording artist, you might see the producer scrambling through theirbag.They might be looking for their iLok kind of kind of looks like it's a very stressfulexperience.I know.

13:05 I've lived it and I'm currently living it.If you enjoy this podcast, I invite you to check out the other episodes, some great guestscoming up.And we're going to talk about things that are more fun and engaging perhaps than iLok,but maybe not more dramatic.If you want to hear my music that I've made mostly on Pro Tools and maybe for the future

13:24 on Ableton, you can go to scoobertdoobert.pizza to hear all my links or just search Scoobert Doobert on Spotify or Google.If you enjoy the podcast, please share it with friends, throw it a five star, and I willsee you next week.