alt Hacker NewsI remember these were the software programs that had no good alternative back in the day.
SketchUp, after Google offloaded it, became paid software.
All these FL Studio, Ableton, etc.
SketchUp has already been cloned as Ketchup. I wonder if FL Studio and Ableton will soon be cloned?
pretty sure someone is already doing egui rust clone.
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FL Studio is the most ethically licensed software I've ever used. In 2002, I paid $150 and have received lifetime updates since then. No ads, no renewal fees, no nerfing of my license to push me into a higher tier. Just the latest version every time it came out, from v3.4 to v26.
Contrast w/ Ableton, where you pay about that much every upgrade. Or something egregious like Adobe.
I'm actually rooting for FL Studio to NOT be cloned, respect to the way they ran their business, hope people pay them their money.
I think DAWs at the level of Ableton live are going to be hard to replicate, and at best, they will be a toy for not serious producers... Imagine working for 80 to 120 hours into a project that has 120 tracks and then the whole thing crashes on you. Not saying this cannot happen with Live (that's why it does backups on the background). What I'm saying is that companies like Ableton earn me more trust because I know they are serious about their work and more reliable.
I mean, vibecoded apps can be fine if you are editing just an image, or a small video you are editing for nothing serious, as a beginner, etc.. but for people that is serious about making videos or making songs that take a lot of effort and time, paying 159 euros to upgrade every 3 to 4 years is a no-brainer (I already pre-ordered it).
The hard part will be getting the sounds right. There are some that are public domain but to reach parity would need someone who knows audio.
I think Real Time Audio is hard to get right. Creating a Digital Audio Workstatio (DAW) was what inspired the creation of Zig - the creator felt that it was such a difficult problem that current languages weren't sufficient. I bet it will be less trivial for AI to clone Abelton than the Adobe suite.