Music Software Popularity

The second Music Software Popularity Index for the second quarter of 2009 has arrived from the Digital Doctor website. The ten most popular music software products, based on recent search engine activity, are:

PRODUCT (INDEX)
1. DigiDesign Pro Tools (13.3)
2. Steinberg Cubase (10.2)
3. FL Studio (8.3)
4. Cakewalk Sonar (7.1)
5. Apple Logic (4.5)
6. Adobe Audition (3.8)
7. Ableton Live (3.5)
8. Apple GarageBand (3.3)
9. Sony Sound Forge (2.9)
10. Sony Acid (2.8)
11. Band-In-A-Box

12. MOTU Digital Prformer

13. Propellerhead Reason

14. Steinberg Wavelab

15. Steinberg Nuendo

This index is based on quarterly Internet search activity on Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN. Collectively these 4 search engines represent more than 95% of the searches on the Internet. Over 100 search terms are used to construct this index, and 15 music software products are tracked. An annual average of the past four quarters is also included for comparison.

I've used a lot of these software packages myself. I was a Digital Performer user from version 1.0 until I switched to version 1.0 of Nuendo. Played around with Cubase, Logic and Reason for a while, and actually did a few television cues in GarageBand. Recently got into using Ableton Live a bit too.

But after many years of trying to avoid Pro Tools, I finally gave in 3 or 4 years ago and never looked back. Pro Tools is the de facto standard in just about every major studio, every professional audio production, and every post house. It's cheap and easy to get into, and with version 8, it's assimilated the best parts of virtually every other DAW out there, not to mention rock solid in function (I never had a crash yet).

Although it's great to have competition in the marketplace, if you want to work in pro situations, you have to be well-versed in Pro Tools.

Additional details are available at the Digital Music Doctor website.