Behringer has announced plans to make a free DAW and VST plugins.
Not content with cornering the classic synth and drum machine clone market, the German music manufacturer Behringer is making a play for the music software space. In a post published today on Facebook, Behringer announced that it is creating Music Tribe DAW, a digital audio workstation that will include samples, factory VSTs, and third party plug-in capability.
“This is a massive undertaking, which will take at least 18 months and for that purpose we have now assembled a large development team,” Behringer noted. “Our goal is to include the very best features available, including multiple user interfaces for both recording and DJ.”
Although the announcement is notably scant on specifics, Behringer is encouraging people to offer input on their preferred DAW platforms and features.
“Our opportunity is that we have no legacy platform to maintain, which will allow us to think ‘blue sky’ and combine the ‘best of all worlds’,” said Behringer. “Best of all, the DAW will be FREE of charge! Our goal is to empower all musicians to record, mix, edit and publish their music.”
Behringer’s ambition here is intriguing. They just might be able to find a market with novice musicians, particularly those without the funds for fully-loaded versions of DAWs like FL Studio and Ableton Live. But even if Music Tribe DAW is a success, it will be difficult to pull longtime users away from professional DAW platforms.
In its press release, Behringer also announced its Music Tribe Market Place, an online store for buying and selling new and used gear. Although this news is almost a footnote in the company’s DAW announcement, it’s also significant. With Music Tribe Market Place, Behringer looks to be taking on the online marketplace space dominated by Reverb, eBay, and Facebook, and doing so by not charging users a transaction fee.