We need feedback on our new studio management software

[hanskuder]

Hi everybody,

I'm the lead developer of GainStudio, a brand new tool for project management, scheduling, and time tracking in recording studios. We just launched and are looking for feedback from the pro audio community.

GainStudio is subscription-based, but we have a free plan for amateurs and small project studios. Please check out the website, try out the free plan, and let me know what you think. If you do end up wanting to upgrade to a paid plan, you can use the TAPEOP discount code to get 50% off your first month.

Thanks a lot from a long-time TapeOp subscriber!

[kingmetal]

I will check your service out sometime next week in my downtime, but honestly this is a product that I would absolutely love to use but could never see paying that kind of money for. Your basic rate isn't totally unreasonable, I suppose, but a featureset like that is worth $10 a month to me. Same problem I have with soundcloud, I'd love to use it for my studio but there is just no way I can figure out how it costs so much damn money.

And that unlimited plan, sheesh!

Personally, Google Calendar and drop.io works pretty well for free -- and while it certainly doesn't cover even half the features your service does, most of my bands aren't really techn-savvy anyway and this kind of thing would frighten and confuse them.

Sorry to direct this rant at you, like I said the basic plan is pretty reasonable, but being a technology guy I can't figure out how all of these premium services keep popping up with this big price tags. I guess I'm not buying Neumann's either so I should probably just sit down and shut up!

[hanskuder]

Thanks for your reply, kingmetal. We're still experimenting with our pricing model, so I really appreciate the feedback on that. In fact, the single biggest point we've been getting from people is that GainStudio looks great but is too expensive. So we lowered our prices - you can check them out at http://gainstudio.com/plans. Where it's at now isn't final by any means, but we're curious to see what people think of this level.

The unlimited plan is expensive, yes, but it's targeted at very large film and broadcast companies that have a dozen or more rooms/suites and lots of staff.

I'm curious - what size studio do you run? If the free plan isn't quite flexible enough for you, would there be a size in between the Free and Basic plans that would suit your needs?

Again, thanks for the response!

[Gentleman Jim]

... honestly this is a product that I would absolutely love to use but could never see paying that kind of money for.

... a featureset like that is worth $10 a month to me.

...I'd love to use it for my studio but there is just no way I can figure out how it costs so much damn money.

And that unlimited plan, sheesh!

Personally, Google Calendar and drop.io works pretty well for free...

Well that's all well and good, but in the world of office management software this stuff is CHEAP. The two branch insurance agency where I worked for 10 years paid $70,000 by the time the smoke cleared for a software/training package for producing and tracking insurance commitments and policies, and it was basically just a GUI that got stuck over Microsoft Office. The license was good for 5 years I think.

When you get into a situation where you have multiple rooms being used at different times by multiple people, the number of moving parts can get out of control quickly. The potential lost revenue for mistakes or sloppiness is much higher than the cost of the solution to avoid it.

Add to that the ability to export information directly to Quickbooks, which could potentially save hundreds of dollars a month in bookkeeping costs alone. And then the file sharing system on top of that. It looks like a powerful system.

And of course, it's a business expense.

[hanskuder]

When you get into a situation where you have multiple rooms being used at different times by multiple people, the number of moving parts can get out of control quickly. The potential lost revenue for mistakes or sloppiness is much higher than the cost of the solution to avoid it.

Exactly. I've seen large studios that don't have a system like this in place, and the attempts to coordinate things through Excel spreadsheets or paper calendars are nothing short of controlled chaos.

We're aiming to be more than just a scheduling system for large facilities, though. We plan on releasing features soon that will directly help smaller operations: track sheet creation and storage, more tools for managing client relationships, and tools to streamline the process of sending mixes/bounces to clients for review.[/quote]

[Ron's Brother]

****warning.... don't take this the wrong way.... and lots of speeling/grammer mistakes below**********

besides having specific terms for music; how is this any different then using Microsoft excel, calendar, access etc? From a marketing standpoint you should address this major challenge.... WHY ARE YOU BETTER. Come up with a three sentence statement and put it right up front because this is the question everyone will be asking. your first page has this info but it is on the bottom... move it to the top! If you are trying to advertise teh general info should be viewalbe on one page.

the free service is not even worth trying out. I have more then one active project... at least two.. a month. and I am a just doing this as a hobby. If you are looking to get people to use it and then add on when the find out how great it is; I would suggest reducing the storage and upping the active projects. As It is, I am not even going to bother signing up.

Also, How could it possible cost 19 bucks a month for the service???? you offer 5 active projects and some storage? My internet provider give me tons more then that for 30 bucks a month.

the web coding is not laid out well. I would hesitate to spend my money with a company for a service I think has a poor web layout. I am referring to the "tour" specially. break it up into multiple pages. best feature first, and so on. Not one long page. Based on the author script in the HTMl, it appears you are the design layout person, owner and creator of the software? i would suggest getting a marketing rep to help you out. Although this service might be great and wonderful the marketing from teh website does not draw you in. work on that.

[LazarusLong]

I, for one, like it quite a bit. It looks professional and thorough. $14/mo is TOTALLY reasonable, and probably even worth it for a 1 man operation to keep his schedule tight. Also, can help with billing at the end as you have a clear record of when you worked on what if you do an hourly rate.

Anyway, thanks! That is a great product.

EDIT: I feel like a way to tweak the free version is to allow 2 projects (and probably cut the free space available or something). This way, it's easier to get a sense for how the two different projects interact. This may show the value of the system more and make it easier for an unsure buyer to move into the paid versions.

[@?,*???&?]

With the average income of a freelance recording engineer being around $23,000, why would they pay for this service?

If they are savvy enough to use a computer to record audio, then they are certainly savvy enough to have a book keeping system.

Not sure what the market is for this- especially at a subscription rate!

[Ron's Brother]

With the average income of a freelance recording engineer being around $23,000, why would they pay for this service?

If they are savvy enough to use a computer to record audio, then they are certainly savvy enough to have a book keeping system.

Not sure what the market is for this- especially at a subscription rate!

+1

that was sort of my point... you made it clearer and with less words.

[Z-Plane]

Discussing the price with reference to broke engineers is a fair point, but there are whole other tiers of budgets and requirements not represented here at all. Some facilities would think nothing of the top-level subscription if it saved the money and time as promised, and that's the clinch. For a medium to large facility that has yet to fine tune its schedules, Gainstudio could be ideal, especially for post-prod stuff which is often doubly busy and punctual.

[Gentleman Jim]

With the average income of a freelance recording engineer being around $23,000, why would they pay for this service?

If they are savvy enough to use a computer to record audio, then they are certainly savvy enough to have a book keeping system.

Not sure what the market is for this- especially at a subscription rate!

I'll take your post point by point.

Is that $23,000 figure from a reliable source? Because I made more than that last year and I didn't state my gross income to any database. Perhaps there are more people like me out there.

Yes, I'm savvy enough to have a bookkeeping system, but I don't have the inclination to use it. Lucky for me, my wife enjoys Quickbooks as much as I enjoy Logic. Perhaps others didn't marry spouses who are so inclined. To them, GainStudio would be worth looking into; it could take a few different tasks that they might not enjoy and make the aggregate effort easier.

Not sure what the market is?! Are you kidding? You spent years working out of large studios in the LA area and you don't understand what this is?! It's a replacement for some of the administrative personnel that ran those studios. It means that for the studio manager doesn't have to hire someone at $600/week to run Excel for equipment tracking, Quickbooks for bookkeeping data entry, and Outlook for scheduling. When you factor in payroll taxes and benefits, that employee costs more like $900 a week. So how does that $399 a month look now?

I can't believe that you are so tunnel-visioned. Just because you don't need it right now, obviously the software is useless and should be trashed. If I have no use for a 72 input SSL, does that mean they are stupid and shouldn't be manufactured? To me, you look that dumb from your post.

[Gentleman Jim]

****warning.... don't take this the wrong way.... and lots of speeling/grammer mistakes below**********

besides having specific terms for music; how is this any different then using Microsoft excel, calendar, access etc? From a marketing standpoint you should address this major challenge.... WHY ARE YOU BETTER. Come up with a three sentence statement and put it right up front because this is the question everyone will be asking. your first page has this info but it is on the bottom... move it to the top! If you are trying to advertise teh general info should be viewalbe on one page.

the free service is not even worth trying out. I have more then one active project... at least two.. a month. and I am a just doing this as a hobby. If you are looking to get people to use it and then add on when the find out how great it is; I would suggest reducing the storage and upping the active projects. As It is, I am not even going to bother signing up.

Also, How could it possible cost 19 bucks a month for the service???? you offer 5 active projects and some storage? My internet provider give me tons more then that for 30 bucks a month.

the web coding is not laid out well. I would hesitate to spend my money with a company for a service I think has a poor web layout. I am referring to the "tour" specially. break it up into multiple pages. best feature first, and so on. Not one long page. Based on the author script in the HTMl, it appears you are the design layout person, owner and creator of the software? i would suggest getting a marketing rep to help you out. Although this service might be great and wonderful the marketing from teh website does not draw you in. work on that.

When you make "speeling" [sic] mistakes in your posts, the TOMB software underlines them in red. Right click on those words and you'll be offered viable alternatives. As for the "grammer," [sic] we'll just have to accept our decline as a civilization.

The value proposition of this software as far as I can see is that it performs all the functions of the software you mentioned, but the formulas, macros, etc. are prepared for the user. Additionally, it's web-based, so people can access, edit, and contribute to their information where and when they want.

I like having the entire tour on one page. It was much easier to go up and down the page to cross-reference than it would be to click 'next/back' buttons. It's 2010, get down with the blog format already. It's better for mobile devices, and that's a huge consideration.

Your internet provider gives you storage and specially designed software for $30 a month? Then I guess you already subscribe to a service just like this. What? They just offer you some storage space? Well that's not an apples-to-apples comparison then, is it?

If you don't need it badly enough for $14 a month, then you really just don't need it. (Did they lower the price of the basic tier by 25% since you posted this?) But that's no reason to trash it. Maybe you could have found something nice to say about the product.

[joel hamilton]

Jim,
your example of the SSL is perfect. thanks for the eloquent rebuttals.

I agree with you.
I dont use this software, but I have a manager and an assistant that do the things that software offers someone. I pay them both for that convenience, and it adds up to quite a bit more than 399 a month, I assure you.

[kingmetal]

Thanks for your reply, kingmetal. We're still experimenting with our pricing model, so I really appreciate the feedback on that. In fact, the single biggest point we've been getting from people is that GainStudio looks great but is too expensive. So we lowered our prices - you can check them out at http://gainstudio.com/plans. Where it's at now isn't final by any means, but we're curious to see what people think of this level.

The unlimited plan is expensive, yes, but it's targeted at very large film and broadcast companies that have a dozen or more rooms/suites and lots of staff.

I'm curious - what size studio do you run? If the free plan isn't quite flexible enough for you, would there be a size in between the Free and Basic plans that would suit your needs?

Again, thanks for the response!

Thanks for listening to my feedback (which as I re-read it now sounds more like late-night ranting). I run a VERY small studio (single room, single engineer) but end up running about 3 active projects at any one time. The $14/month plan seems a pretty reasonable, and I'll test out your free plan this weekend.

Hell, I'll sign up for it right now and poke around with it while I'm at work. Only one of my projects is going to truly be active in the next month while I regroup, so I'll throw her to the dogs and try to use your service to schedule the first few sessions.

EDIT: hmm, seems to be in BETA? put my e-mail in, hopefully I'll get sign up instructions soon!

[blackdiscoball]

Heres some feedback after using it for a little bit. I think the equipment sections should have an option for instruments, even if its just instrument but guitar, piano, drum, etc. would be nice.