Sequencer Wars: Who's Winning?

Just ran a quick comparison of the first few popular audio/midi editors that came to mind using Google Trends which shows what search-words are on the rise, or on the fall... a barometer of popularity, ya could say.

I punched-in: Cubase, Cakewalk, Ableton and Pro Tools. The results are listed below.

Losers:

Cubase started from a high in early 2004 and has seemingly experienced a steady decline ever since apart from a few short-lived spikes; most notably in late 2004 when the news graph shows that Steinberg announced an update to Cubase SX 3.0.1

(I initially thought this result was quite odd so I performed other searches based around the [Cubase ] search-word to see if there was a correlation... and there is! The search trends for Cubase SX and VST pretty much match the same downward trend as above.)

Cakewalk shows an even more dramatic fall. It starts from a higher spike than Cubase at the start of 2004, but ends lower than it did in the last quarter of 2006!

(Still a bit sceptical, I ran another for Cakewalk SONAR Although there's been a more volatile ride, ithe graph shows a similar start and end-point as above.)

Winners:

Ableton on average, has experienced a steady rise in search volume all through the timeline, reflecting its new-kid-on-the-block rise into the mind-share of electronic musicians.

Flatlining:

Pro Tools does end at a slightly lower point than when the resultset began, but the trend-line itself is pretty much even when you look at the spikes it has seen. However, 2006 shows a fairly strong downward trend that is seemingly breaking-away from the rest of the line!

Conclusion:

Heh! I wouldn't dare make conclusions on this... apart from the one I've missed out which shows another interesting picture:

Looking at all the trend-lines put together in one graph shows that Cubase still tops the popularity table, despite its downward spiral. Pro Tools is second but as for Cakewalk...!

Cakewalk began in second place, below Cubase in 2004. In 2005, Cakewalk slipped below Pro Tools. In the second quarter of last year (2006), Ableton broke above Cakewalk's line and has just about managed to remain in third position for the entire last quarter too!

This puts Cakewalk last! That's a mighty fall in two years so what's gone on there then?!

You can view all the trend results for cubase, cakewalk, pro tools, ableton in one graph

As I intimated at the start, it was just a few quick searches I slammed-in out of interest. Read into the results, as you will.

Interesting though huh?