Guitarist, Pianist, Band - Limited Sale Offer!

[MooCowMusic]

To celebrate the release of our fantastic new music application 'Guitarist', and to increase visibility, all MooCowMusic apps (Band, Pianist, and Guitarist) will be available at bargain prices for a limited (but unspecified ) time. Grab them while you can.

The prices may take a day to filter through the treacle that is iTunes Central (an update to Guitarist has been 'In Review' for over a week), but look out for the limited promotional prices of:-
Band $1.99
Pianist $1.99
Guitarist $2.99

As in every other marketplace in the known universe, refunds relating to price cuts cannot be given. In the same way, when prices rise again, I won't come knocking on your door with an invoice. Fair enough?

Enjoy.
---
MooCowMusic

 

[gospel9]

This was not expected!
I am sorry but I am going to have to tell all my iphone buddies to buy your apps today


EDIT: what's the status on the drummer? ... based on this sale I suspect something good is coming... maybe a full music studio package that includes pianist, guitarist and drummer in one app?

 

[rockstarjoe]

Awesome deals! Not seeing it yet on the App Store but I know that can take a while.

Tell me, do you have any long term plans for an All-In-One suite of instruments? I know Band is sort of like this, but then it doesn't have the guitar. It seems like you could wrap everything together into one Super App that would be sort of a Garageband Lite.

Have you seen 4 Track Lite? Something like that would be great to have with the virtual instruments as well.

Just some ideas, love your stuff so far!

 

[mkrishnan]

I hadn't heard of your apps, but I did just check out your site. They sound like a lot of fun. They also seem very polished, and your website with the video demos is fantastic also.

 

[Rojo]

To celebrate the release of our fantastic new music application 'Guitarist', and to increase visibility, all MooCowMusic apps (Band, Pianist, and Guitarist) will be available at bargain prices for a limited (but unspecified ) time. Grab them while you can.

The prices may take a day to filter through the treacle that is iTunes Central (an update to Guitarist has been 'In Review' for over a week), but look out for the limited promotional prices of:-
Band $1.99
Pianist $1.99
Guitarist $2.99

Wow, these are great deals!
I've always been meaning to pick these up, but I've been trying to budget myself with apps, and there was always a shiny new game that caught my eye instead. But at these prices, how can I NOT pick one or more of these up?

Although they are still showing up as the original price for me -- so I'll keep checking back on them. I hope you have the sale for more than 12 hours (like Jaadu VNC -- when most people realized it was on sale, it was already over).

As in every other marketplace in the known universe, refunds relating to price cuts cannot be given. In the same way, when prices rise again, I won't come knocking on your door with an invoice. Fair enough?

Much appreciated!

what's the status on the drummer? ... based on this sale I suspect something good is coming... maybe a full music studio package that includes pianist, guitarist and drummer in one app?

I would love to see that, as I feel like BAND's instruments are too watered down for me -- though I like the idea of full-featured intsruments all in one app. Definitely going to try PIANIST first and maybe GUITARIST too for now, and download DRUMMER if and when it comes, as that would interest me the most (assuming I love the other two). I almost want to get BAND just for the drums, but going to hold off and see if a separate app comes. And if an all-in-one full-featured app comes, I'll kick myself -- but if it's REALLY amazing I might bite the bullet and buy that too...

 

[MooCowMusic]

what's the status on the drummer? ... based on this sale I suspect something good is coming.

1) "Something Good" = Guitarist. If I'd have been able to push that app through the AppStore when I finished it then there would have been no contest. Hopefully the reduced price will tempt some people to see what they've been missing.

2) "Drummer". Let's say that this will almost certainly be my next app. But before then I have a lot of exciting ideas for future Guitarist updates, so you'll all have to keep using BeatMaker for a few months yet.

do you have any long term plans for an All-In-One suite

Not really as the problem is the app size. I sized Band at under 10mb because I was strongly advised to for reasons of 3G downloading. But Guitarist is 53Mb, which is mainly the samples, but there are also a large number of graphics and screens in there. I don't dare do much bigger or I'd enter the realm of the "Sleep Sample" apps.

So I'd rather make an excellent Guitar application, and an excellent Piano application, than try to combine them into one less-excellent unifying applicaion. That "one" was Band, and is the reason why it is perceived more as a toy than as a serious music creation tool. There is just no way to cram an entire piano, guitar, drumkit, synth and so on into an iPhone at once and allow you complete musical freedom. But I think that the 12-bar-blues instrument alone in Band is absolutely worth it, even at full price. Certainly it got the best applause for all third-party apps demoed at WWDC. I would like to say that Band (being first released in May I think) was one of the original "Look at the cool thing my iPhone can do" applications.

I hope you have the sale for more than 12 hours

I'll keep the apps at the reduced price for a few days to see how sales are affected. I'm not going to commit to how many days because it is impossible to get any changes done in the AppStore in a timely fashion, and I've seen other developers get people's backs up by appearing to cheat the system and raise the price again "early". So if you want to buy them cheap then I wouldn't wait too long.

Mainly I'm doing this because I want more than a handful of people to try out Guitarist. But also it's an experiment in pricing. Perhaps $1.99 is the "new" $9.99? I'll have to see.

 

[arkitect]

£3.49?

 

[Rojo]

Not really as the problem is the app size.

Your explanation makes perfect sense, of course.
The only reason an all-in-one app might be good (besides cutting down the number of apps you have on your phone), would be the ability to overlap the various insruments together in a song -- something I'm not sure if even BAND is capable of? Perhaps instead of an all-in-one app WITH instruments, there can be an app that simply takes the music you make with each separate app and mixes them together? I think there are other apps that already do this, but it would be nice to have it all done by MooCowMusic. Might be too much of a mess to implement well, though.

But I think that the 12-bar-blues instrument alone in Band is absolutely worth it, even at full price.

It certainly looks impressive. Unfortunately it's the only one instrument that I do NOT want.

I'll keep the apps at the reduced price for a few days to see how sales are affected.

Oh that's more than enough! I just think these sales should go on for at least 24 hours to factor in various time zones/sleeping habits/App Store timing inconsistency. And a couple of days is an even better way to go...

 

[alansmallen]

I'm getting $5.99 for Band.

 

[MooCowMusic]

"All-In-One Apps"

Ideally, Apple would allow me to write an app like Band, and then offer separate downloadable (and chargeable) content for each additional instrument. That way the core app could be small and managable, but would be expandable. The app would then let you choose which of your downloaded instruments to load up at once (like the guitars in Guitarist) so you didn't go over the 35-ish mb runtime limit on the iPhone. You could then combine the instruments together and have a sort of Garage Band style sequencer.

But... they don't. So I can't.

Perhaps something for them to consider for the future.

 

[bigboy99]

Just checked @ 4:55P CDT. No promo pricing yet.

 

[bigm978]

this is a good deal but it makes me sooo mad. i bought band a while back for 9.99 and just bought guitarist 2 days ago for 5.99!!!

 

[rKunda]

Guitarist rocks. I paid full price - totally worth it.

 

[bigboy99]

All three now at promo price.

 

[severe]

Good deal, man.

The internal debate is over.

Just purchased Pianist and Guitarist.

 

[Eric Isaacson]

Very Cool, thanks for the heads up.

Eric

 

[Cyroceon]

Nice, I just picked up Guitarist and loving it. It is so much better than the other garbage guitar app.

 

[guthy-lux]

1) "Something Good" = Guitarist. If I'd have been able to push that app through the AppStore when I finished it then there would have been no contest. Hopefully the reduced price will tempt some people to see what they've been missing.

So if I buy guitarist for $2.99 now, can I upgrade it for free? or need to pay for the new version?

Actually I kinda want Bassist. I don't know how good the thing in Band is. Can you let me tune guitarist one octave lower?

Anyway, I think the reason we want all-in-one is we wanna play some solo in rhythm. It'd be great if we can upload midi or something.

 

[bigboy99]

I prefer Band because it crashes half as often as Guitarist, which dies every time I press Play Guitar.

Edit: A reboot seems to have corrected the issue. Further details available at the Moo Cow website. Apparently an Apple (?) issue.

 

[gospel9]

flawless!

I have purchased all 3 apps

And they have been flawless.
I actually had a lot of fun just fiddling around with the drums in Band...

The bassist in Band is VERY limited, you should be using the Pocket Guitar's bassist instead.

I am feeling a little guilty asking this, since I bought it for $2.99, but I would absolutely love changing the appearance of the guitar when you switch to other patches. For some reason playing the electric patches felt really weird looking at the wooden screen. This is not a complaint, but it's my wish


At these prices the apps are a steal.
I bought the pianist app even knowing that I would not spend more than 5 minutes on it. I was really pleased with Guitarist and Band (which was a surprise, the 12 bar blues is really fun).


edit: I noticed that when I am in Play Guitar (hammer) mode, when I lock the iphone (manually or automatic timer lock) and upon unlocking it it takes me back to the home screen. I know for pocket guitar it just mutes all the sounds. Is this a limitation of the SDK?

 

[MVApple]

I'm sorry, but I simply don't buy the "it can't be done" excuse as to why Band doesn't include the full guitar and piano. Ambience is a top selling app that I downloaded a few days and it is 144mb. My favorite app is the american hertiage dictionary and it is 308mb. Band, pianist, and guitarist combined don't even hit the 100mb mark. You're simply being disingenuous and it has to be said.

Several developers have been loyal to their customer base by releasing great updates and that kind of support just makes people recommend these apps to others more. Band and Pianist are still version 1.0. I guess version 1.1 will be Band Pro and Pianist Pro, $5.99 more.

My recommendation would be to up the price of Band to $9.99, and drop the price of guitarist and pianist permanently to $1.99. Of course Band would include the full guitar and piano along with a full bass and full drums plus some more features, like recording. You can use the stand along instruments to whet the appetite of your customers. Once they see how good the apps are they are going to want to move up to the full experience, plus the lower price point would mean they would be more willing to give one of your apps "a shot". I bet you'd see increased sales, but as it is I feel discouraged from buying your apps because I feel like I'm being nickle and dimed.

In short, charge a little more but stay loyal to your customer base and don't treat us like we are dumb by giving us lame answers.

 

[StingerT125]

Just picked them up - this sale is just too good to pass up.

Thanks!

 

[jsamuelson]

@MVApple:

I think it's self-evident that "suites" of apps are very often not as good (by design or otherwise) as standalone apps. And especially with Apple's looooong lead times on approving app updates I would much rather have a collection of single apps that are focussed on doing one thing well that can be updated as soon as the developer has finished tweaking the next point release.

Ambience's size is mostly sound loops and isn't trying to replicate a musical instrument. A dictionary again is a huge database and a lookup/display engine. You can't compare them. The executable with those apps would be tiny, and I assume that the runtime limit does not apply to data files.

Therefore I think you are being slightly unfair in your post. Did you read the whole thread?

 

[MVApple]

@MVApple:

I think it's self-evident that "suites" of apps are very often not as good (by design or otherwise) as standalone apps. And especially with Apple's looooong lead times on approving app updates I would much rather have a collection of single apps that are focussed on doing one thing well that can be updated as soon as the developer has finished tweaking the next point release.

Ambience's size is mostly sound loops and isn't trying to replicate a musical instrument. A dictionary again is a huge database and a lookup/display engine. You can't compare them. The executable with those apps would be tiny, and I assume that the runtime limit does not apply to data files.

Therefore I think you are being slightly unfair in your post. Did you read the whole thread?

Yes I read the whole thread, the developer simply stated that the problem would be the size of the download, moocowmusic also said he would like to be able to add chargeable content to keep the core app small while adding instruments. He can't add chargeable content though so he won't do it.

As for stand alone apps being usually better, yes that's true but it has to do with the effort the developer puts into the product. Obviously he has the talent to make good apps, but I think his buisness model could use some help. Pocket guitar and pocket piano are beating him in sales.

 

[slidetounlock]

I got band, but there are other better apps at there that serve the same function. Your efforts are appreciated, great app, cant stop playing band, 12 bar blues baby!