Apple delivers Universal Shake 4.1 for $499

Very nice! Shake now in the realm of affordability for many people. Low cost HD is sparking a little mini revolution here.

It's not up and the Edu store yet on Apple but I'm sure it will be. I'm thinking now that Apple may have two versions of Final Cut Studio. One version that is an evolutionary product to what we have now and one "Extreme" version with Shake added and perhaps another app (media management?) or two.

However some ugly rumors of Shake being cancelled in 2008 are surfacing. However that's a ways away. I'd love to learn Shake.

Yeah wow. This sits right inbetween AfterEffects and Premier on the lower end and Discreet Flame and stuff on the higher end. (I probably don't know what I'm talking about here)

Anyway the core users though will be TV and motiongraphics and indie-HD peoples.

I wish I was working in motion graphics or film effects. And putting it all together in 4K via Final Cut Studio with Motion and Shake.

Motion graphics, 3D graphics, compositing, lighting, artistic direction, visualising, pre-visualising, rendering, advertising, film, TV.

Cool.... An entire gamut of industries and tools I would probably never get to learn, play with, or actively produce with It's okay, another lifetime maybe

Got close with the web designing though... Flash is the motion graphics for the Internet!!!! Though its horrible abuse across the Web brings down Flash's status........

Boy I'm really rambling here. Slap me.

What's the story in the HUGE price drop?

*removes white glove and and slaps sunilraman with it*

Pardon the Pun, but way to "Shake" things up Apple!
...Someone had to say it. I bought Cinema tools at $1000 when it came out. I was glad to see it incorporated into Final cut for free later. Now dropping the price of Shake to $500 is great. It was previously $5000, then dropped to $2500, and now is $500. Awesome!

It is my understanding that Apple considers Shake's implementation a dead end, and that it will be replaced in favor of something else. Think Motion Pro.

I seriously doubt it. But I do see it included with FCP studio at some time.

It's just the first step leading to Shake's eventual EOL.

I would agree with this considerig the small amount of development that Shake has seen since Apple's acquisition. It's done well but the evolution IMO has been slower than that of all the other Final Cut Pro sister apps.


Shake certainly isn't built like any other Apple app. It didn't even have a GUI for the first couple of versions. I think this tends to slow down development and frankly I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple take the best of Shake and incorporate the code into a new App based on standard OS X framework.

But until then I'd love to learn a low cost Shake.

I'd love to learn Shake too. Though I don't really know what for yet I'm an animator/filmmaker so I guess I would find use for it. I could imagine a future Shake be implemented in a more full featured Motion. Perhaps somewhat like Soundtrack is intergrated in Final Cut Pro.
I guess Motion isn't directly a threat against After Effects. Perhaps a merge between Motion and Shake would pose a threat? I dunno...

I may be upgrading my G5 iMac to a dual core unit so I can buy that. That is freekn' mind blowing on the price drop. I don't think I can pass this up.

If they would just come out with some quite intel xserves I would be good.

Some more good info about the future of Shake

Thanks to Herb Tarlek :


Sounds plausible. Apple has aborted selling the maintenence for Shake now and I really see Apple moving to a more affordable Autodesk Toxik like setup. They have all the tools in Xgrid/Qmaster, XSAN and more.

Shake is a steal though. Buy it and Marco Paolini's Shake 4 book and you'll have years of bliss even if the new compositing app is delivered in 2008

Fantastic news. No excuse not to get it now. I've no doubt that the Pro apps will evolve and converge in the future but learning Shake now is a good investment. The Shake nodal paradigm is the only way for complex composites (try handling 100+ layers in After Effects efficiently).

The UI's of all the Pro apps are slightly different and they need more consistency (when Steve's decided which one he likes). By definition the development teams will disband and regroup at regular intervals.

FUD. The two applications are in completely different situations.

+1

Absolutely; totally misleading.

I didn't agree with that part. Aperture had a few too many bugs but it is a ground up write of an application and I see it every weekend on a 30" and it's gorgeous and works fine now.

Commercially there's not a lot of room for $500 photo editing packages. Apple did the right thing dropping the price.

Whatever Apple has coming in 2008 for a new compositing app is going to be a barn burner. I may as well learn Shake now because I'm definitely thinking Apple will keep the Node based UI intact.

If they cancel Shake, it would probably be to rebrand it as MotionPro.

Here's why they won't do that.

Motion is going to always default to motion graphics as its forte with a little compositing tossed in. Shake is more of a compositer with a sprinkling of motion graphics. The two are really aimed at two different skillsets.

Folding Shake into Motion merely confuses the app. An app like Motion doesn't need to be Node based because motion graphics don't require that many layers. In Shake the nodes allow you to handle a much larger stack of effects, composites and painting.

I expect to eventually see a Motion Pro but I expect we'll see a full on Shake replacement in time.

VOLUMME...FCP is taking over the prosumer and price concious pro market sectors, loads of folks find it to be the best enviornment for their HD needs, and you can now do end to end HD post on a MBP...affordable compositing was the missing link, now it is all there...

A very surprising move. Shake has been used in many of the top VFX movies. Apple can leverage that fact to have Shake on nearly every editors desktop. This price decrease was clearly about volume. You use the software to help sell the hardware.


When has anyone really been able to make a declaration about what Apple is going to do, and that's exactly what they did. I don't see why Apple would put Shake and Motion together. And Motion is already a pro app.


Clearly someone who is not around the photography business. I know of several photographers who use it. And when has version 1 of software ever come out perfect with no bugs.

Except for Soundtrack Pro! I'll bet that one dies soon, and probably won't be replaced.

There is nothing mentioned about reduction price of Linux version, this could be a clever way to promote the use of macs

Why? STP users are generally happy with the featureset. It's definitely a good base to further develop. Hell I'm anxiously awaiting Logic Pro 8 because I expect STP features to be added.

No way in hell. The only people happy with STP are video folks who know the bare minimum about audio and have never used another audio app.

Anyone who has spent any amount of time with just about any other audio software is shocked at how primative it is and how many absolutely basic features are missing. It's also the slowest app I've ever used.

It's been out a year and it's on version 1.03, that's a few minor bugfixes and zero added features in that time. It's still extremely buggy and barely usable, much less for pro work.

I agree with the idea that Apple will probably roll the cool STP features into Logic. But I doubt we'll see much if any development on it, they'll keep including it as a freebie with FCS. I'd love to hear rumors about whether apple even has a team still working on it, I seriously doubt it's more than a guy or two doing the bare minimum.

Price drop to $499? YES! FUCKING YES!

Which, wouldn't you know it, is (and always has been) the precise target audience for that program.

Well this is clearly why Apple offers STP for video and Logic for pro audio engineering.

I've worked on films where they hired an audio guy who usually works in studio recording/mixing to come do location audio recording/mixing. Usually the results are pretty bad because studio mixing skills and location recording skills are different. The same can be said for the software used in both.

Seems a bit illogical to look for STP to do the same as Logic. Apple offers both for a reason.

I've used both STP and Logic, but for quickie audio post-work STP is absolutely fine.

Exactly. Apple offers a very comprehensive palette of audio applications. For the consumer, GarageBand, for the Prosumer, Soundtrack and Logic Express, and for the Professional, Soundtrack Pro and Logic Pro.

I don't understand the notion of "one will be killed in favor of another". They all have very distinct, clear purposes. Soundtrack (and Soundtrack Pro) was created after Apple's Emagic acquisition, so clearly they weren't in any way internal competitors to Logic.

Wrong. STP was originally sold as a freestanding audio editing app. They only changed the promotion to "fcp helper app" after they decided to bundle it.

I wish they would have sold it that way from the start, I probably wouldn't have wasted my money on it.


You completely miss my point. I'm not saying STP should be more like Logic, I'm saying that STP is half baked and buggy. I think that STP is a lousy app for video work, it's just not ready for prime time. And logic isn't a great app for audio post work either, it was designed primarily as a midi app and can't really compete with some other dedicated audio apps.

STP could be a solid app by version 2.0. But it's been a year and they're still stuck on the flimsy 1.0.x releases (come on, we don't even have a 1.1 yet????).


I think the key word is "quickie". Your comment is like saying textedit is absolutely fine for quickie word processing. Sure, if you have incredibly low standards, STP will meet those incredibly low standards.


I don't think STP *should* be killed in favor of anything else, I just think making a product unavailable except bundled with another app, and going an entire year without doing any real development show that apple doesn't care about this app and have given up.

I agree with your assessment of apple's product line, but I'd say that's what their line should be, not what it is. STP would be a great sister app to logic, aimed more at audio post than music, plus with destructive editing. But they've failed to make it anything remotely "pro," we're talking about an app that still corrupts audio files on a regular basis and can take longer to open a file than it takes to listen to the file in real time.

So apple is left with a great music app, but a dog on the audio for video (or even just pure audio editing) side.

Mindbender

I'm not surprised at all. Despite the similar name to the orginal Soundtrack the "Pro" version is a rewrite and that comes with the inevitable bugginess of a ver 1 product.

Seeing some of the features live in the presentation though leads me to believe Apple is on the right path with STP. Version 2.0 should be a lot better. Motion was fairly useless in a production environment for its first year as well.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion I know a lot of editors who use FCS, and haven't heard the degree of complaints you address. I'm sure of course everyone has their list of improvements they would like to see in an update. But still you are watching movies in the theater and shows on television that have been edited and mixed on FCS.

As far as a version update, none of the FCS apps have had major version updates since the introduction of STP.

At NAB I was told all of this years work went into making FCS Universal. I'm sure we will see across the board update for 2007.

Wrong.

Here's a bit of history for you: Soundtrack was originally an application available exclusively as part of Final Cut Pro 4.0. Apple then realized that some Final Cut Express users may want it as well, which is why they made a stand-alone Soundtrack available.

Then, the Soundtrack in Final Cut Pro was upgraded to Soundtrack Pro as part of Final Cut Studio or stand-alone, and Soundtrack non-Pro made a free part of Final Cut Express. The stand-alone Soundtrack non-Pro had already been discontinued again at this point.

Finally, with the move to Universal Binaries, stand-alone Soundtrack Pro was discontinued as well, as was stand-alone Final Cut Pro, but Final Cut Studio was made the same price as Final Cut Pro previously, so effectively, you get Soundtrack Pro for free as a new Final Cut Pro customer now.

To look at it another way.

You probably are right, that STP has a lot of bugs. Apple of course knows this. But FCS studio is selling like hot cakes and it works fine for right now.

Apple likely decided to get past the Universal hurdle and then do a major over haul for the next FCS update.

Teno

I just noticed our birthday is on the same day. Happy belated b-day my Aries compadre.

Thanks for the NAB update. I wasn't sure if Apple would push the FCS update to IBC or another tradeshow but evidently they may just shoot for NAB 2007. Fine with me that gives them time to support the new Panasonic AVC-Intra codec amongst other features. XSAN has been creeping along as well. I wonder when we see 2.0 hit.

Apple is certainly on a path to converge these tools into a digital gruel of integrated media apps.

What makes you so sure there will ever be a version 2.0? When would you expect to see it?



TONS of editors use Final Cut, and the other apps. But movies mixed in STP (I assume that's what you mean, even though you say "mixed on FCS")? Name one. I'd be shocked if there was anything but the tiniest obscure indie release mixed with it. And TV shows mixed in STP are probably limited to the simplest shows, maybe a bargain basement reality show or makeover show.

If there has been anything notable mixed in STP, name it. I'd love to know about it.

And for the record, most of the other FCP apps had at least some minor improvements along with universal support. STP had zero. Not one.



No, actually I'm right and you are wrong. As I said, Soundtrack PRO was originally released as a standalone app. There's no disagreeing with that. Soundtrack PRO is version 1.0. It's a completely new app, not an update of Soundtrack. My statement was about Soundtrack PRO, not Soundtrack.

Sure. Of course all I was told that 2005 went into building the Universal FCS. But they could not say when a new version update would be released. Looking at Apple's history its pretty safe to say 2007.


Thanks you too. There seems to be less time between birthdays as the years go on.

OMFG, this is incredible. I've been using Shake over the past few months where I work and IMO, it is by far one of the best pieces of software I've ever used. I've tried AE and Combustion but I can take to Shake like a duck to water - it is soooo intuitive.

Same deal with Final Cut Studio. I imagine part of the price drop is because it doesn't need much more development. Sometimes software reaches a point where you just don't need to develop it further because it does its job fine.

No vector image support but usually that's not a problem and is more Motion's dept.

Why isn't the UK price down though?

Well think of it like this. This is a business and everyone is looking for every way possible to shave a few pennies off of the cost of everything.

Editors are being used more and more to do graphics and final sound mixes.

Are they going to invest and have the entire FCS suite at their disposal and not use it to its fullest?


MTV/VH1 edit audio on STP for their promos and shows. I know a guy who works there.

From what I hear the TV shows Scrubs post production is done entirely on FCS. I would assume that means STP for audio.

And this guy seems to really like it. He used STP on the movie Jarhead.

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/...rack_pro-murch