Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog: buy a new PowerBook, Power Mac, or Xserve, and Apple will drop the price of Logic Pro from $1000 to $500. I’ve been impressed by performance on the top-end Power Mac G5 and current generation PowerBook G4, so it sounds like a good deal — if you’ve got the cash and are getting a new machine, anyway. You don’t have to buy Logic from Apple, either. Too bad this doesn’t extend to those new iBooks! (But, um, am I missing something? Logic Pro on an Xserve? That doesn’t make any sense.)
Let’s see, running the major DAWs through the price tracker: Cubase SX3, around US$600; MOTU Digital Performer, around US$500; Ableton Live, around $400; Cakewalk SONAR Producer Edition, around $600. (Pro Tools isn’t quite a fair comparison since you’ll need to buy hardware to get it.)
Logic is still worth its higher price, I think, given its extraordinary number of effects and synths. Keep in mind, too, many of these DAWs have upgrade deals, competitive upgrades, and academic pricing. Bargains can be had, and aside from the carefully-fixed Apple price, there’s no need to pay list.