Control-M vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

BMC and Tidal Software by Redwood are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. BMC is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while Tidal Software by Redwood is ranked #19. BMC holds a 14.4% mindshare in WA, compared to Tidal Software by Redwood’s 4.5% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of BMC users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Tidal Software by Redwood users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 13, 2026

Control-M and Tidal by Redwood compete in workload automation. Control-M seems to have the upper hand due to its extensive integration capabilities and advanced automation features.

Features: Control-M offers extensive integration capabilities with platforms like AS400, seamless automation of processes, and diverse control modules for applications. Its automated error handling and user-friendly interfaces add to its appeal. Tidal by Redwood is appreciated for cross-scheduling across platforms, handling job dependencies, and robust workload management.

Room for Improvement: Control-M could enhance its reporting capabilities with better customization and arithmetic operations for output analysis. Tidal by Redwood needs improvements in interface, reporting features, and increased cloud involvement, as well as a more intuitive user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both products offer flexible deployment options including on-premises, hybrid, and public cloud. Control-M is often favored in public and hybrid settings. Its customer service is known for being knowledgeable yet sometimes slow. Tidal users value its straightforward and accessible support structure.

Pricing and ROI: Control-M is a high-cost, premium solution with price based on jobs or tasks. Despite high initial investment, its comprehensive features and reliability deliver significant ROI through reduced downtime and advanced automation. Tidal by Redwood is more affordable with transparent licensing, praised for its cost-effectiveness and robust scheduling.

To learn more, read our detailed Control-M vs. Tidal by Redwood Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Control-M vs. Tidal by Redwood

January 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

JAMS

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of JAMS is 2.8%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Control-M is 14.4%, down from 25.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 4.5%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Control-M	14.4%
JAMS	2.8%
Tidal by Redwood	4.5%
Other	78.3%

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

reviewer2770605

Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

Has streamlined complex job scheduling across scripting languages while reducing manual effort

JAMS could be improved with a web client that is accessible and as fast as a normal website, eliminating the need to RDP to the servers to access the JAMS client. A functionality running on the JAMS server to continuously check the JAMS agents would ensure they are working properly. If an agent is not responding, a feature to restart the service from the job server machine would be beneficial. The upgrade process, particularly when switching from V6 to V7, could be clearer in terms of documentation, ideally with screenshots showing exactly what needs to be done on each screen.

Read full review

Raj Pattni

Batch Admin at NBC Universal

Brings data together from multiple platforms and optimizes cross-environment orchestration

The features of Control-M that I like the most include the ability to easily integrate or bring in different platforms into Control-M. For instance, AWS, mainframe, TWS, and something that's running on Autosys can all be brought into Control-M, converted to how Control-M runs it, and then the batch can be executed. This centralizes various applications in Control-M, which doesn't just have to handle batch processes, but also other tasks like reporting on required data. I find this functionality very useful and the setup is impressive, with more advancements yet to come. With Control-M, my company has achieved several measurable improvements since I started. The metrics indicate that the number of failures has dropped, and we have addressed the issue of excessive false alerts that I encountered when I joined. Previously, we received an overwhelming number of alerts daily, but now we manage to maintain that at a normalized level, perhaps around five to fifteen alerts, depending on running core batches and their setup.

Read full review

Jim Gillingham

Batch Production Manager at a consultancy with 201-500 employees

Its versatility, ease of use, scalability, and cost-effectiveness make it a 10/10 and the best of the breed

The company is not really big. One of the areas that they are working on is improving the process of migrating jobs from the lower environment to the upper environment. They had used a tool called Transporter, which was a little difficult to use, but they've now released a new tool in August, which I've not yet used, to do that. It's probably called Repository or something like that, but it's a tool for migrating jobs from the lower environment to the upper environment. That's where they needed to improve, and it looks like they may have, but I haven't tried the tool yet. They can do better reporting in terms of production statistics reporting.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The built-in triggers are great."

"It's a full-featured job scheduling tool. The part that I liked the best was the support team. This tool was new, and we were all learning it and setting up the different jobs that were complex in nature. Their support team was very responsive in helping us out through the setup and resolving the issues. They have been incredibly awesome."

"The interface is good, and it's very easy to define and create jobs. If a job is not running or there is an error, the solution will send an email. That's all very good and very useful."

"I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events."

"JAMS is easier to use and cheaper than our previous solution. The installation is more straightforward, and JAMS has a graphical user interface, so it's more accessible."

"The alerting in it is really targeted... you can set specific alerting so that if jobs in a given folder fail, certain people are alerted. You can also set security at the folder level, so that only people in those areas can go set them. That means that the alerting and security can be set at a very granular level."

"The most valuable feature for us is that it's DR-ready. With respect to disaster recovery, it has the built-in capability for failover to our DR site. If all of the required ports are open, it can be done seamlessly."

"The scheduling and execution of jobs are the most valuable features. The scheduling is important because if there is a task we want to execute at 4:00 AM, there's no way we will have someone who can manually run the job. In addition, we execute 100 to 200 jobs per day, and manual intervention is not an option."

More JAMS pros

"Control-M has enabled new capabilities and business processes that were not possible before, and with advancements in integration, various data sources can be tied together to meet user and application team needs."

"Control-M is very easy to use; there shouldn't be any technical knowledge required for using Control-M, making it more user-friendly compared to other tools in the market."

"BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer has indeed helped our clients reduce IT operation costs, for instance, I implemented it for one of the largest banks in 2012, which reduced their loan process sanction from four days to just two hours, and now it completes in 30 minutes."

"Control-M has improved application reliability and the SLAs in our company by quite a bit. You can see if problems are coming. If we have an SLA in a couple of hours, we know well before that couple hours if processing is behind, and it allows us to take some preventative action."

"The integration with ServiceNow is good. When a job ends and there are problems with it, we automatically open an incident in this platform, and the number of the incident is forwarded to Control-M. This means that we have a record of it with the log of the job."

"It provides a unified view where you can orchestrate and monitor all your application workloads and data pipelines. That's very important because with cloud, software as a service, edge computing, traditional data center, and legacy apps, there are all these environments. If you don't have that single pane of glass or that one place to look at, you're going to invest a lot of time and resources into tracking things down when they go wrong."

"The best features in Control-M are its ease of use and robustness; it is very feature-rich, which is what we use it for—scheduling."

"I can say around twenty to twenty-five percent productivity increase has been realized, and even the margins have been increased, and I can see at least fifteen to twenty percent of the company's revenue has been increased at the infrastructure level by using Control-M."

More Control-M pros

"We use the solution for cross-platform, cross-application workloads. The solution’s ability to manage and monitor these workloads is very easy and accurate. We have file dependencies for running jobs. The job does not start until a file exists on a completely different server, then where the job will run. So, it is cross systems."

"The best feature of Tidal Workload Automation Software is its ease of integration with other systems, including ERP, CRM, and BI tools."

"It's easy to use and easy to administer, and it's very flexible."

"Especially in the newer versions of Tidal, the segmentation of user permissions enables us to give people operator permissions for their jobs, to rerun jobs, but view-only for other groups' jobs. We're able to keep people from hurting themselves or other groups accidentally. The permissioning is really good."

"The thing that I like the most is the reliability of the engine. The actual scheduling part of the product is pretty much flawless, but the stability of the product is what I find to be reassuring."

"Tidal integrates with other third-party systems, which makes it easy to connect and exchange data."

"Tidal Automation software provides real-time monitoring and alerts, allowing users to track job progress and identify potential issues before they cause delays or errors."

"It is intended to enable large-scale automation environments, making it appropriate for companies with complicated processes and big data volumes."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"As an admin, I would like to have a web-based GUI instead of a client application that we have to install on our PCs."

"All my machines at work are Macs. JAMS client is a Windows-based thing. It is all built on .NET, which makes perfect sense. However, that means in order for me to access it, I need to connect to a VPN, then log onto one of our Azure VMs in order to access the JAMS client. This is fine, but if for some reason I am unable to do so, it would be nice to be able to have a web-based JAMS client that has all the exact same functionality in it. There are probably a whole bunch of disadvantages that you would get with that as well, but that is definitely something that would make life easier in a few cases."

"One thing that I know that the JAMS people said that they were working on that would be huge for us is a search capability so that you could search for tasks. It may be available in version 7 or in a future release of 7. I think that's on their roadmap. But right now, for us to do a search, we have to search through database queries."

"Sometimes the UI is not the most responsive I've ever used. But because it does its job, I don't complain."

"I would like to see the ability to interface with Microsoft group-managed service accounts, but they're still in the research phase. They need to ensure everything's legit and safe. The report designer and dashboards could also be improved. We're running 7.3, so I don't know if they have updated the reporting in 7.5, but I think the reports and dashboards could be better."

"JAMS could be improved with a web client that is accessible and as fast as a normal website, eliminating the need to RDP to the servers to access the JAMS client."

"When looking at a folder in JAMS with many jobs, it would be good to have better information in the list display of what's inside those jobs. We get some information, but other important details are missing."

"JAMS notifications for hung jobs could be improved."

More JAMS cons

"There are areas for improvement, especially with the transition from the thick client to the web GUI. While Control-M's main game-changer is its GUI, the current web interface is less user-friendly than the thick client."

"One area for improvement in Control-M could be in the logs, as they only show when the job started and whether it ended successfully or not."

"I think Control-M can be improved because we recently moved to Helix, the cloud control, and the latency of the application is substantial; the job is running in the background, but the UI side is very slow on the front end."

"Finding documentation on the website can be a bit confusing."

"I'm not sure how the solution fits together with our business modernization initiatives, as there are things outside of my area, even though Control-M is the scheduling tool of the company. They may use other things, e.g., Big Data."

"To make the solution a 10, there could be more automation."

"It can be very labor-intensive to get this information out."

"A lot of the areas of improvement revolve around Automation API because that area is constantly evolving. It is constantly changing, and it is constantly being updated. There are some bugs that are introduced from one version to the next. So, the regression testing doesn't seem to capture some of the bugs that have been fixed in prior versions, and those bugs are then reintroduced in later versions."

More Control-M cons

"Tidal Automation could be further integrated with other systems used in the operation of tidal energy systems, such as weather forecasting tools, energy management systems, or asset management software."

"I would like more involvement with the cloud."

"The current user interface of Tidal Software is functional. However, it can be improved to make it more intuitive and user-friendly."

"Tidal Software interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly."

"There are several improvement points that our team has provided to the vendor."

"One of the weaknesses of the product is, when something happens, it's difficult to find out the root cause. There are a lot of logs you can take a look at in Tidal. Sometimes, they are useful, but other times, they're not. That is mostly relegated to the administrative team. Users for the most part don't see that and don't know anything about that. They just know they have a problem, then it's up to the administrative team to see what happened and figure out the problem."

"Setting up the initial product was a little hard."

"I'm still hoping with Explorer to be able to see end-to-end job streams. That's not really something that's easy to see today in the web client. However, I haven't worked with Explorer yet. One of the things that we have found frustrating is not being able to see an end-to-end job stream across multiple applications within Tidal. We use jobs for that right now, but I have high hopes that we'll be able to see that in Explorer."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"JAMS is priced competitively compared to similar solutions and offers flexible licensing options to cater to user needs."

"This is a good product at a fair price."

"For what it does, the product is priced very well."

"All licensing models are a little overpriced, but JAMS offers a good value, especially given their support response times and ability to handle unforeseen issues like the SFTP transfers. I hope to find more use cases to get a better bang for our buck."

"It's certainly a lot cheaper than Tivoli and Control-M. In comparison to them, you get a lot more bang for your buck. You get pretty much the whole functionality and more, in some cases, when compared to Control-M, but at a fraction of the price."

"In the end, you'll find that it's really worth the price. There is some sticker shock, but it's worth every dime."

"Take advantage of its scalability. You can start small. The initial cost is very reasonable. Once you have started picking up the tool and adopting it, then you can scale up from there and buy more agents."

"The pricing is very fair. We have seen very minimal to no price increases over the years. We are not banging down the door of support all the time either. I would imagine if we were a company that submitted a dozen support tickets a week for the last nine years, then it might be a little different because we would be eating up everybody's time. However, for what we get out of it, the pricing is extremely fair. Back when we were originally looking and brought in JAMS, we were looking at a couple of the other competitive products that were in this space, but the pricing from JAMS was far and away better than what the other competitors could offer for the same functionality."

More JAMS pricing and cost advice

"Yearly licenses are based on the number of jobs."

"This is now from my previous years as support for banks and big companies. If it's not enterprise scale, I find that it's too expensive for smaller companies. You really have to be quite big and need to have a dedicated support staff to run it, then you'll be fine. What we've seen at smaller companies, it's too expensive because they want to automate everything. Now, stuff that can literally run once a day for the rest of their lives is costing them $3 a job a day. It becomes too expensive, eventually. They are not seeing the return on investment because it's not business critical. Nobody is going to die or they're going to lose money if that job didn't run exactly at 11 minutes past 4:00. It's definitely for bigger enterprise companies, especially banks or healthcare providers. We have had an instance where Control-M was unavailable due to external factors for 20 minutes and there was a loss of almost a million euros because the solution involved logistics."

"This product saves hours in a day based on my experience working here versus other companies with manually operations."

"The license model is based on the number of tasks or jobs required. The price overall is expensive. In my country, we don't have any choice but to use them because no one can match their capability."

"Control-M isn't cheap, but this is an enterprise model."

"BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is expensive."

"It is an expensive solution."

"You're going to spend a lot of money upfront, but the benefits you're going to get out of it are going to quickly pay for it."

More Control-M pricing and cost advice

"Their pricing seems very fair. It is more than the other solutions, but the functionality and the support are very much there. You pay for the job scheduler, and then they have certain things that are built into it, such as the FTP processes. If you then want to do JD Edwards jobs, you need an adapter. If you want to do SQL jobs, there is another adapter. Similarly, if you want to do Oracle jobs, there is an adapter. It is like there is the base and then there are the adapters for the jobs that you want to do, but it seems that's also how they pay for each of those adapters and keep them up to date."

"Our licensing model for Tidal is on an annual basis. It is very good and works well for us. Tidal's licensing is very transparent and simple. It lets you know, for the amount you use, that's the price that you pay. So, we buy X number of licenses, and we know that this is where we are. I'm very happy with that. I saw the licensing modules on other platforms, and I didn't like them. Other companies and solutions would calculate the connections, adapters, and instances. I think that's the reason that BMC was pretty expensive: They just didn't understand what our needs are."

"We are satisfied with the pricing of Tidal. It's in the moderate range and it feels very achievable for us."

"Right now, we are in a good position with the licensing model that we have with the Tidal vendor. So, we won't have any issues. even if we double in our current production. Initially, Tidal provided us some specs where if you have these number of jobs, then you come under this category. They usually provide a range of jobs from 2,000 to 10,000. You can use these specs for your infrastructure. Whether you have 2,000 or 8,000 jobs, Tidal should support it."

"There have been pricing increases, but with the reduction that our company obtained from Tidal this year, the pricing has become very acceptable for this type of product."

"The solution enables admins and users to see the information relevant to them, but this is bundled as an add-on that we would have to pay for."

"We pay maintenance annually through Blue House of about $9,000. That's for our two environments: production and test."

"The new prices that we've received seem reasonable and comparable to the marketplace."

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

27%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	18

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	37
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	141

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	38

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about JAMS?

I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?

They recently switched to subscription-based pricing, which increased. The price is fair considering the functionalit...

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What needs improvement with JAMS?

As far as we are using JAMS version 6, it looks good and there is nothing major to add about it. Everything is functi...

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How does Control-M compare with AutoSys Workload Automation?

Control-M acts as a single, centralized interface for monitoring and managing all batch processes, which is helpful b...

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What do you like most about Control-M?

First of all, the shift from manual to automation has been valuable. We have a tool that can automate.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Control-M?

From what I know about pricing, I would probably put Control-M in the expensive category, but you do pay for what you...

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Comparisons

AutoSys Workload Automation vs JAMS

Compared 9% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs JAMS

Compared 9% of the time

Stonebranch vs JAMS

Compared 9% of the time

Automic Automation vs JAMS

Compared 7% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs JAMS

Compared 5% of the time

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AutoSys Workload Automation vs Control-M

Compared 13% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Control-M

Compared 8% of the time

Automic Automation vs Control-M

Compared 6% of the time

Stonebranch vs Control-M

Compared 5% of the time

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MuleSoft Anypoint Platform vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 23% of the time

Automic Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 8% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 7% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 6% of the time

OpCon vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

JAMS

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Control-M

January 2026

Download Control-M product report

Buyer's Guide

Tidal by Redwood

January 2026

Download Tidal by Redwood product report

Also Known As

No data available

Control M, BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer, BMC Australia CTM

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Interactive Demo

JAMS Software

BMC

Demo not available

Tidal Software by Redwood

Overview

JAMS is an automation and job scheduling solution designed for workflow optimization, catering to businesses large and small with flexible licensing and integration options.

Offering both Core and Advanced packages, JAMS supports a range of environments from small teams to large-scale operations. Its standout features include integration with platforms like PowerShell, SQL, and SAP, coupled with capabilities such as dependency management and natural language scheduling. JAMS simplifies job management, centralizes workflows, and boosts productivity with its robust automation features. Customizable workflows and insightful logging make it adaptable for diverse needs, supported by responsive customer service ensuring seamless operations.

What are JAMS's key features?

Automation & Scheduling: Flexible automation helps manage complex job schedules efficiently.
Integration: Connects seamlessly with platforms like SQL Server, SAP, and Python for diverse applications.
Centralized Job Management: A unified interface for handling thousands of jobs daily.
Dependency Management: Supports complex workflows with efficient dependency tracking.
Insightful Logging: Provides detailed logs and notifications for precise task execution.

What benefits should users look for in JAMS reviews?

Enhanced Productivity: Automates repetitive tasks, freeing up resources for strategic initiatives.
Scalability: Flexible licensing models grow with business size and needs.
Efficient Workflow Automation: Streamlines job orchestration across environments.
Responsive Support: Helps ensure smooth operations with quick troubleshooting.

In industries, JAMS is employed for automating workflows and managing batch jobs. Organizations utilize it for SSIS, SQL Server tasks, file transfers, and integrating with vendor systems, achieving efficient file automation and data management. Scheduler enables precise execution of thousands of tasks daily, enhancing operational efficiency.

JAMS Software

Control-M SaaS by BMC is tailored for growing teams, offering essential orchestration for managing hybrid cloud workflows starting at $29,000 annually.

Control-M integrates automation, orchestration, and a user-friendly interface to streamline workflows across banking, DevOps, and cloud environments. Key modules like Managed File Transfer and cross-platform support simplify job monitoring, while Batch Impact Manager enhances scheduling. Despite its capabilities, improvements in output analysis, reporting customization, offline access, and API integration are desired by users.

What are Control-M's key features?

Automation and Orchestration: Simplifies workflow management.
Integration: Connects with diverse applications seamlessly.
User Interface: Facilitates easy navigation.
Managed File Transfer: Streamlines secure file movements.
Self-Service: Empowers users to independently manage tasks.
Cross-Platform Support: Handles complex workflows efficiently.
Batch Impact Manager: Enhances scheduling and SLA management.
API Integration: Extends versatility across environments.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Increased Efficiency: Optimizes operations through automation.
Scalability: Supports enterprise growth and workload demands.
Improved SLA Management: Enhances reliability in scheduling.
Cost Savings: Streamlines processes to reduce operational costs.
Process Optimization: Ensures secure and efficient data exchanges.

Control-M is implemented in industries such as finance and enterprise operations, aiding in automating batch processing across platforms like SAP and Teradata. It integrates with secure file transfers, ERP systems, and databases, whether deployed on-premises or cloud, ensuring seamless operation optimization.

BMC

Tidal Software is a leading provider of enterprise workload automation solutions that orchestrate the execution of complex workflows across systems, applications and IT environments. With a comprehensive portfolio of products and services, Tidal optimizes mission-critical business processes, increases IT cost efficiencies and satisfies legal and regulatory compliance requirements. Hundreds of customers around the world count on Tidal for modernizing their workload automation and driving their digital transformation. Tidal Software is headquartered in Chicago with offices in Houston, London, Minsk, Belarus and Chennai, India. For more information, visit tidalsoftware.com.

Tidal Software by Redwood

Sample Customers

Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital

The Bank of East Asia, LINE Bank Taiwan, Coop, Air Europa, Carrefour, Itau Unibanco, Snam, Embraer, ANZ Bank, EDP, Dominio's, Tampa General Hospital, W&W Informatik GmbH, Veterans General, Up Sí Vale, Sky Italia, REWE digital GmbH, Raymond James, Railinc, Navistar, Management Science Associates, Colruyt, CARFAX, Banpara, Aspiag Service, Amadeus, AG Insurance, ING Bank Slaski

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Buyer's Guide

Control-M vs. Tidal by Redwood

January 2026

Free Report: Control-M vs. Tidal by Redwood

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