Comments on: MOTU Digital Performer 6 Released, With Tasty Sound Tools

By: mas

mas — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:14:55 +0000

DP 6 has been a nightmare for me. I had to make a copy of all my DP5 sessions. I won’t even bother with DP6 anymore - I choose to use DP5 instead.

Why?
A session that opens and runs flawlessly in DP5 won’t run very well in DP6. The program always freezes up. I’m talking about an identical session that runs fine in DP5… same amount of plugins etc..

I even have the problem with running a single mono audio track - and I’m using an 8 core mac Pro Tower with 4GB RAM. I even opened an identical session in both DP5 and 6 at the same time and checked all the preferences and audio settings, fps, etc to make sure they were completely identical.

DP6 definitely has some kind of bug

By: niall

niall — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:10:20 +0000

Digital Performer has had vertical track resizing for years in the Sequence Editor window. The new development in DP 6 is vertical track resizing in the Tracks Overview window, which previously did what it said on the tin, but enough users apparently couldn’t or wouldn’t use these editors for their intended purposes.

By: snare douglas

snare douglas — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:14:44 +0000

Just discovered live and I am addicted

By: Eric Ruud

Eric Ruud — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:37:41 +0000

Thanks Seba. I’ll check it out.

By: JWL

JWL — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:17:00 +0000

Thanks for the info chaps. I’m right at the start of pursuing a career in audio post, and i’m concerned about whether I should invest time in Pro Tools or an alternative. Digidesign aren’t my favourite company. It’s good to know that DP is viable.

By: Seba

Seba — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:27:15 +0000

@ Eric:

Yes, I’m on Intel. Intel iMac 1.83 dual. OS 10.4.11 DP5.13. I’d point you to unicornation.com — there are many experienced users there who can help diagnose your system. There are MANY happy users on those boards, particularly with the latest 5.13 release — I think I’ve only had a crash once or twice in the past 6 months and that’s using DP daily with lots of soft synths and effects plugins.

By: Eric Ruud

Eric Ruud — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:58:03 +0000

Seba -

Are you Intel or PPC?

I’m intel, and I get the spinning beachball crash about 5 times a day, usually when doing edge edits.

I should mention that the sessions I work with are frickin huge by most standards, which I’m sure doesn’t help anything…

By: Seba

Seba — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 03:02:20 +0000

The only issues I’ve had with the last release of DP has been corrupted session files, which is a big issue but thankfully it hasn’t occurred very often (and can’t definitively be blamed on MOTU), and also, random volume spikes when using VIs (very annoying and potentially damaging to your hearing).

Hopefully this new version which seems to be a substantial change update will address those issues for me and give me a perfect system.

By: Eric Ruud

Eric Ruud — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:10:20 +0000

I’ve used DP for quite a while now, and at this point I’m only ready to drop a couple hundred on an upgrade if I see “Reliability fixes” at the top of the “new features” list.

By: bliss

bliss — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:24:47 +0000

@ Art

While you were careful to contrast DP with Logic and Live, you were not careful enough to elaborate why you were contrasting the three. What you wrote didn’t make it clear that DP has freeze tracks functionality, so I made it clear that it does. “DP still doesn’t have…” suggests otherwise.