Digital Performer 10 is now Ableton Live

[Dewdman42]

Chunks are just so 1990.

V-Racks....have their place in DP...and work well...especially with chunks...But you can do the same thing with Vienna Ensemble Pro using any DAW you want... and at that point a lot of benefit of chunks are kind of trivialized IMHO.

do you really need to have all of your cues of a film inside one giant monolithic DP project? Well you did if you wanted to avoid having to reload a bunch of VST's by virtue of the V-Rack, etc. If you have VEP, then you can load separate projects in your DAW all day long without having to reload VST's, and that point its not a big deal to have a separate project per cue...maybe even preferable.

[memyselfandus]

Are pip’s (project in project) in Reaper essentially the same thing as chunks in DP?

No, Sub Projects in Reaper are cool though, and serve similar purposes, sort of...

I think the best way to understand Chunks is to think of them as their different parts. Chunks contain Sequences, V-Racks and Songs. Like Sub Projects in Reaper a Sequence can be an entire song, but in DP Chunks don't have to be rendered. Because of this V-Racks come in to make it possible to use the same set of instruments in multiple Sequences without having to wait at all to switch between them. You could do a similar thing to Reaper in that you could have all the instruments in the same Sequence as the MIDI etc. then freeze that sequence and use it in a Song etc. I mean essentially what Reaper is doing is a quick render that's reversible, whereas in DP personally if I was looking for the same functionality I would render a Sequence and use it as a reference in the new sequence. Sequence Chunks don't take any CPU at all sitting in the project if they're not open.
One big advantage of Chunks over Sub Projects is it's possible to work entirely in MIDI and recorded audio, which allows you to use them at will as building blocks, so start a song with a main part, copy it to a new Chunk, change it, make a new Chunk that's the chorus, and you have a sort of similar thing to Scenes in Live. You can drag and drop these into each other, play them one after each other etc. or use the Song window to arrange them on a timeline.

I don't know what MOTU has planned for Clips beyond that they're definitely not finished with it? but I hope there's some though put into Chunks and the Song Window and how these should all interact.

Awesome! Thank you so much

[memyselfandus]

Chunks are just so 1990.

V-Racks....have their place in DP...and work well...especially with chunks...But you can do the same thing with Vienna Ensemble Pro using any DAW you want... and at that point a lot of benefit of chunks are kind of trivialized IMHO.

do you really need to have all of your cues of a film inside one giant monolithic DP project? Well you did if you wanted to avoid having to reload a bunch of VST's by virtue of the V-Rack, etc. If you have VEP, then you can load separate projects in your DAW all day long without having to reload VST's, and that point its not a big deal to have a separate project per cue...maybe even preferable.

Interesting

[machinesworking]

Chunks are just so 1990.

Ad hominum!!

V-Racks....have their place in DP...and work well...especially with chunks...But you can do the same thing with Vienna Ensemble Pro using any DAW you want... and at that point a lot of benefit of chunks are kind of trivialized IMHO.

Yes a $300+ program adds a lot of functionality to DAWs.
No, it's not the same as V-Racks or Chunks.
I generally work on one 3-5 minute song per project. I use Chunks to write the initial MIDI and recorded or found audio Chunk, often I copy and use the copy to make the bridge, chorus etc.that way I can rearrange the song at will, then freeze, then use the frozen tracks to mix and master the song. Chunks also can contain different versions of the same song, the 7 minute version, the 3:30 minute version, etc. etc. I like having them all in the same open project. So no, VEP doesn't do the same as V-Racks and Chunks. It's a better solution for people with huge projects and lots of orchestral instruments absolutely, VEP is super lean compared to most DAWs. I own it, but I only use it for big projects with a ton of CPU gobbling VSTi's.

do you really need to have all of your cues of a film inside one giant monolithic DP project? Well you did if you wanted to avoid having to reload a bunch of VST's by virtue of the V-Rack, etc. If you have VEP, then you can load separate projects in your DAW all day long without having to reload VST's, and that point its not a big deal to have a separate project per cue...maybe even preferable.

Sure, again VEP is great for this one instance, but I still think DP offers a few things that other DAWs don't for this purpose. First off separate projects per cue involves VEP plug ins in your DAW reloading every time you open that new project. V-Racks with VEP plug ins in them are by default going to be a faster solution.
So keeping all plug ins out of your MIDI and audio Sequence Chunks makes multiple cues a bit easier to deal with IMO.

I'm not saying DP is perfect, or what you want or need, but it's just not true that the way DP works serves no purpose now, is some old antiquated 'way' of working etc. it's just different, and if that difference serves you, then you use it, if not there are plenty of DAWs. Reaper is leaner CPU wise, Logic has a full feature set of plug ins, and is to a degree easier to figure out, Live has it's Scenes and Clips intense concentration on UX for years now. Cubase is the full meal deal for the most part, Pro Tools is still the big consul studio king etc. etc.

[machinesworking]

The big caveat I give to Logic and Cubase is that they compete for new features: VCA faders, articulations, MPE compatibility, etc. they get them before most do.

This might be the first time DP beats them to the punch. I would bet a lot of people are upset that articulation maps weren't added first. Personally I don't get the big deal about articulation maps, I should probably play around with the concept in Logic, since right now to me it just seems kind of odd, like a way of having a hidden named keyswitch? Probably why Reaper hasn't bothered since you can name notes in Reaper??

[Dewdman42]

You have your opinion and I have mine. that is not ad hominem, it is my opinion.

I don't like the chunks feature in DP I always found it more trouble then its worth, even though I miss the pattern oriented days of Opcode Vision. In any case I do think chunks were in fact introduced in the 1990's and I have always felt the usefulness of song construction that way could be done SOO much better then DP's chunks. DP's chunks have largely been used by film composers for a long time to cram more cues into a single project file and that's all fine and good, I'm just saying its not the only way to handle things.

[machinesworking]

You have your opinion and I have mine. that is not ad hominem, it is my opinion.

I don't like the chunks feature in DP I always found it more trouble then its worth, even though I miss the pattern oriented days of Opcode Vision. In any case I do think chunks were in fact introduced in the 1990's

I thought it was obvious I was joking.. Yeah Chunks were super useful when all I used was MIDI in DP in the 90's. Are we getting rid of Piano Roll editors because they're that old as well? My least favorite Future™ thinking aspect of Ableton Live is the lack of an Event List, Poly Aftertouch, and SysEx, because The Future™ sometimes older ideas are great!

and I have always felt the usefulness of song construction that way could be done SOO much better then DP's chunks. DP's chunks have largely been used by film composers for a long time to cram more cues into a single project file and that's all fine and good, I'm just saying its not the only way to handle things.

I don't disagree with that. In my Perfect World™ MOTU comes up with a new sort of MIDI track that can take on track automation. It's the one big issue with V-Racks. The other is just really down to track organization, it would be cool if bussing wasn't so universally the solution. If you're going to have this idea of super lean Sequence Chunks for fast switching, song building etc. etc. then make it transparent that a VST/AU FX or instrument is used across Sequences, i.e. make it universally accessible by default.
Imagine if all VST/AUs in DP opened in a V-Rack transparently, in the open sequence itself it worked as if it was instantiated in that sequence. I don't know how hard that would be to code though, so I can't take it personal that DP doesn't do things that way.

[edit] What I mean is if VST/AUs instantiated in a Sequence were available for all sequences, without it being that you only get a MIDI track in the sequence pointing to the VSTi in the V-Rack. Why not have a track that essentially looks just like an instrument instantiated in a Sequence that has all the same functions? You can already go to the timeline in a MIDI track that's pointed at a VSTi in a V-Rack and right click to call up that instrument, why not have that as a single click button on the MIDI track? There really has to be some way to get track automation out of a V-rack, and with that you could make V-Racks as transparent as the Environment is in Logic for 99% of the users. Then the advantages don't outweigh the plusses for people like you, and you get Opcode level sequencing without the set up time.

[magog]

Are pip’s (project in project) in Reaper essentially the same thing as chunks in DP?

(Apologies to machinesworking if I'm just repeating you)

Here is how I look at DP's chunks vs. Reaper's subprojects:

One difference in favour of DP is that multiple DP sequences in the same project can share Virtual Instruments. This means you could have a Verse sequence and a Chorus sequence, and they each share the same instruments. I'm pretty sure this is impossible with Reaper's subprojects - I tried several approaches (including ReWire and VEPro) and couldn't get subprojects to share instruments.

Another difference is that Reaper's subproject system is designed for the subprojects to be rendered; when you play back the master project, Reaper doesn't want to play midi parts in subprojects - instead, it pre-renders each subproject to stereo audio tracks, and then plays the rendered audio in the master project. I think there are some ways to hack around this though.

One difference in favour of Reaper is that subprojects behave like simple clips in the master project, and the master project itself is just a normal Reaper project. This makes it pretty easy to move sections around and visualize how things fit together in a larger arrangement. Subprojects are independent from one another and independent of the master project. For instance, two subprojects that are playing simultaneously can have independent time signatures and tempos.

In DP, the "master project" is the Song Window which is its own special thing. It is hard to use and has some limitations. It's hard to use because it's tricky to place sequences within the window and figure out where they go in relation to other sequences. And the main limitation is that the Song Window has a single conductor track with its own tempo and time signature changes. When placing a sequence you have to copy its time signature and tempo changes to the Song's conductor track. There can only be one time signature and tempo in the Song at any given point in time. Consequently, if you have two overlapping sequences, they have to share the same time signature and tempo (at least where they overlap).

And finally, when you hit play in DP, there's no playback wiper in the Song Window, and this makes it hard to see what is going on and how things fit together.

For my purposes, I chose DP over Reaper because I wanted to share instruments between sequences, and I could deal with the limitations of the Song window. Still, I wish MOTO would improve it.

[magog]

Why not have a track that essentially looks just like an instrument instantiated in a Sequence that has all the same functions? You can already go to the timeline in a MIDI track that's pointed at a VSTi in a V-Rack and right click to call up that instrument, why not have that as a single click button on the MIDI track? There really has to be some way to get track automation out of a V-rack, and with that you could make V-Racks as transparent as the Environment is in Logic for 99% of the users. Then the advantages don't outweigh the plusses for people like you, and you get Opcode level sequencing without the set up time.

This would be so excellent!

[machinesworking]

In DP, the "master project" is the Song Window which is its own special thing. It is hard to use and has some limitations. It's hard to use because it's tricky to place sequences within the window and figure out where they go in relation to other sequences. And the main limitation is that the Song Window has a single conductor track with its own tempo and time signature changes. When placing a sequence you have to copy its time signature and tempo changes to the Song's conductor track. There can only be one time signature and tempo in the Song at any given point in time. Consequently, if you have two overlapping sequences, they have to share the same time signature and tempo (at least where they overlap).

And finally, when you hit play in DP, there's no playback wiper in the Song Window, and this makes it hard to see what is going on and how things fit together.

For my purposes, I chose DP over Reaper because I wanted to share instruments between sequences, and I could deal with the limitations of the Song window. Still, I wish MOTO would improve it.

Riffing on this, IMO the Song window is best thought of as an arrangement testing environment. Some people use it for more, but to me, that's the main purpose, and I hardly have to use it. The way I view Chunks for the most part is like parts of a song, so you have the main part the verse, chorus etc, and all of that can be separate Sequence Chunks. These Sequence Chunks can be dragged into the open sequence to add in parts like the chorus of a song etc. and if you're tracks are laid out the same it's dead easy.

I also tend to have the MIDI version of a song in one Chunk, the frozen/rendered Audio in another, and the parts of the song also in separate Chunks. To my way of thinking anyway this is preferable over having separate project files for each version of a song.

The Song window is where I would tend to agree DP is lagging, if they decided to update it for 2019 it could be pretty cool, but the issues you mentioned with it make it only good IMO for sketching out single tempo songs or serious film work where you tie cue points to the conductor track etc.

[memyselfandus]

Powerful features! Awesome

[Resonant- Serpent]

Does DP still ship with a 64 and 32 bit version?

[steve.lindqvist]

Does anybody know if it's possible to preview audio and MIDI files in sync with the project tempo?

[machinesworking]

Does DP still ship with a 64 and 32 bit version?

Looks like DP 10 is 64 bit only. Not sure about on the Windows side but on OSX it's the same version, you can just select for DP 9.52 to open in 32 bit mode in the Get Info pop up, but in DP10 on OSX that feature isn't there indicating DP10 on OSX anyway is 64 bit code only.

[machinesworking]

Does anybody know if it's possible to preview audio and MIDI files in sync with the project tempo?

I don't see anything new that allows MIDI file preview at project tempo. I'm trying to think of a DAW that does that? in Live it's instrument preview with some MIDI file of Lives choice for the most part, and only on their instruments.

Audio file wise, yes in a way. MOTU teamed up at pretty much exactly the right time with Loopmasters, they include a couple gigs of loops yada yada who cares, but the real interesting part of that is their stand alone application with a VST plug in that gets tempo info etc. Loopmasters stand out for allowing you to add your own loops to the application, and not having a subscription service. The app analyzed 41,000 loops and one shots on my drive in about an hour, mostly did a good job tagging them. Super useful to me anyway.