Digital performer is ridiculous.

[syntonica]

I personally find DP jumbled and confusing, and the non-official MOTU forum that redacts “REAPER” as “******” is the most toxic music site I’ve encountered on the internet, which - as a longtime KVR and Reddit member, is saying something!

It's an unofficial forum of course, and I find the censoring of REAPER utterly hysterical. I think what's his name was quite done with having Cockos evangelicals running amok on his forum. This was done years ago, too.

I haven't been by lately, but as long as you stayed reasonably on topic, the people there were very friendly and extremely knowledgeable.

[maanga]

All Posts in the unofficial DP forum ends in 2 or 3 pages maximum. They do not run to 500 pages like here.
The people are helpful to the point and there no abusive comments from anyone there even if you asked a stupid question.
They accept all criticism about DP, good or bad. Same with Samplitude forum also.
The bad mouth about such forums are from those people who like to insult other people who post silly questions and got kicked out.

Regards.

[jonljacobi]

Yes, it's a boomer DAW. Not that there should be anything wrong with that as most of them are, or can trace their roots to ideas from that era. It started life as a MIDI sequencer and grew from there which is where "chunks" is from. It takes a while to wrap you head around but some of that is the nomenclature. I actually prefer the Lite version they give you with the very nice MOTU interfaces.

This might help a bit. https://www.macworld.com/article/615329 ... eview.html

[machinesworking]

I mean, wtf? How are you suppose to get anything done?
You have to create an instrument track, assign output, then a midi track, then set input for midi track everytime? Takes forever.


I haven't figured out how to even actually draw or edit midi notes in yet, and I tried really hard.
it took me 5 to 10 good minutes to even figure out how to get audio out of the instrument track
===> Add instrument
===> set output to audio interface
===> add midi track
===> set output for midi track as instrument track
===> hit tiny red dot
grats you now can play and hear sound from that single track only.
other daws it's just ===> add instrument, hit keys

5 unnesssasary steps, everything else looks so confusing, the tiny menus,
The menus are super tiny, it looks all so convoluted and unnecessarily complex. It's like programming just to lay down a track. why??? Why do ppl use this?

So a couple things, you must be using a versions from years ago, it does combined instrument tracks like every other DAW since version 11. It also has a resizable GUI, on Mac it’s command +, probably control or alt + on PC. I’ve never had it have a problem selecting the main outs from your audio interface for any audio or instrument track.

Are you using an old version of Performer Lite or some old version? That’s all I can figure out, because none of those things are problems these days.

[masterhiggins]

I mean, wtf? How are you suppose to get anything done?
You have to create an instrument track, assign output, then a midi track, then set input for midi track everytime? Takes forever.


I haven't figured out how to even actually draw or edit midi notes in yet, and I tried really hard.
it took me 5 to 10 good minutes to even figure out how to get audio out of the instrument track
===> Add instrument
===> set output to audio interface
===> add midi track
===> set output for midi track as instrument track
===> hit tiny red dot
grats you now can play and hear sound from that single track only.
other daws it's just ===> add instrument, hit keys

5 unnesssasary steps, everything else looks so confusing, the tiny menus,
The menus are super tiny, it looks all so convoluted and unnecessarily complex. It's like programming just to lay down a track. why??? Why do ppl use this?

Logic used to be a lot like that, where when you created a track you needed to connect the input and output in the environment. Thankfully they automated all of it. You can still f with the environment, which I appreciate, though.

[machinesworking]

I would compare Digital Performer to Logic, Cubase and Reaper. It's a traditional all in one DAW that gets some version of nearly every new feature. It held on to some old paradigms longer than Logic (except multi MIDI in which Logic only got a year or so ago), but it also took a different direction than most when it came to composition. Chunks basically haven't ever been matched in other DAWs, so if the idea appeals to you, there's not much else like it. I use it primarily, I jump around a bit because I always have, but if I had to choose one DAW it would be DP. It's less roll your own than Reaper, and more complex and capable than Live. I have never had anything like a drift in timing transferring audio tracks to other DAWs, and I've done that hundreds of times with DP.

DP almost disappeared off the map years ago when it was still Mac only and Logic was bought by Apple, and subsequently killed DP as the de facto Mac only DAW. Apple ported Logic to OS X instantly leaving MOTU to struggle with rewriting their Mac only DAW for a few years. It's pretty much IMO tenacity and the fact that it doesn't take too many users to at least break even with a DAW that DP is still around. So as an end user it's kind of weird to see all the BS hurled at DP from people who don't use it, but whatever.

[machinesworking]

All Posts in the unofficial DP forum ends in 2 or 3 pages maximum. They do not run to 500 pages like here.
The people are helpful to the point and there no abusive comments from anyone there even if you asked a stupid question.
They accept all criticism about DP, good or bad. Same with Samplitude forum also.
The bad mouth about such forums are from those people who like to insult other people who post silly questions and got kicked out.

Regards.

Mostly, in all fairness there was a certain user who was a great musician, but a terribly pedantic boomer at motunation that would harass new users, it wasn't cool at all, and eventually I think he must've been called out for it, and left permanently. He pretty much single handedly ruined the atmosphere there for years on end. The current mood there is great, supper helpful and just friendly in general.

Because it's a 35 year old DAW there are some serious grumpy old men who make some terrible comments occasionally. Sort of the exact opposite but similar level of ridiculousness you can see in things like the Facebook Bitwig groups etc. filled with 20 somethings.

[richhickey]

Violins are ridiculous. They're scratchy-sounding and out of tune. The fingerboards are tiny and the strings are so close together. And what do you mean no frets? I can't believe people use these things. What was Stradivari thinking?!

[mgw38]

Renaissance instrument. These people were crazy.

[jonljacobi]

Just reinstalled DP and tried to re-orient myself. It really is odd/unique. It does many things very well. It just crashed on me. I fully understand why so many users kick the tires for a few minutes and look elsewhere.

[cron]

Violins are ridiculous. They're scratchy-sounding and out of tune. The fingerboards are tiny and the strings are so close together. And what do you mean no frets? I can't believe people use these things. What was Stradivari thinking?!

If I was using a crap scratchy violin, I wouldn’t persevere. I’d just find a better violin that was nicer to work with.

[MadDogE134]

better to be a boomer than still wearing bloomers lol

[machinesworking]

Just reinstalled DP and tried to re-orient myself. It really is odd/unique. It does many things very well. It just crashed on me. I fully understand why so many users kick the tires for a few minutes and look elsewhere.

IMO it 100% comes down to Logics dominance in OS X when OS X first came out. Back then DP was Mac Only and literally went from one of the big 5 at the time (Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools, Sonar and DP), to top ten, to in the top 20... It doesn't take much to dislodge a DAW, look at what happened with Sonar, and Studio Vision before it. They never fully have established themselves on Windows, and IMO that's their fault really.

Beyond that the navigation between Tracks and the Sequence windows for what most DAWs do with an arrangement window and subwindow, the fact MIDI and audio gets treated as objects or as clips depending, and of course the uniqueness of the whole Chunks, V-Racks paradigm.

I think at this point I need to stop caring that so many people have negative opinions about it. There are weekly training webinars hosted by a MOTU tech on DP and it's got a small but loyal enough user base to where it gets updated with the latest features regularly. If it can keep 10-20,000 users worldwide there will always be a reason for them to develop it.

[dayjob]

better to be a boomer than still wearing bloomers lol

boomer humor

edit: but i guess the upside to being a boomer is you'll be likely be dead before the whole world goes into on fire climate collapse.

[Trensharo]

Violins are ridiculous. They're scratchy-sounding and out of tune. The fingerboards are tiny and the strings are so close together. And what do you mean no frets? I can't believe people use these things. What was Stradivari thinking?!

He was thinking about building violins. Those instruments that people demanded, which were invented long before he was alive

He was thinking currency makes the world go round.