Catalina: Apple turns macOS into a closed platform; many audio-devs warned from the upgrade

[stratology]

IMO, it's a weird DAW

I think that depends on how you work and what you're used to. If you're mainly stitching loops together, Logic and others are a better choice. But if you record real musicians and focus on mixing, or if you're scoring for film, DP has by far the best workflow, IMHO. Much more 'logical' than Logic, especially if you consider markers, auxes, track colours, track order in different windows, which tracks are visible in different windows, etc.

I'm quite familiar with Logic (including official Apple certification), but I can work literally twice as fast in DP.

[fmr]

IMO, it's a weird DAW

I think that depends on how you work and what you're used to. If you're mainly stitching loops together, Logic and others are a better choice. But if you record real musicians and focus on mixing, or if you're scoring for film, DP has by far the best workflow, IMHO. Much more 'logical' than Logic, especially if you consider markers, auxes, track colours, track order in different windows, which tracks are visible in different windows, etc.

I'm quite familiar with Logic (including official Apple certification), but I can work literally twice as fast in DP.

Yep... We definitely agree on this. DP is a great DAW, and more capable than Logic for linear work. I find it weird that someone can call it weird. DP has roots in Performer, one of the first MIDI sequencers that existed, and predates Logic and Cubase by several years.

What you may find weird are features that I actually miss in the other two (like the mentioned Chunks). There was only one sequencer that was beyond Digital Performer in that field - it was Studio Vision, from Opcode, but that one is now dead and buried.

[machinesworking]

Funny, I'm not at all saying DP is bad by saying it's weird, it's just different.
Plus, Logic is right up there as well. Compare either to Cubase or Reason, or Pro Tools.
I've used DP most of my life, Logic and Live as well, but working with Cubase has never been that hard, it's mostly a WYSIWYG type DAW, same with Reason, PT etc.

For instance, DP is the only DAW that has stuck to a separate MIDI track for software instruments. Chunks present a huge advantage and immediate mental challenge, no other DAW always offers you more than a linear timeline workflow that isn't necessarily based on a loop paradigm. I used DP straight for ten years, then moved to Logic for about 6 years, moving back to DP it took me forever to wrap my head around it again. Logic is also strange, from setting up an instrument to how it works with MIDI. Power is a different thing, Logic is powerful, and DP is supremely powerful. Like you guys have mentioned DP is really great for traditional recording and film, as a person working with electronic music mostly I find it's good at that as well.
The point if there ever was one was that working in DP at first you're confronted not with a straightforward workflow, but choices:

Tracks or the Sequence Editor- for looking at and working in your arrangement, as opposed to every other DAWs single arrangement view. In DP there are two ways to look and work with arrangement data.

Chunks- as opposed to entirely different open projects, your open project can contain different songs, parts of songs, variations of songs etc.

Virtual Racks- which help explain why MIDI is always separate from software instruments.

The Song window- which virtually no one uses anymore, but if you're just starting out is named.... in a way that's going to convince you you might want to look into this, when in reality it's a ways for people to work with film scores, and was a way to work with DP pre Virtual instruments being a thing.

I could go on, DP is very different, and once you're used to that it's like what people say about Reaper, in that it's differences add up to more power. To me anyway though, DP is better than Reaper at the execution of those tailored workflows in that it's not a patch that adds a feature that never is elegant etc.

[stratology]

Many good points.

Tracks view, Meter bridge, dedicated MIDI tracks (you can apply MIDI effects, like an arpeggiator, on a MIDI track, then route the track to 2 different synth tracks, with different effects after the synths), the way visible/invisible tracks are handled (flexible, and independently for every window), clippings, the way mixes are saved, the way Bundles work, etc. - I appreciate each of those whenever I use DP.

Themes are a relatively new feature, but unlike some others, where themes are an excuse for indecisiveness and lack of design skill, all DP themes are consistent, well designed, functional. I could work in each and every one of them. The choice is not 'which is the least crappy one', but which one suits the mood of the day, or the mood of the song that's being mixed.

[syntonica]

DP has always been it's own thing, deeply rooted in the studio paradigm. If you're tracking live instruments, outboard effects, and recording audio, it's the bee's knees, but if you're mostly ITB using VSTis, not so much. I struggled with it for a year and just never gelled with the way it works. I liked Emagic Logic quite a bit, despite the dark, scary Environment cellar, but once Apple took over and released v7, it killed my workflow. I have X now, mostly for the cool instruments, but I still greatly dislike trying to do even the most basic things. Both are quite powerful in their own ways, but it's a power and complexity that I don't want right now, but that's a whole other kettle of monkeys.

Anyway, MOTU went to the dark side, er, released a PC version probably to help increase revenue and relevance and possibly provide an escape route for DP in case life with Apple ever went pear-shaped. Since they seem to be Catalina-ready, it looks like that relationship is still going strong. But I am curious to know what their Mac vs PC ratio is right now for DP use.

[fmr]

Anyway, MOTU went to the dark side, er, released a PC version probably to help increase revenue and relevance and possibly provide an escape route for DP in case life with Apple ever went pear-shaped. Since they seem to be Catalina-ready, it looks like that relationship is still going strong. But I am curious to know what their Mac vs PC ratio is right now for DP use.

Based on the little I know, and also because of the points raised (about the now unique approach of DP, when compared to other DAWs), I'd say that the user base in Windows will be very weak when compared to the Mac based (maybe like 20/80).

But the true is MOTU have done a really good job with DP, and with just three versions history in Windows, they are now very stable, even at dealing with third party plug-ins (the weakest point of DP in the beginning). Sure, it doesn't reach the plug-in counting of Cubase (not to mention REAPER, which is in a class of its own, in any platform), but even there, things have improved.

It is now a mature and very usable DAW in Windows.

[machinesworking]

Agree with all the points above, my guess with percentage of user base is around the same, 15-30% which considering how crowded the DAW market is isn't too bad for three years out.


On my machine in OSX anyway, DP is neck and neck with Logic, Reaper edges out everyone. But, and this is important, when working with Falcon recently Reaper was a lot more likely to hit the CPU levels on one of the more piggish MPE patches, even with DPs MPE workaround it did not spike the CPU as badly. IMO it seems there are advantages and disadvantages to the unique way Reaper handles buffering. It's ridiculously good at managing CPU spread out over tracks, and only so so compared to other DAWs at handling a single record enabled track or three.

I still don't get why people claim that DP is the most like a tape deck? Two views of the arrangement is not standard, Chunks, Song Window, etc. are not standard or relatable at all to tape. That like PT it has great audio editing recording and workflows is the only thing I can see.

[syntonica]

I still don't get why people claim that DP is the most like a tape deck? Two views of the arrangement is not standard, Chunks, Song Window, etc. are not standard or relatable at all to tape. That like PT it has great audio editing recording and workflows is the only thing I can see.

MOTU has been doing their best to add features on, but if you've ever used an older version (<5?), the paradigm is quite apparent. It's why DP was so readily adopted by the analog studio crowd. It just made sense to them. Those of us who grew up on MIDI trackers and sequencers tend to like the Cubases and PTs of the world. Whippersnappers younger than me are Live evangelists. While I like clips, which is how I tended to work in Logic, Live just baffles me. Now that DP does something similar...

[JCJR]

Studio Vision Pro and then DP were my favorite sequencers back when I did a lot of recording, up to early 2000's when I got too busy programming to record very much anymore.

After retirement having time to maybe do some more recording, I considered getting PC DP, having such fond memories of all the fun with DP a couple or three decades ago. Finally decided, I like MOTU as a company and have fond memories of DP but never liked the copy protection scheme. Dam Pace. So decided to try Reaper and see how bad it could be? I like the licensing and price and "on paper" the features I wanted were there.

So Reaper is working out "good enough" for my modest uses. My eyes have been getting real bad and I have to use giant monitors set to display huge garish-colored mouse cursors, so my visual artistic judgement may be faulty. But I've never seen a "good looking" Reaper skin. Got one set up that is usable though. I remember back in the old days with DP running on dual 19" CRT monitors in my face (which were about as big as mere mortals could afford, and only weighed about 100 pounds apiece), even when my eyes were "at least as good as average" some of the tiny buttons in DP would about drive me blind, though it looked great and was fun to work with. So maybe even with giant monitors DP wouldn't be friendly to dimming eyes unless they have abandoned microscopic buttons.

[Spencer Maddox]

Oops, I thought Digital Performer was cross platform.

from everything i've read it's debatable if DP actually functions on windows

I use DP regularly enough to visit DP centric forums, and it's already got good traction as far as people posting using it on Windows. Haven't heard too many complaints, but the first .0 version for Windows had lots of issues for sure.

that's good to know. i've read a lot of "not ready for prime time" type comments from people who've used it on windows.

Back when I was with my windows rig I installed the DP trial and it was a MESS.
Might try it again one day but I have too many DAWS as it is lamo.

[syntonica]

But I've never seen a "good looking" Reaper skin. Got one set up that is usable though.

There are some nice skins out there, but this is the one area that Reaper falls flat for me. The GUI renderer tends to make things jump around on screen by a couple of pixels when you flip back and forth between screens and pretty soon, everything is out of the very careful alignment I set up at the beginning. I'm fussy about where I put everything, so I could never use Reaper because of this.

On a side note, I just got my old MacBook Pro back and I find it originally came with Snow Leopard! So, in addition to High Sierra, I'm installing Snow and Mavericks so I can actually do a little more hardcore testing. I finally got my 32-bit compilation restored after foolishly hitting the project upgrade button on upgrading to Xcode 9 and didn't notice that it deleted all things x86...

Yes, I still compile for XP and 10.6... because I can...

[machinesworking]

MOTU has been doing their best to add features on, but if you've ever used an older version (<5?), the paradigm is quite apparent. It's why DP was so readily adopted by the analog studio crowd. It just made sense to them. Those of us who grew up on MIDI trackers and sequencers tend to like the Cubases and PTs of the world.

I grew up on Performer. My first 'electronic' band used a Mac+ and Performer 1.0. So I went straight to DP 2.1 years later when I got back into sequencing.

Whippersnappers younger than me are Live evangelists. While I like clips, which is how I tended to work in Logic, Live just baffles me. Now that DP does something similar...

Obviously I'm no whippersnapper, but I started using Live at v3, messed with it a bit before that, so the Clips part of DP is a huge plus. It needs the update tech support promises is coming in a bit here to be truly useful. Logic doesn't do clips, it's more like loops, clips are by nature timeline independent, loops aren't always.

So maybe even with giant monitors DP wouldn't be friendly to dimming eyes unless they have abandoned microscopic buttons.

DP is resizable, it's pretty dammed cool really, because it's a simple Command+ and Command- to resize it. My only remaining complaint is that velocity emulation outside of the Event List is still those tiny V's on stems. There is some hope here though, DP10 added in velocity indicators in the MIDI note editor, hopefully they ad in a way to use this like in Logic. I love Reaper, but I hate the GUI, the fact that every open track editor is a blank white Excel looking spreadsheet, and yes, there are no great skins, only tolerable ones.

I like that this thread has now become about DP.

[dayjob]

I like that this thread has now become about DP.

sorry/you're welcome.

[sfd]

Catalina was also the name of the Swedish spy-plane TP 47 that was shoot down by the Soviets in the early 50s

Anyway. I think we can happily add xils-lab to the growing list of devs supporting Catalina

[fmr]

Finally decided, I like MOTU as a company and have fond memories of DP but never liked the copy protection scheme. Dam Pace. So decided to try Reaper and see how bad it could be? I like the licensing and price and "on paper" the features I wanted were there.

DP doesn't use PACE anymore (since many years already). You just need to insert a serial number, and you're done. Very much like in REAPER