DP9 set to get an update, claiming 4X CPU performance...

[machinesworking]

Bookmarking this for the time when the update announced at NAMM hits in a couple months, here's the blurb on it:

future update features:

-Hardware inserts audio send and return acts as latency compensating insert to any hardware device, synth. Self detects latency with a little chirp measurement.

- lowered host latency reduced by half. Running at 256 will now respond like 128 buffer. Next-gen "pre-gen"

-improved CPU on VIs. More efficient than any other DAW.

-150 orchestral instruments in dozens of Kontakts at 64 buffer and virtually no processor load.

As it stands DP is comparable to Logic, Cubase etc. on OSX anyway. It trounces Live and Bitwig like they all do.
During their presentation they were claiming 4X better CPU perfomance over other DAWs, my guess is Live and Bitwig. Still, if not hype, we're talking twice and many plug ins as Logic or Cubase on OSX, and Windows.

Obviously this is great and all, but Live in tests I've done CPU wise in the past, has come in at 60% of what Logic and DP could do, and Live users aren't migrating en masse to Logic. Although if it was anywhere near three times as efficient CPU wise as Logic I would say it's a game changer for MOTU and DP9.

[incubus]

CPU optimization, it's the new black

[machinesworking]

That and VCA faders.

[incubus]

I'm all for it. Real advancements instead of the bore-zone, it's a good thing to me.

[tooneba]

If it were able to use 4 core for a single track it might be 4times faster than some daws.

[machinesworking]

If it were able to use 4 core for a single track it might be 4times faster than some daws.

I'm not sure what you mean by that? Are you saying that if DP was to be able to use all four cores in a 4 CPU computer on a single track it might be 4X faster?

I suppose that comes down to how you work and what computer you use doesn't it? My machine is 12 cores, so being able to use all cores is far more of an advantage to me than one track using multiple cores. The demo they showed was of Cinesamples orchestral samples for Kontak running at a buffer of 64, 120 MIDI tracks into 12 Konakt instances. He's claiming 'pretty much fully loaded' as in 16 Cinesamples instances in most instances of Kontakt. There's a lot of question marks here of course: Exactly what mac is running this? if it's the fastest one available it's hardly as impressive as if it's the standard Mac Pro. To what extent is "pretty much"? are we talking a few drum libraries where multiple MIDI tracks are going to the same instance or most tracks.
It's very possible it's as good as they claim, pre-rendering basically freezes a track (more or less) if you don't have the record enabled on it, freeing up resources for that track until you need to edit it. Caveats may very well be spikes when editing pre-rendered tracks, we will see.

[incubus]

The whole point of CPU optimization is to spread out the use over the cores (yes, even if it's "hyperthreading" )

Unless you have a dog, there should never been the kind of bottlenecking that goes on with so many. In the last few years (since the i7 came out, which was a game changer) you can get uber monster chips and OC them to the hilt and still get spikes and poor usage. Cliff notes version of that is that as 3rd party plugins add up, that phrase "bottleneck" pops up again and again.

If you optimize the daw to use cores in a proper way, then the full power of your PC/MAC should be realized. Clearly the type of chip should matter, but in recent years it really hasn't.

Now, let's hear from the trolls and "1024 buffer/never use 3rd party" crowd as CLEARLY that's how you should use a daw

[dayjob]

there's a NAMM video that starts as a "let's pat ourselves on the back" then talks new features.

apparently lot's of optimizations to the audio engine allow for heavy loads at low buffers w/o killing the CPU. no idea what the specs are of the computer in the video so it's hard to make any judgement.

i've tried to like DP but the layers of gui just throw me.

[machinesworking]

there's a NAMM video that starts as a "let's pat ourselves on the back" then talks new features.

apparently lot's of optimizations to the audio engine allow for heavy loads at low buffers w/o killing the CPU. no idea what the specs are of the computer in the video so it's hard to make any judgement.

i've tried to like DP but the layers of gui just throw me.

Yes, it's a sales pitch, it's NAMM.

It's one of the pitfalls of the "different" DAWs is them throwing those of us that didn't start on them. I Started on DP and because it's different, and the same etc. I could easily migrate to Logic and Cubase, but I know many Cubase users that always were confused by Logic etc. The DAWs that flummox me are Sonar and Reaper. I always end up feeling like they did things purposefully different to tick me off.

If you ever feel the need to suffer through attempting DP again, the best thing to do is just start off using it like you would any other DAW, stick to the Tracks Overview to set up and do bulk editing and the Sequence Window for audio editing, MIDI window for MIDI editing and you're good. Worry about Chunks later, and realize many people never even use the Song Window, it's really mainly only for mocking up parts of a song.

[dayjob]

there's a NAMM video that starts as a "let's pat ourselves on the back" then talks new features.

apparently lot's of optimizations to the audio engine allow for heavy loads at low buffers w/o killing the CPU. no idea what the specs are of the computer in the video so it's hard to make any judgement.

i've tried to like DP but the layers of gui just throw me.

Yes, it's a sales pitch, it's NAMM.

It's one of the pitfalls of the "different" DAWs is them throwing those of us that didn't start on them. I Started on DP and because it's different, and the same etc. I could easily migrate to Logic and Cubase, but I know many Cubase users that always were confused by Logic etc. The DAWs that flummox me are Sonar and Reaper. I always end up feeling like they did things purposefully different to tick me off.

If you ever feel the need to suffer through attempting DP again, the best thing to do is just start off using it like you would any other DAW, stick to the Tracks Overview to set up and do bulk editing and the Sequence Window for audio editing, MIDI window for MIDI editing and you're good. Worry about Chunks later, and realize many people never even use the Song Window, it's really mainly only for mocking up parts of a song.

it's actually the very first DAW i ever used back in 1996. i liked it then but for whatever reason bought logic discovery with an audiowerk8 card. i've dabbled in DP enough to start a few songs in it. .it just seems so foreign still. somethings are great but i hate navigating it and the little bubbles and the way any kind of region works is something i've never gotten comfortable with. logic is still a pig for audio editing imo. so, it's not w/o it's faults. i tend to use standard DAWs for very specific things these days and mostly stick to other environments for creating/composing/sound design.. then it ends up in the DAW later to mix.

anyway... if i do go for DP again sometime i'll try to follow your advice!

[machinesworking]

Started in Performer, left electronic music and sequencing for years, got back into DP in 96 as well, got pissed at DP for dumb reasons, moved to Logic4, got pissed at Logic 8, used Live for years with Logic, moved back to DP5, fully at 7.

There's not a DAW around that I like navigating. I was happy with Logic 4-7, but 8 screwed up my workflow. Honestly I'm for the most part back to happy that way with DP since 7.

[Jim Roseberry]

From the description, MOTU are implementing their version of a read-ahead cache.
This has a dramatic affect on performance... so I wouldn't discount the x4 improvement.

Samplitude 2496 had this feature *years* ago, then Logic, Reaper, ProTools 11, etc.
Each has a slightly different twist... but end result is a major performance gain.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[LawrenceF]

My impression of demoing DP was that it's just too deep for a casual look, that if you want to use it you kinda have to use it, learn it, and I wasn't really willing to go that deep demoing it, and may not have had the time to do that in 30 days without just using it all the time during that period.

I overlooked the crashes because it was new to Windows at the time, but it's not really something you can learn in a short time like Tracktion or something. Some of the concepts are just completely different from Cubase and similar.

If I was DP I might extend that demo to 45-60 days.

[machinesworking]

if they do pull this performance miracle off, i hope it just gives other devs incentive to equal it but in an actual usable DAW...

I won't be able to test it myself to see if it lives up to it's claims cause I still can't work out how to play simple audio in DP the last time I demoed it, so i will have to take you guys' word for it.

Like I posted above, mostly what messes people up about DP is it's 'multiple workflow' thing. If you just go with using the Tracks Overview for most big edits and setup, Sequence Editor for Audio editing, MIDI editor for MIDI etc. you really aren't presented with that different of a workflow. It's when Chunks, V-Racks and the Song Window are added that things are different than other DAWs. Even myself after five years using Logic coming back to DP I had to limit myself at first or I'd get lost. Now I have no real interest ingoing back to Logic with it's lack of Chunks, or Live with it's lack of real PC messages, SysEx, NRPN, simple MIDI.

Seriously, first thing I did when coming back was try to use Chunks loaded with VSTs and VSTi's like I would Session View in Live, lovey little mess there. There's a reason for V-Racks.