digital performer compared to other daws?

[woggle]

Hi, I have pretty much given up on Reaper and am looking for a more professional product with consistent long term design and functionality. I am using win10 and do not want to have to switch to a Mac. Much of my work now is video based with intricate editing of audio and I think that is likely to continue. Digital Performer seems to have a good reputation and strong functionality for video and audio - not so sure about midi which I don't use much anyway. I do not make pop music, rock, dance or anything like that so something like Live or Bitwig is probably not what I am wanting. Alternatives seem to be Samplitude and Cubase - although pricewise Cubase seems comparatively expensive. I have no need for any additional content like instruments and fx.

Thoughts on Digital Performer/Samplitude/Cubase ?

[Googly Smythe]

Hi, I have pretty much given up on Reaper and am looking for a more professional product with consistent long term design and functionality....

That will raise the Reaperites hackles!
I've only ever used Cubase, on 8.5, waiting for 9. Wouldn't use anything else, at the moment.
Every time I find a need to do something, Cubase can do it.
Although you can't edit video in Cubase, you'll be able to replace the audio stream.
Non-standard window handling, but you get used to it.
Could never get it to work in Win10, though, but others here have had no problems at all.
If you don't mind the dongle, try the demo.

[woggle]

Hi, I have pretty much given up on Reaper and am looking for a more professional product with consistent long term design and functionality....

That will raise the Reaperites hackles!
I've only ever used Cubase, on 8.5, waiting for 9. Wouldn't use anything else, at the moment.
Every time I find a need to do something, Cubase can do it.
Although you can't edit video in Cubase, you'll be able to replace the audio stream.
Non-standard window handling, but you get used to it.
Could never get it to work in Win10, though, but others here have had no problems at all.
If you don't mind the dongle, try the demo.

thanks - replacing the audio stream is all i need, I either work to a finished video or use Premiere.

I've no doubt Reaper can do what I want, it's just I'm getting older and not willing to spare the time.

[medienhexer]

Well DP has a steep learning curve. With experience in Logic, Cubase, Pro Tools, tracktion and a little bit of Reason, I couldn't even get it to record MIDI data without the documentation. It's not immediately intuitive at all, so keep that in mind while demoing. It's not you and it's not like the features you're looking for don't exist, they're probably hiding in plain sight.

It also has a few concepts which are quite unique and definitely geared towards film composers which are utterly confusing if you intend to quickly record and then copy+paste elements to quickly draft a pop song as you would anywhere else. Well, PT does have those playlists, doesn't it? Somewhat related.

If you do invest the time to learn it inside out, it's a powerful tool which had features long before anybody else and, at least on the Mac, great performance.

[lfm]

I tested two verisons DP the last two years - and agree there is some learning curve.
But it has many qualities - some mention notation and chunks which allow to work with independent parts in timeline kind of.
Performance is an issue as well, about double cpu for same project(talking windows here). Windows is a different beast and have to be optimized differently from devs.

What broke trust for me was the really strange approach to midi - there are no midi clips as such and you have to learn two dozens keyboard shortcuts to select the midi events you want to operate on. You record a midi take - and it's just a bunch of notes, not a container that can be easily handled as a take.

[woggle]

thanks medienhexer and lfm - I will demo it and see how it goes - I have heard that it is very Mac based so was interested to hear about Win performance. As I would never draft a pop song those sorts of problems or issues are not so important.

[fmr]

Being a long time Digital Performer user, I can confirm that the only drawaback in Windows currently is performance. They are supposedly working to optimize it, but DP in Windows cannot open so many VIs and processing plug-ins as Reaper (quite far from it).

It is also much less forgiven to plug-ins than Reaper, so, if you have some plug-in DP doesn't "like", you have to simply give up on it. That said, you even don't have to remove ir - DP has a plug-in manager that lists all the plug-ins, and you know which ones didn't pass the scan, you can specifically re-scan that plug-in (only - I wish the other DAWs had this feature too, instead of forcing us to blindly re-scan the entire folder). You can even force enabling it, even without passing the scan, but I don't advise this. When DP crashes it many times forces us to restart the system to get it back.

And it is indeed a DAW that has to be learned. Some of its concepts are nowadays unique, since they go back to the MIDI only and the beginning of digital audio, and the only other sequencer DP shared concepts with (Studio Vision) is long gone. But the documentation is very comprehensive and well done, and you can always come back here and ask.

[woggle]

Being a long time Digital Performer user, I can confirm that the only drawaback in Windows currently is performance. They are supposedly working to optimize it, but DP in Windows cannot open so many VIs and processing plug-ins as Reaper (quite far from it).

It is also much less forgiven to plug-ins than Reaper, so, if you have some plug-in DP doesn't "like", you have to simply give up on it. That said, you even don't have to remove ir - DP has a plug-in manager that lists all the plug-ins, and you know which ones didn't pass the scan, you can specifically re-scan that plug-in (only - I wish the other DAWs had this feature too, instead of forcing us to blindly re-scan the entire folder). You can even force enabling it, even without passing the scan, but I don't advise this. When DP crashes it many times forces us to restart the system to get it back.

And it is indeed a DAW that has to be learned. Some of its concepts are nowadays unique, since they go back to the MIDI only and the beginning of digital audio, and the only other sequencer DP shared concepts with (Studio Vision) is long gone. But the documentation is very comprehensive and well done, and you can always come back here and ask.

thanks - as far as plug-ins go - are there any common major ones that are problematic? eg Kontakt or Valhalla reverbs etc

[fmr]

thanks - as far as plug-ins go - are there any common major ones that are problematic? eg Kontakt or Valhalla reverbs etc

I don't use Valhala, but Kontakt works OK - no problems with it.

[untimelyman]

DP on Windows has the most unusable font among all DAWs. The font is super tiny and blurry. It does not respect ClearType. And there is no possibility to increase the font size.

[fmr]

DP on Windows has the most unusable font among all DAWs. The font is super tiny and blurry. It does not respect ClearType. And there is no possibility to increase the font size.

What do you mean? I already wear glasses, yet I have no problems in reading any DP menu. I sometimes don't get where people are coming from with these opinions, and how they dare to come here stating things as facts (when they are just THEIR opinions, after all).

Anyway, anyone can try Digital Performer for 30 days, and see if, effectively fonts or whatever are a problem to them.

[lfm]

Maybe he means the first level track listing, which is kind of tiny font size, and track height as well.
You can set which columns you want there - but nothing else I think.
When you go in one level to a sequence it's better as I recall.

And I talk about using normal full hd 1920x1080 screen.

[fmr]

Maybe he means the first level track listing, which is kind of tiny font size, and track height as well.
You can set which columns you want there - but nothing else I think.
When you go in one level to a sequence it's better as I recall.

And I talk about using normal full hd 1920x1080 screen.

I am at that resolution. If he is talking about the track overview window, yes, the font is tiny, because at that zoom level, it has to be tiny. But you can zoom it up to a gigantic level, and then the font will be bigger. The same about the sequencer window, which also allows a big level of zooming.

Actually, I think any window allows zooming, except for the mixer. And, in terms of composition within the application, only Cubase is on pair, at the level of editing it allows, especially in MIDI tracks.

[Robert Randolph]

Maybe he means the first level track listing, which is kind of tiny font size, and track height as well.
You can set which columns you want there - but nothing else I think.
When you go in one level to a sequence it's better as I recall.

And I talk about using normal full hd 1920x1080 screen.

I am at that resolution. If he is talking about the track overview window, yes, the font is tiny, because at that zoom level, it has to be tiny. But you can zoom it up to a gigantic level, and then the font will be bigger. The same about the sequencer window, which also allows a big level of zooming.

Actually, I think any window allows zooming, except for the mixer. And, in terms of composition within the application, only Cubase is on pair, at the level of editing it allows, especially in MIDI tracks.

The issue is that in OS X, on the same resolution, everything looks great (but still a bit small).

Relevant to this thread, I'm writing a review on Digital Performer 9 right now. Hopefully it will be done in a few days. (I have fairly long review series on Cubase and Studio One, as well as short ones on Ardour and Reaper already there)

[jancivil]

I had DP but never used it. Its interface, in multiple ways, will have been like starting out all over again.

Except for very rudimentary use of Logic, I only ever used Cubase. I'll say this, I figured out how to do almost all that I do without consulting the manual. The manual isn't really so bad, but there are things where it seems like to me it made more sense in German than what I'm reading.