Digital Performer 9 released

[Zamyen]

The fact that Danny Elfman uses DP made me buy a full license, unfortunately v8 crashed so much on my PC I had to go back to other hosts.

I liked the scoring screen a lot but I would have to buy a MAC to use it which is tempting but unlikely right now.

I think porting mature software between platforms is extremely difficult but I hope to come back to DP at some point.

[bill45]

Is it easy to enter notes in the notation editor?

[Robert Randolph]

Is it easy to enter notes in the notation editor?

Which one? DP has 2

The answer is yes to both.

[fmr]

The fact that Danny Elfman uses DP made me buy a full license, unfortunately v8 crashed so much on my PC I had to go back to other hosts.

I liked the scoring screen a lot but I would have to buy a MAC to use it which is tempting but unlikely right now.

I think porting mature software between platforms is extremely difficult but I hope to come back to DP at some point.

It was hard in the beginning, but latest updates got better. Basically, I founf DP is very "selective" in what concerns plug-ins (the same also happens in Mac OS BTW if you choose VST instead of AU - that's why I stayed with just AU in Mac OS). As soon as you find the ones it likes, things get better. Didn't try v9 in Windows yet.

Step entry in DP is one of the best you have in any DAW.

[kelldammit]

It was hard in the beginning, but latest updates got better. Basically, I founf DP is very "selective" in what concerns plug-ins (the same also happens in Mac OS BTW if you choose VST instead of AU - that's why I stayed with just AU in Mac OS). As soon as you find the ones it likes, things get better. Didn't try v9 in Windows yet.

That's been my experience with the PC version as well (minus the AU part, of course).
In v8, i had issues with various plugs' GUI's lagging badly...very frustrating when the analyzer on your eq isn't showing what you're hearing :/ Superior, Punch and BDF3 also had this issue to varying degrees. BDF3 would take DP down if you made a selection and tried to offline bounce.
Those issues are fixed in v9.
I still have two issues that are reported and confirmed by MOTU (and the devs in question):
1. zebra2 vst ends up distorting/chopping up any audio streams with more than one instance running, despite low cpu hit. Diva, Satin, and the Hive, Bazille, and Presswerk demos all work without issue.
2. RP plugs:
a) DP will scan/pass Punch & Punch Multi, but only the stereo version shows up as selectable. If you rename the Multi dll file (just add a space anywhere), only the multi shows up as selectable. Since i only use multi, it's at least workable until a fix is in.
b) DP doesn't save patches correctly on close. It remembers the bank, but not the patch (it will revert to the first patch in the correct bank) if you close/reopen DP. The workaround is to put each patch in the first slot of an empty bank, so...workable, but needs to be fixed. Otherwise, the plugs work fine.
I can get around both problems via VEP or rewiring Reaper in or whatnot, as well.

There are probably others here or there that i haven't run into yet, but most of my stuff works correctly, or at least well enough to get the job done without blowing up left and right. VST2 is a pretty loose standard, so i'm not too surprised they're having some trouble getting up to speed.

[bill45]

Is it easy to enter notes in the notation editor?

Which one? DP has 2

The answer is yes to both.

Thanks Robert I did not know DP has 2 notation editors.
Haven't found much info about this on youtube.

[lfm]

There are probably others here or there that i haven't run into yet, but most of my stuff works correctly, or at least well enough to get the job done without blowing up left and right. VST2 is a pretty loose standard, so i'm not too surprised they're having some trouble getting up to speed.

A couple of Waves stuff, that have needle kind of vu meters are not fluent either.
CLA-series compressors, Maserati ACG, V-series. Probably because that movement is easily detected by eye if not fluent.

Other strange things are - when loading such a plugins on stereo track - only stereo component show up, which is ok - but on a mono track there is one mono/stereo, and two mono versions - not sure if one is there stereo component routed as mono or something.

Other daws keep the "Mono" in the component name also, so you see what you loaded. So maybe I got stereo versions loaded on mono tracks - which could explain performance issues. Same project in Reaper or Sonar use half cpu and less - 30 tracks/15 plugins/3 synths.

[Robert Randolph]

Could you post a screen shot of the 2 mono versions? That sounds odd unless you have both AU and VST enabled.

[lfm]

Could you post a screen shot of the 2 mono versions? That sounds odd unless you have both AU and VST enabled.

Thanks. I'm on Windows.

here it is:
DP9 Waves plugs

Top is from a mono track, bottom from a stereo track.

[Robert Randolph]

Could you post a screen shot of the 2 mono versions? That sounds odd unless you have both AU and VST enabled.

Thanks. I'm on Windows.

here it is:
DP9 Waves plugs

Top is from a mono track, bottom from a stereo track.

Do any of those plug-ins come with their own mono variants that show up in other hosts? I can't seem to reproduce that here.

[fmr]

Could you post a screen shot of the 2 mono versions? That sounds odd unless you have both AU and VST enabled.

Thanks. I'm on Windows.

here it is:
DP9 Waves plugs

Top is from a mono track, bottom from a stereo track.

Do you happen to have more than one VstPLugIns folder? It may be the case that DP is monitoring more than one.

[lfm]

Do any of those plug-ins come with their own mono variants that show up in other hosts? I can't seem to reproduce that here.

They are all part of waves shell v9.3 - and yes they show up such in other hosts.
Most Waves stuff come with mono/stereo,mono,stereo components.
Some daws like S1 and DP show lists depending on mono or stereo track.
Others just list all components, and they route properly whatever you load.
Last installer I ran was v9r26 as I recall.

They show up correctly in Cubase, Sonar, StudioOne, Mixcraft and Samplitude.

To make a guess, third in list should be omitted, but not sure how they did it.

[lfm]

Do you happen to have more than one VstPLugIns folder? It may be the case that DP is monitoring more than one.

Thanks.
Two folders, but only one that contains Waves shell.
Both \Program Files so no x86 stuff.

I ran trials of DP 8.04 and 8.07 before, and to be sure scans from those do not interfer I did reset or whatever it was called on that dialog. Only ran 64-bit versions ever.

[Robert Randolph]

Do any of those plug-ins come with their own mono variants that show up in other hosts? I can't seem to reproduce that here.

They are all part of waves shell v9.3 - and yes they show up such in other hosts.
Most Waves stuff come with mono/stereo,mono,stereo components.
Some daws like S1 and DP show lists depending on mono or stereo track.
Others just list all components, and they route properly whatever you load.
Last installer I ran was v9r26 as I recall.

They show up correctly in Cubase, Sonar, StudioOne, Mixcraft and Samplitude.

To make a guess, third in list should be omitted, but not sure how they did it.

I think there's your problem.

DP's vst->mas wrapper creates its own mono versions. So if your plugin also present their own mono version, then you will see two.

I know it may be tedious, but you can go in preferences->audio plug-ins and remove the mono versions. It should only require clicking a few check boxes.

I'm still curious about your CPU issue, since DP9 runs faster than S1 for me by a fairly large margin.

[lfm]

I think there's your problem.

DP's vst->mas wrapper creates its own mono versions. So if your plugin also present their own mono version, then you will see two.

I know it may be tedious, but you can go in preferences->audio plug-ins and remove the mono versions. It should only require clicking a few check boxes.

I'm still curious about your CPU issue, since DP9 runs faster than S1 for me by a fairly large margin.

Thanks.
I'm not sure I understand creating it's own mono versions, and why.

I did freeze of the three synths, and cpu went down from 23-25% total on all cores, 4 used) - to 16-18%. If 30-50% more cpu, one can live with - and do freezing earlier - but 100% more then something is wrong.

Many dialogs I got in and out of - then system is unresponsive for 3-5s or so.
Not every time, but it feel like it's parsing the project like crazy.
There might be some setting somewhere, to ease up on this, don't know.

But you are Mac user, or?
I mean DP has been optimized for Mac forever.
So it's understandable that both new plugin format and OS may take some time getting it right.

It's been 2-2.5 years since I ran any full project in S1, so don't know how it behaves now. But from what I read on forums, people don't regard S1 as master of performance. Some at Avid forum as well as here.

Either way, I made the purchase decision for Samp ProX2 this morning, so will not spend more time with DP now.

Thanks a lot for input.