Digital Performer 10 is now Ableton Live

[DavidCarlyon]

Sysex is different to nrpn though right? But yeah that looks really nice and easy.
I downloaded the demo but had to shoot straight out. First thought everything is tiny and I don’t know what the hell I am doing!!!

Haha I have had that so many times this year with new DAW.
I have been loving reaper a lot. Really got my heart set on staying there. But if this is really that easy I am seriously tempted.

[machinesworking]

Sysex is different to nrpn though right? But yeah that looks really nice and easy.
I downloaded the demo but had to shoot straight out. First thought everything is tiny and I don’t know what the hell I am doing!!!

Haha I have had that so many times this year with new DAW.
I have been loving reaper a lot. Really got my heart set on staying there. But if this is really that easy I am seriously tempted.

On OSX anyway it's command + to enlarge the GUI, probably Control+ on Windows.

Reaper is one of my side b*tches, I'm not a very loyal DAW user, but DP is my all around favorite. I started in it, but even with that bias it's more about all the basics being all there, at least for how I work.

[fmr]

For audio, it can even reproduce the Pro Tools workflow, and has all the features necessary for a good Audio DAW. In terms of easy of use, I guess it will take more time than Studio One, but it offerw way more power.

Can you elaborate on DP10's audio features that take it beyond REAPER and Studio One please?
Audio editing is key for me, more so than MIDI capabilities, and was what drove me to virtually stop using Logic (despite its being a great DAW in many respects), so I'm genuinely curious. (Note: I've never used DP.)

It's difficult to elaborate without being here writing a manual. I advise you to read What's New and a global overview of features here: http://motu.com/products/software/dp/

I would like to emphasize that DP features ZTX Pro from Zynaptiq, probably the best algorithm for time compression/expansion and pitch shifting on the market. Besides, if you know Pro Tools, you may think of DP as Pro Tools coupled with a really big and fully developed MIDI sequencer.

If you have any specific features in REAPER that you think you can't live without, maybe discuss those in detail. Anyway, nothing prevents you of having both. I have REAPER too, because it is cheap, it is so light and yet fully featured, and it is the best one in what concerns plug-in count (number of plug-ins you can run simultaneously).

[Mies]

Thank you, Fernando. I'll definitely investigate then (I wouldn't have minded a manual! ).

Your point about DP as Pro Tools coupled with an extensive MIDI sequencer struck home as that's pretty much what I expected of Studio One, and it is true to some extents, but not entirely. REAPER is phenomenal, despite its erm... "unique" UI which can anyway be customised.

Talking about REAPER and DP, one last question if I may.
I use extensively Acustica Audio stuff which really, I mean really, is heavy on the CPU (worth it though, sonically) - Logic and even Studio One can't really cope, but REAPER fares much better. How's DP10 in that respect, would you know? Can it handle well in your experience heavy duty plug-ins?
(I know, I can install DP and try for myself, and it's likely I will, but I'd like to get an idea first as this is critical.)

EDIT: Apologies, I didn't mean to ignore your comment on DP featuring ZTX Pro from Zynaptiq - you're absolutely correct, Zynaptiq's tools are remarkable and it is impressive MOTU have included them in their product, and this certainly confirms they are taking seriously audio editing. I however use RX, and iZotope are no slouches either Having said that, having this available inside the DAW would be very nice indeed.

[machinesworking]

Talking about REAPER and DP, one last question if I may.
I use extensively Acustica Audio stuff which really, I mean really, is heavy on the CPU (worth it though, sonically) - Logic and even Studio One can't really cope, but REAPER fares much better. How's DP10 in that respect, would you know? Can it handle well in your experience heavy duty plug-ins?
(I know, I can install DP and try for myself, and it's likely I will, but I'd like to get an idea first as this is critical.)

This one is interesting, DP has drastically changed the way CPU is conserved in 9 and 10. I fares slightly better than Logic and slightly worse than Reaper in track counts with heavy CPU plug ins. We're not talking about major differences here, like 11,12, and 13 instances of Diva on an older Mac Pro.

DP does something called NextGen PreGen, in their own terms, it basically involves serious buffering on tracks that are not record enabled, busses or Aux's etc. They end up using almost no CPU, they basically get pre-rendered. So using heavy plug ins will hit your CPU while you have the instance open etc. This all can be a lot different than other DAWs where they do use buffering on tracks not currently record enabled etc.

I see a lot of people doing things like bussing all tracks directly to an Aux with heavy plug ins and wondering why their CPU is getting hit hard, but it's all painfully obvious in DP since it has an Effect Performance window. You can literally see which plug ins are running in real time or are being pre generated. It's all obvious when you look at the window which plug ins need to be dealt with etc.

[DavidCarlyon]

Talking about REAPER and DP, one last question if I may.
I use extensively Acustica Audio stuff which really, I mean really, is heavy on the CPU (worth it though, sonically) - Logic and even Studio One can't really cope, but REAPER fares much better. How's DP10 in that respect, would you know? Can it handle well in your experience heavy duty plug-ins?
(I know, I can install DP and try for myself, and it's likely I will, but I'd like to get an idea first as this is critical.)

This one is interesting, DP has drastically changed the way CPU is conserved in 9 and 10. I fares slightly better than Logic and slightly worse than Reaper in track counts with heavy CPU plug ins. We're not talking about major differences here, like 11,12, and 13 instances of Diva on an older Mac Pro.

DP does something called NextGen PreGen, in their own terms, it basically involves serious buffering on tracks that are not record enabled, busses or Aux's etc. They end up using almost no CPU, they basically get pre-rendered. So using heavy plug ins will hit your CPU while you have the instance open etc. This all can be a lot different than other DAWs where they do use buffering on tracks not currently record enabled etc.

I see a lot of people doing things like bussing all tracks directly to an Aux with heavy plug ins and wondering why their CPU is getting hit hard, but it's all painfully obvious in DP since it has an Effect Performance window. You can literally see which plug ins are running in real time or are being pre generated. It's all obvious when you look at the window which plug ins need to be dealt with etc.

Interesting - but then others say that stacking loads of plugins/Va's on a single track stops the DAW from being able to utilize multi-cores. So in DP it is better to do this as the individual tracks are almost pre rendered?

[DavidCarlyon]

Ah yeah, its called 'anticipative fx processing' in reaper.

[Mies]

Thank you, DavidCarlyon.

So, somewhere in between Logic and REAPER in terms of handling heavy hitting plug-ins, a bit like Studio One then. I'll test it firsthand, you and fmr have convinced me to trial DP10

[machinesworking]

Interesting - but then others say that stacking loads of plugins/Va's on a single track stops the DAW from being able to utilize multi-cores. So in DP it is better to do this as the individual tracks are almost pre rendered?

Individual tracks that are not armed or currently being tampered with will pre-render. So the single CPU limit of any DAW still stands, but as soon as you finish tampering with the track, you can see a good portion of the CPU get relinquished back.

In practice I would say this works really well with stacking plug ins on multiple tracks while mixing, but doesn't perform really any better than any other method when composing, since record enabled tracks don't benefit from it.

[machinesworking]

^^^ To put it more succinctly, in some ways I think Reaper does the best job at dealing with CPU issues, since for whatever reason it behaves the best with Sequencer/drum machine plug ins like Maschine and MPC2, it seems to not bog as hard as Logic, DP, and Live do here when these plug ins run as VSTi. That said I don't see more than a roughly 8% CPU benefit overall from using Reaper over DP, not enough to make it part of the equation.
To be fair, some people have no luck with DP, they get issues I've never had, and not just the Windows version. I get the impression though it's a matter of using older methods of CPU management with DP that don't work as well. For instance in general it's best to not stack heavily scripted Kontakt instruments into a multi then bus out of that multi in DP, that method actually causes the tracks to run in real time, and negates any benefit from PreGen. So in DP it's much smarter to not bus out of a VSTi if you don't have to, and to just use individual instances of Kontakt for heavily scripted libraries like Cinesamples for instance.

So the old method that worked, what with modern heavily scripted konakt libraries, actually causes more CPU stress than individual tracks. Obviously this isn't that big of a deal with older libraries that aren't heavily scripted, and you might see a benefit from having one track with 8-16 libraries in it routed to auxs etc. but in general that isn't going to pay off as well CPU use wise as individual tracks.

[DavidCarlyon]

^^^ To put it more succinctly, in some ways I think Reaper does the best job at dealing with CPU issues, since for whatever reason it behaves the best with Sequencer/drum machine plug ins like Maschine and MPC2, it seems to not bog as hard as Logic, DP, and Live do here when these plug ins run as VSTi. That said I don't see more than a roughly 8% CPU benefit overall from using Reaper over DP, not enough to make it part of the equation.
To be fair, some people have no luck with DP, they get issues I've never had, and not just the Windows version. I get the impression though it's a matter of using older methods of CPU management with DP that don't work as well. For instance in general it's best to not stack heavily scripted Kontakt instruments into a multi then bus out of that multi in DP, that method actually causes the tracks to run in real time, and negates any benefit from PreGen. So in DP it's much smarter to not bus out of a VSTi if you don't have to, and to just use individual instances of Kontakt for heavily scripted libraries like Cinesamples for instance.

So the old method that worked, what with modern heavily scripted konakt libraries, actually causes more CPU stress than individual tracks. Obviously this isn't that big of a deal with older libraries that aren't heavily scripted, and you might see a benefit from having one track with 8-16 libraries in it routed to auxs etc. but in general that isn't going to pay off as well CPU use wise as individual tracks.

Interesting stuff.
Say i have a few VST synths, which are in a folder. That folder has some heavy plugins on - is that folder getting the same treatment as the single tracks when its not being tampered with?

I might have to re think things a bit!

[machinesworking]

Interesting stuff.
Say i have a few VST synths, which are in a folder. That folder has some heavy plugins on - is that folder getting the same treatment as the single tracks when its not being tampered with?

I might have to re think things a bit!

Folders don't behave like Groups in Live or Folders do in Reaper. They aren't forcing any bussing. So yeah, folders don't have any affect on CPU use. I really like the way folders behave in Reaper when I'm printing out stems, but I hate it when all I want to do is organize a huge track template, for that I really prefer it just be a folder like it is in DP and not get magical bussing powers like they do in Reaper.

In DP where you see Pregen break down for people are cases like this one guy on the Facebook DP forum complaining about CPU issues who had 8+ Sends to various dealys and reverbs on busses to tracks with soft synths etc. on them. basically everything he was doing was fudging DP's pre-rendering up. I don't thing he had more than 12 synth tracks, sent to 8 busses.

Not to oversell DP, my only complaint with all this is they need to have a better 'rendering to audio' system in place than they do. I like to make stems to use in Live, and now that DP is starting on the path towards Clips I might just keep them in DP. There are not a lot of choices for rendering stems in DP compared to Live, Reaper etc. What you have as of now is Freeze tracks, bouncing to single audio file or bussing to tracks to record to Stems in real time. "Render all tracks as seperate audio files", and "Render selected tracks to separate audio files" bounce options are needed IMO. Especially since it makes total sense to bounce instrument tracks to audio before bussing to stems, or using heavy mastering plug ins etc.
Don't get me wrong it's not impossible in DP at all to do these things. My method is to freeze the tracks then export that audio to new tracks in a new sequence for the mastering and extensive bussing etc. part of the process.

[DavidCarlyon]

Interesting stuff.
Say i have a few VST synths, which are in a folder. That folder has some heavy plugins on - is that folder getting the same treatment as the single tracks when its not being tampered with?

I might have to re think things a bit!

Folders don't behave like Groups in Live or Folders do in Reaper. They aren't forcing any bussing. So yeah, folders don't have any affect on CPU use. I really like the way folders behave in Reaper when I'm printing out stems, but I hate it when all I want to do is organize a huge track template, for that I really prefer it just be a folder like it is in DP and not get magical bussing powers like they do in Reaper.

In DP where you see Pregen break down for people are cases like this one guy on the Facebook DP forum complaining about CPU issues who had 8+ Sends to various dealys and reverbs on busses to tracks with soft synths etc. on them. basically everything he was doing was fudging DP's pre-rendering up. I don't thing he had more than 12 synth tracks, sent to 8 busses.

Not to oversell DP, my only complaint with all this is they need to have a better 'rendering to audio' system in place than they do. I like to make stems to use in Live, and now that DP is starting on the path towards Clips I might just keep them in DP. There are not a lot of choices for rendering stems in DP compared to Live, Reaper etc. What you have as of now is Freeze tracks, bouncing to single audio file or bussing to tracks to record to Stems in real time. "Render all tracks as seperate audio files", and "Render selected tracks to separate audio files" bounce options are needed IMO. Especially since it makes total sense to bounce instrument tracks to audio before bussing to stems, or using heavy mastering plug ins etc.
Don't get me wrong it's not impossible in DP at all to do these things. My method is to freeze the tracks then export that audio to new tracks in a new sequence for the mastering and extensive bussing etc. part of the process.

Thats really interesting.
I was told that on most DAWs, one track can only access one processor - so if you, say, stack a load of things on just one track - all that stuff is not spread across processors/threads.
So what i did was put say, a VST on a track, add some light plugins - but then send it to a folder (essentially acting like an aux in most programs)
But what your saying now makes a lot of sense. The folders in reaper do not get pre rendered.

I am going to try a session today where i use as little processing on busses as possible.
I do have 8 group busses that i send everything through, then the master fader. I will try using lighter stuff on those and most of the heavy stuff on individual tracks....see where that gets me.

I do find this topic fascinating though, because it DOES make a huge difference.
One of the main reasons i left bitwig as my primary DAW was its inefficiency. Live isn't great either. Studio One is very efficient (as well as being a joy to use)
But i decided to finally try reaper out as it appears to be able to do everything (except a few thingw when it comes to external midi instruments/synths etc)

But one thing i noticed in both studio One and Reaper - i could run SO MUCH MOE stuff. It made a huge, huge difference. I wasn't having to bounce things down every five minutes, it was just a better overal experience. Also, after working at 96k i cannot go back. VST synths tend to sound a lot better, as do compressors. SO efficiency is a big one for me.

I am looking forward to trying out DP. It will take a lot to move me away from Reaper now, and i will be keeping Bitwig for live type stuff too, plus DP is not cheap (also it cannot record the clips as live performance??) But i have to say it does look very good. The audio editing looks amazing too.

Do you think the pre render system in DP works better than the one in Reaper?

[machinesworking]

I am looking forward to trying out DP. It will take a lot to move me away from Reaper now, and i will be keeping Bitwig for live type stuff too, plus DP is not cheap (also it cannot record the clips as live performance??) But i have to say it does look very good. The audio editing looks amazing too.

I actually called MOTU about the Clips because I was so confused by that. As of now the way to record them is to send them to a bus and record on another track, but that will change within this upgrade cycle. Of course I couldn't get a solid date out of him.

Do you think the pre render system in DP works better than the one in Reaper?

First off they definitely work differently, I couldn't say for sure that it's at all the same. With a quick dirty test I did recently with Diva, since it's a pig, I could run in each of these DAWs x amount of instances of Diva playing a fast note run:

Live, Bitwig, MPC2 - 8 instances

Logic X - 11
Digital Performer - 12
Reaper - 13

So you were right about Live being a pig, it seams all the 'real time' DAWs are, but I don't know if it's really that justifiable.

[DavidCarlyon]

I am looking forward to trying out DP. It will take a lot to move me away from Reaper now, and i will be keeping Bitwig for live type stuff too, plus DP is not cheap (also it cannot record the clips as live performance??) But i have to say it does look very good. The audio editing looks amazing too.

I actually called MOTU about the Clips because I was so confused by that. As of now the way to record them is to send them to a bus and record on another track, but that will change within this upgrade cycle. Of course I couldn't get a solid date out of him.

Do you think the pre render system in DP works better than the one in Reaper?

First off they definitely work differently, I couldn't say for sure that it's at all the same. With a quick dirty test I did recently with Diva, since it's a pig, I could run in each of these DAWs x amount of instances of Diva playing a fast note run:

Live, Bitwig, MPC2 - 8 instances

Logic X - 11
Digital Performer - 12
Reaper - 13

So you were right about Live being a pig, it seams all the 'real time' DAWs are, but I don't know if it's really that justifiable.

That confirms my testing too! Everyone was telling me live was quite a lot better than bitwig. Really not so. Would be interested to see where studio one comes in, as i found that very good (not quite reaper though)

I have since read up a bit on reapers pre render system (someone on reaper forum gave a really detailed reply of what the system does) and it is fascinating. I have done a test tonight, re configuring my template to maximise the potential of such a setup - and it has actually improved my performance quite a bit!!

It seems presonus have implemented something similar now, too. So there are a few that have taken the idea (which i think came from Reaper initially)

Very cool stuff. I am still looking at DP - it does look like a great system now. How is the audio editing? Never seen the Zynaptiq algo in a mainstream DAW before. Great move if you ask me.
Love that docked audio editor too!!

Are you in DP full time now?