DP 9.02 automation has gone whacko But DP 8 works

[Michael Canavan]

OK guys, lets not get dramatic, No one said “everything’s not working”. The idea that I have a constant “harangue” means I am either somewhat psycho or something is not getting fixed for years?

And my opinion that MOTU is slow to fix 3rd party bugs is borne out by years of experience, just like the amount of time you guys have.

Perhaps I could do a webcast one day and fully demonstrate DP failing, month to month to those not believing me? But why? This is not a debate.

If either of you happy campers can successfully snap shot automate DP 9 with or with out pasting, I’d love to hear it.

More germane to this post I will state that I do miss the ability to MIDI learn in DP 9 and may have to go BACK to 9 to ride lead vocal High end boosts. But thus far, DP 8 is chasing automation pretty damn well, where DP 9 failed.

No one, or at least I, did not say that there aren't issues with DP. My point was that every DAW I have ever used has had issues. To say that DP/MOTU are slower than other DAWs in fixing bugs is in my experience not the case, it's about the same. Ableton had a great run fixing bugs in a timely manner until v8, and long standing Live 8 bugs took years to fix. Same with Logic, v7.0 was a total nightmare, and it took about a year and a half before they released the update that fixed it. DP in my experience goes from stable versions to unstable ones, v5 and 7 were really stable for me, 8 was OK at the end, and I agree, 9 has some issues. This isn't unique to DP; Cubase; Logic; Sonar; Live; all of them have versions and times when the product is unstable.

I believe heavily in learning more than one DAW, it has multiple advantages, mostly that one will be stable for the requirements of your project etc. Another is to realize after a while that every DAW will have some areas where an update or upgrade hoses it.

One last point, and I'm not trying to justify it but it's on topic for sure. All DAW developers are competing for market share, new features draw customers in and get us to upgrade, but no developer seems to have the time and resources to have every set up, every computer, audio card and plug in. Some bugs slip through. It's part of the process, I've on other forums heard people rant exactly like you have about how Logic or Live or Cubase etc. seems to not work with other developers, that they're arrogant or isolationist etc. Maybe it's that I've just been following the wrong DAWs around, but MOTU don't seem any less responsive than Steinberg for example and are certainly more responsive than Apple. You pay for tech support for Logic, basically you could pay to hear them blame the plug in developer... Don't get me wrong, I think in every case it's BS that x DAW takes y amount of time fixing Z, but I get why it happens.

My guess with DP9 is the code is being tweaked for the new changes up ahead, and it's affecting it now, hopefully it all becomes stable for sure.

[toodamnhip]

OK guys, lets not get dramatic, No one said “everything’s not working”. The idea that I have a constant “harangue” means I am either somewhat psycho or something is not getting fixed for years?

And my opinion that MOTU is slow to fix 3rd party bugs is borne out by years of experience, just like the amount of time you guys have.

Perhaps I could do a webcast one day and fully demonstrate DP failing, month to month to those not believing me? But why? This is not a debate.

If either of you happy campers can successfully snap shot automate DP 9 with or with out pasting, I’d love to hear it.

More germane to this post I will state that I do miss the ability to MIDI learn in DP 9 and may have to go BACK to 9 to ride lead vocal High end boosts. But thus far, DP 8 is chasing automation pretty damn well, where DP 9 failed.

No one, or at least I, did not say that there aren't issues with DP. My point was that every DAW I have ever used has had issues. To say that DP/MOTU are slower than other DAWs in fixing bugs is in my experience not the case, it's about the same. Ableton had a great run fixing bugs in a timely manner until v8, and long standing Live 8 bugs took years to fix. Same with Logic, v7.0 was a total nightmare, and it took about a year and a half before they released the update that fixed it. DP in my experience goes from stable versions to unstable ones, v5 and 7 were really stable for me, 8 was OK at the end, and I agree, 9 has some issues. This isn't unique to DP; Cubase; Logic; Sonar; Live; all of them have versions and times when the product is unstable.

I believe heavily in learning more than one DAW, it has multiple advantages, mostly that one will be stable for the requirements of your project etc. Another is to realize after a while that every DAW will have some areas where an update or upgrade hoses it.

One last point, and I'm not trying to justify it but it's on topic for sure. All DAW developers are competing for market share, new features draw customers in and get us to upgrade, but no developer seems to have the time and resources to have every set up, every computer, audio card and plug in. Some bugs slip through. It's part of the process, I've on other forums heard people rant exactly like you have about how Logic or Live or Cubase etc. seems to not work with other developers, that they're arrogant or isolationist etc. Maybe it's that I've just been following the wrong DAWs around, but MOTU don't seem any less responsive than Steinberg for example and are certainly more responsive than Apple. You pay for tech support for Logic, basically you could pay to hear them blame the plug in developer... Don't get me wrong, I think in every case it's BS that x DAW takes y amount of time fixing Z, but I get why it happens.

My guess with DP9 is the code is being tweaked for the new changes up ahead, and it's affecting it now, hopefully it all becomes stable for sure.

1) Maybe it seems MOTU is slow to fix things to me because it;s the DAW I use 24-7, I dunno.
2) Everything you said was sensible, but it all falls short for me after yrs of snap shot automation being broken. One day I should post a video showing how I mix and I think it will be clearer. Snap shot does work with DP’s plugs, but I hardly use any of DP’s plugs. I’m sorry but until MOTU fixed snap shot, I’m not gonna be very happy about their “bug fixing”.
I still love DP in general , it is like a part of my hands by now. And yes, other DAWs have issues.
But behind the scenes, when talking to developers, it seems they are always waiting on MOTU for fixes. That is a fact. What QUALITY one wishes to put upon that fact is up to any one individual. I don;t give that fact a lot of understanding. I am not happy about it. I want to automate properly, and I am tired of manually typing in each and every parameter before performing a snap shot. I think it is absolutely insane that mute automation fails in DP 9. How can that be allowed to escape testers? Makes me crazy.

Yours truly,
Crazy Dave....

[Michael Canavan]

1) Maybe it seems MOTU is slow to fix things to me because it;s the DAW I use 24-7, I dunno.
2) Everything you said was sensible, but it all falls short for me after yrs of snap shot automation being broken. One day I should post a video showing how I mix and I think it will be clearer. Snap shot does work with DP’s plugs, but I hardly use any of DP’s plugs. I’m sorry but until MOTU fixed snap shot, I’m not gonna be very happy about their “bug fixing”.
I still love DP in general , it is like a part of my hands by now. And yes, other DAWs have issues.
But behind the scenes, when talking to developers, it seems they are always waiting on MOTU for fixes. That is a fact. What QUALITY one wishes to put upon that fact is up to any one individual. I don;t give that fact a lot of understanding. I am not happy about it. I want to automate properly, and I am tired of manually typing in each and every parameter before performing a snap shot. I think it is absolutely insane that mute automation fails in DP 9. How can that be allowed to escape testers? Makes me crazy.

Yours truly,
Crazy Dave....

1. Yes, it's because you use it so much, but in no way are you wrong for being passionate about it.

2. Here's how right you are about snapshot automation, I have never used it, because it's never worked as advertised for me. Skipping from 2.7 to 7 like I did, I never had it work properly and there's nothing more frustrating than trying to learn to use a feature that's broken.

As far as developers go, I used Logic from v4 to v8, and any time I talked to plug in developers about Logic, it was a lot more than just them saying Emagic/Apple took forever, they pretty much said they had to write code into their plug ins to accommodate for Logic. VSTs were notoriously unstable in Logic, it was why before the buyout even Emagic were going to drop VST for AU.

To both Logic and DP's discredit, Ableton Live is pretty stable with plug ins in general, they had a period at v8 where they were implementing Max/MSP into Live code and screwed it all up, but they tend to be OK that way. Feature wise though, Live has always been super simple MIDI wise, no NRPN, no SysEx, no snapshots, limited automation compared to DP etc. it's a Propellerheads Reason approach of trying to stave off bugs by going slow with features and it doesn't always work.

It's all a PITA that way, and yeah I'm in total agreement that a feature like snapshot automation should just work...

[toodamnhip]

Manufacturers have had to make code for DP too. I know this for a fact.
Perhaps all of this relates to MAS? I think it must.
When you have your own “audio engine”, it can either make your product better, or, isolate you from the norm.
The status of MAS, “post AU”, is indeed a subject for probably a whole thread of it’s own right?

VE Pro just made an MAS version, and finally VE Pro works better. It;s screwed up again a bit, but it will get fixed.

You know man, I am able to talk to high up developers at Vienna. Their forums are very direct with the staff.
Perhaps if MOTU was so accommodating and quick, I would be less critical of their response times.
But when a feature is broken for years and one has no real, direct or official conversation, well, that can get old indeed.

[Michael Canavan]

Manufacturers have had to make code for DP too. I know this for a fact.
Perhaps all of this relates to MAS? I think it must.
When you have your own “audio engine”, it can either make your product better, or, isolate you from the norm.
The status of MAS, “post AU”, is indeed a subject for probably a whole thread of it’s own right?

VE Pro just made an MAS version, and finally VE Pro works better. It;s screwed up again a bit, but it will get fixed.

You know man, I am able to talk to high up developers at Vienna. Their forums are very direct with the staff.
Perhaps if MOTU was so accommodating and quick, I would be less critical of their response times.
But when a feature is broken for years and one has no real, direct or official conversation, well, that can get old indeed.

MAS, ASIO, VST, RTAS, AAX, AU, there have been even more over the years that developers have to deal with. The fact is DAWs don't share code, except for VST and AU. The way a DAW hosts AU and especially VST is subject to one big problem, they aren't first in line, Cubase will always be the best at hosting VST at first, AU gets written for Logic first, and barely tested on DP , Live etc. It's the reason almost no one writes VST3 code and only Studio One hosts VST3's besides Cubase. Avid forces developers to write AAX so they have no issue with Pro Tools, DP is subject to the whims of Apple and Steinberg. MAS interacts with at this point ASIO, VST, AU and Core Audio. At one point at the beginning, AU was written by apple outside of their own AU guidelines, they tweaked it without telling MOTU to fix issues AU's were having with Logic.

I agree, especially about snapshots automation, but I don't think MOTU are necessarily worse than Avid, Apple, Steinberg, Ableton, Cakewalk etc. in terms of being a pain to code for, or responding to problems at a slower rate than the others. The real thing that developers won't tell you is that they personally would be happy if only the makers of the plug in format were around, if Avid, Apple and Steinberg were all they had to write code for they could get Pro Tools, Logic and Cubase to behave and be done with it. I wouldn't doubt for a second that they would rather just deal with the main developers of the plug in formats and screw all the rest.

It's great that Vienna are coding a MAS version, it would be even better if DP could host VST3's and be done with it, but Steinberg have notoriously not been that great about giving out hosting capabilities, just specs for coding plug ins, so it's no wonder that the only DAW that can host VST3's outside of Cubase is Studio One, coded by ex-Steinberg employees.

Anyway my point is even though in many ways it's better than it's ever been before, the whole thing is still a mess, plug ins are coded by DAW developers and other DAW developers have to figure out on their own how to properly host plug ins, this can be an issue. Again, it seems like any time I've ever talked to a plug in developer about hosts, they have some particular DAW they think is a PITA, and it's not always DP. It's mainly that it's(host compatibility) a PITA in general, and whomever is causing a hiccup at the moment is the developers least favorite DAW etc.

The snapshot automation and other automation issues are a different issue. DP9 needs an update for sure.

[toodamnhip]

Manufacturers have had to make code for DP too. I know this for a fact.
Perhaps all of this relates to MAS? I think it must.
When you have your own “audio engine”, it can either make your product better, or, isolate you from the norm.
The status of MAS, “post AU”, is indeed a subject for probably a whole thread of it’s own right?

VE Pro just made an MAS version, and finally VE Pro works better. It;s screwed up again a bit, but it will get fixed.

You know man, I am able to talk to high up developers at Vienna. Their forums are very direct with the staff.
Perhaps if MOTU was so accommodating and quick, I would be less critical of their response times.
But when a feature is broken for years and one has no real, direct or official conversation, well, that can get old indeed.

MAS, ASIO, VST, RTAS, AAX, AU, there have been even more over the years that developers have to deal with. The fact is DAWs don't share code, except for VST and AU. The way a DAW hosts AU and especially VST is subject to one big problem, they aren't first in line, Cubase will always be the best at hosting VST at first, AU gets written for Logic first, and barely tested on DP , Live etc. It's the reason almost no one writes VST3 code and only Studio One hosts VST3's besides Cubase. Avid forces developers to write AAX so they have no issue with Pro Tools, DP is subject to the whims of Apple and Steinberg. MAS interacts with at this point ASIO, VST, AU and Core Audio. At one point at the beginning, AU was written by apple outside of their own AU guidelines, they tweaked it without telling MOTU to fix issues AU's were having with Logic.

I agree, especially about snapshots automation, but I don't think MOTU are necessarily worse than Avid, Apple, Steinberg, Ableton, Cakewalk etc. in terms of being a pain to code for, or responding to problems at a slower rate than the others. The real thing that developers won't tell you is that they personally would be happy if only the makers of the plug in format were around, if Avid, Apple and Steinberg were all they had to write code for they could get Pro Tools, Logic and Cubase to behave and be done with it. I wouldn't doubt for a second that they would rather just deal with the main developers of the plug in formats and screw all the rest.

It's great that Vienna are coding a MAS version, it would be even better if DP could host VST3's and be done with it, but Steinberg have notoriously not been that great about giving out hosting capabilities, just specs for coding plug ins, so it's no wonder that the only DAW that can host VST3's outside of Cubase is Studio One, coded by ex-Steinberg employees.

Anyway my point is even though in many ways it's better than it's ever been before, the whole thing is still a mess, plug ins are coded by DAW developers and other DAW developers have to figure out on their own how to properly host plug ins, this can be an issue. Again, it seems like any time I've ever talked to a plug in developer about hosts, they have some particular DAW they think is a PITA, and it's not always DP. It's mainly that it's(host compatibility) a PITA in general, and whomever is causing a hiccup at the moment is the developers least favorite DAW etc.

The snapshot automation and other automation issues are a different issue. DP9 needs an update for sure.

While your data is interesting Michael, I am still left with the opinion that years of the same issue not being fixed is inexcusable. Everything you wrote is just “interesting background”. It is not really our business to understand background technicalities to be honest.
My business is to make great music. If I wanted to understand computer programming , I’d have become a programmer. Don;t get me wrong, I like understanding and it all goes into my mind as “background data”.
But in the end, my clients lose money because I have to spend substantial billed hours manually inputing automation data. And I cannot know whether or not a plug in is even on or off due to the ridiculous bypass automation bug. And now, I have to go back to DP 8 to finish a big mix. (At least I am grateful DP allows for going back to earlier versions. I don;t think Pro Tools allows for that as easily).
But all in all, I am not sympathetic to MOTU at all. Maybe I was years ago, but there is a limit to my sympathy when it comes to the same “features” breaking over and over again.
It is a choice made by MOTU. They choose to fix something or make a guitar pedal. Fix something, or make an audio interface. They choose to go years and years without a control surface and then they choose to not make perfect drivers for the surfaces that do exist. Everything is a choice. There are no victims here. I will add that over the years, I have bitched about DPs efficiency so I am happy to see the upcoming updates I’m this area. MOTU does listen to some things. For that, well done.

[bayswater]

I'm not quite used to DP 9.02 but am having no problems. .

Post a video of you successfully snap shot automating various plug ins, including waves. Load pre sets, and paste the data in too, then take snap shots.

And..agreeing or not on these issues, thanks for at least hearing out the issues I have reported.

I don't now if anyone ever took you up on this. I had reason to automate Waves Ren EQ frequency changes. I tried it using snap shots, and you're right, it doesn't work. Nothing happens. You can "see" DP go away and figure out the snap shot, and rewrite the lane, but after all that, nothing changes. Open the same project in 8.07 and it works as you'd expect. Using Waves 9.2.

Has MOTU acknowledged this as a bug?

EDIT 5 minutes later: Guess what? I saved the project in DP 8 after the successful snap automation, quit, opened it in DP 9, and now automation snapshots in Ren EQ works.

[toodamnhip]

toodamnhip:
“I'm not quite used to DP 9.02 but am having no problems. .[/quote][/quote]
Post a video of you successfully snap shot automating various plug ins, including waves. Load pre sets, and paste the data in too, then take snap shots.

And..agreeing or not on these issues, thanks for at least hearing out the issues I have reported.”


I don't now if anyone ever took you up on this. I had reason to automate Waves Ren EQ frequency changes. I tried it using snap shots, and you're right, it doesn't work. Nothing happens. You can "see" DP go away and figure out the snap shot, and rewrite the lane, but after all that, nothing changes. Open the same project in 8.07 and it works as you'd expect. Using Waves 9.2.

Has MOTU acknowledged this as a bug?

EDIT 5 minutes later: Guess what? I saved the project in DP 8 after the successful snap automation, quit, opened it in DP 9, and now automation snapshots in Ren EQ works. [/quote]
Not to discount anyone’s work here, but one day I really do need to make a video showing how I mix. The way I use snap shot automation is very cool. I ride automation all over a mix like most mixers ride faders. When DPs automation screws up, it really ruins the techniques I have spent an entire career developing. And when i write about it here, members often think I am crazy or just a “complainer”. Thus the need for the video to show what is being lost by this on again, off again DP tragedy, at least for me.

If you want to make snap shot work, you have to MANUALLY ENTER IN EVERY PARAMETER IN A PLUG IN BEFORE SNAP SHOTTING.
Then it will work, but it still will not paste snap shots on the fly, and, there are other short comings that I again have made work arounds for. But it costs me and my clients great amounts of lost time.

[bayswater]

If you want to make snap shot work, you have to MANUALLY ENTER IN EVERY PARAMETER IN A PLUG IN BEFORE SNAP SHOTTING.

Yes, that's what I did. But snap shots still didn't work in 9, and did in 8.

[David Polich]

I have never experienced any automation issues in DP, but then (as someone else also posted), I have never used snapshot automation. Honestly I don't even know how it works, never felt a compelling need to find out.

That said, the next update of DP is supposed to be the "biggee" that includes vastly improved handling of VI's. I saw it demoed at the MOTU booth at NAMM. I believe this will be the single biggest improvement to DP ever. Perhaps some of your issues will be resolved with this next update.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

That said, the next update of DP is supposed to be the "biggee" that includes vastly improved handling of VI's...

I might have missed this, but is there any indication of what the Mac OS cutoff is for DP X?

[James Steele]

The next version from what I have heard is supposed to be 9.1 and will support a vastly improved version of Pregen mode which is supposed to make it dramatically more efficient. I would suspect the OS requirements will be the same as those for 9.02.

[Shooshie]

I just got off the phone with Brian at MOTU Tech Support, and he reassured me that automation, control points, and Lines Mode are being looked at by the DP team, and will be fixed. While I can only assume that it will include Snapshot Automation — it's all part of the same thing — I do wish I had specifically mentioned that. But I think we'll see a fix to all this stuff, and soon.

Incidentally, they're also aware of and planning to fix the TAB invoking the Search Field in the edit windows, including when that field and the track selector column are closed. When you hit tab, the next few keys you press become a search, and your window quickly disappears. I'm sure it's caused more than one change of underwear out there as the uninitiated try desperately to get their tracks back, not to mention their keyboard control of the app. (Transport controls end up adding to the already ridiculous search-string, getting no results in return.)

So, we've got word from MOTU that these issues are being addressed. I'm looking forward to the next release of DP. Ought to be a winner. Of course, if it's not, it will be a... hmm... what's that word for non-winners? Floozies? Boozer? Rooster?
Oh yes... LOSER!
But hey, this is MOTU we're talking about here. MOTU puts out Winners. Ok, at least by the 2nd or 3rd try!

Shooshie

[toodamnhip]

I have never experienced any automation issues in DP, but then (as someone else also posted), I have never used snapshot automation. Honestly I don't even know how it works, never felt a compelling need to find out.

That said, the next update of DP is supposed to be the "biggee" that includes vastly improved handling of VI's. I saw it demoed at the MOTU booth at NAMM. I believe this will be the single biggest improvement to DP ever. Perhaps some of your issues will be resolved with this next update.

See my other post. And damn if I dont have to make a video of how I automate. Its so cool to copy and paste snap shots on the fly. Copy setting from one section to the next, and snap shot correctly. Once one has become really proficient at such, it really sucks to have snap shot break. Its like going from a sports car back to a Chevy Vega from the 70s.

[toodamnhip]

I just got off the phone with Brian at MOTU Tech Support, and he reassured me that automation, control points, and Lines Mode are being looked at by the DP team, and will be fixed. While I can only assume that it will include Snapshot Automation — it's all part of the same thing — I do wish I had specifically mentioned that. But I think we'll see a fix to all this stuff, and soon.

Incidentally, they're also aware of and planning to fix the TAB invoking the Search Field in the edit windows, including when that field and the track selector column are closed. When you hit tab, the next few keys you press become a search, and your window quickly disappears. I'm sure it's caused more than one change of underwear out there as the uninitiated try desperately to get their tracks back, not to mention their keyboard control of the app. (Transport controls end up adding to the already ridiculous search-string, getting no results in return.)

So, we've got word from MOTU that these issues are being addressed. I'm looking forward to the next release of DP. Ought to be a winner. Of course, if it's not, it will be a... hmm... what's that word for non-winners? Floozies? Boozer? Rooster?
Oh yes... LOSER!
But hey, this is MOTU we're talking about here. MOTU puts out Winners. Ok, at least by the 2nd or 3rd try!

Shooshie

I would have much more confidence that snap shot is being fixed if MOTU would have accepted the help of the number one proponent of snap shot automation that I know of, me. Oh if you could see my unanswered tech links and offers to help. It is embarrassing to work with one company as a tester and not be able to work with my own DAW. But I will say this. I will come here and do a big ol’ bow of appreciation for all to see if MOTU does indeed fix these things.