JCDC wrote:Thanks for replying! I do not really understand what the last posts have to do with my question, but I appreciate taking the time to post.
My apologies if I confused you. You made the statement that Logic makes everything easy, which is something to which I've responded many, many times in this forum. I just decided to approach it a different way. The birdhouse story was an analogy. DP feels like a shop full of tools, benches, and all the things you need to build anything you want. Logic —in my opinion, of course— feels like a robot programmed to write music in the style you tell it to. In the end, is it really your music? And what happens when you want to get really creative in Logic? I know people do it all the time, but I worked with Logic for a whole year, alongside DP, back in about 2007 or so. It was Logic Studio 8. I committed to reading the manual, asking questions to Logic users, and finding people who know Logic so that I could get direct advice about it. I did all those things, and what I learned was that for what I do, Digital Performer is a FAR superior app. People kept telling me about these great features for the things I was asking to do, and I'd study, post questions, search every dialog and menu in the app, and work with it for days on end, but I never found what I was looking for. It turned out that those "great" features were really what I was looking at. I was expecting far more than what was there. The people who told me how great they were really didn't understand where the bar had been set by Digital Performer. It's like Logic had been winning competitions at local gymnastics meets, but then when it goes to the Olympics, it finds out that Digital Performer is competing at a whole different level which many Logic users have never imagined.
THAT was my experience of a year with Logic. The only things that were easy to do with Logic were things that I wouldn't want to do, anyway. I ended up erasing it from my hard drive. It was a huge disappointment to me, because I really had hoped there was something as good as DP that I could have in case MOTU dropped DP. For some reason, we had all gotten concerned at the time, but nothing could have been further from reality. DP isn't going away, and it's stronger than ever.
I might as well check the Logic Forum and put the same question there, but I will for shure cut down the amounts of words. Here it was too may from my side, sorry about that. Thanks.
Well, you never know. There are people who really click with Logic. I don't understand that, and they probably don't understand why I like DP so much, but that's how the world works. Power to them! I hope you find what you're looking for.
I taught music for over a decade before I started using a Macintosh (1984), and DP (1986). I obtained two degrees from North Texas, and taught dozens of sax students there. I used to write out musical examples for my students, and I always wished there were some way to do that efficiently, even to play orchestral examples for students. Ironically, I went fully professional after that, so I never really got to use the computers for teaching, but I've made countless examples for other purposes. DP has facilitated everything I've wanted to do. It's fast and easy when you learn the tricks.
Foremost among the tricks for me is Recycling Files. Once I get a template set up the way I want it, I'll recycle elements of it. You can do that with custom templates — make your own — but there have been times when templates caused problems in DP, so I stopped using them probably 15 years ago. Others use them regularly; there's nothing wrong with that. But there are several ways to recycle your work:
- • Templates
• Clippings (anything that can be selected can be stored in a Clippings file for use in any other project.
• Dragging chunks to the Finder and dragging them back to the Tracks Overview in another project
• Opening an existing project and saving it as something else, with its own project folder.
I use the latter method pretty much every time I start a project. That way my tracks and I/O are already set up, ready to go, even with some of the plugins I know I will ultimately be using. It may sound crude, but that doesn't bother me. I've been doing that forever. I also use the other methods, but not nearly as much as this.
One of the biggest aids to finding what you need to know is having a group which can help you. This is one of the best online groups on the internet. Your questions get answered here, fast. If your first attempt was not very satisfactory, it's because we get the "I use PT. Is DP like PT?" probably once or twice a week, and sometimes we just do a better job of answering than other times.
The more we know about you, the better we can answer your questions, so don't think you need to say less. Always give details. Put your system, software, and hardware, including versions, in your signature so that we can look and see what you're using. That helps us to answer your questions.
Use whatever works for you. If you choose DP, we're happy to help. For many, if not most operations, there are multiple ways to do things, so just because you don't like one person's approach doesn't mean you won't like DP. There are usually other approaches. The fact that you are a trained musician gives you a head-start. Historically, I think a higher percentage of DP users have been trained musicians. That doesn't mean that others won't be as successful at it; that's not my point of comparison. What it means to me is that DP is made to work the way musicians naturally think. It's just more attractive to that kind of mind. Of course, any time you compare, you invite a whole debate about all the exceptions to any stereotype, so I'm not sure it does any good to say it. That's just been my opinion since the early 1990s, when I first became aware of all the other DAW users out there, and began to learn how other people worked, what they liked and didn't like, and so forth. The DP users of that time tended to be trained musicians and composers.
Good luck, and let us know if you need specific help.
Shooshie
