NAMM 2015: DP9

[HobbyCore]

I do agree that if you really really need this, then you're probably using the wrong DAW, it's not the end of the world, and DAWs are not too expensive these days owning more than one is no financial burden really. DAWs are actually much cheaper than they were 15 years ago!

It is unfortunate for me, because with DP I've been able to optimize my workflow nicely due to the many other features.

Overall, I probably would end up working the same speed in Logic. It would have the few features that I complain about (absolute grid, VCA, larger fonts), but it would also be missing things that I use heavily in DP (chunks, track view, plugins I've become used to).

It's just really bothersome when something is SO CLOSE to perfect for you, but the company in charge just seems to ignore it. That lack of progress, from my view, makes it seem more sensible to me to spend my time learning another program that does appear to be progressing in the areas that concern me.

I'm sure many of you can empathize with this, even if you don't want the same features that I do.

[csavetman]

Meanwhile, here's an excellent article and tutorial on VCA Groups from SOS:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep08/a ... groups.htm

Now that I get what they're about, I can hardly wait for DP9!

Thanks for posting that. Hopefully that explains it better than I could.

Carlos

[bayswater]

Well, again, I'm all for putting absolute grids in DP, if done in such a way that they are easily accessible without getting in the way of what we already have.

I agree -- I think that applies to just about any change made to DP other than bug fixes. MOTU has been great in this regard. I stopped using Cubase because they kept dumping useful features and adding new stuff no one asked for.

But in the case where you want a rubato phrase to start on a particular beat, just hit COMMAND-L, type 4.1.000, or 5.3.240, or whatever, and the whole phrase moves such that the first note starts on the appointed beat.

Yes, for a few moves, this is fine. But if you're doing a lot of this it can get tired fast. I think you'd have to agree that just dragging rather than typing in a lot of numbers is going to be preferable for a lot of users, particularly those who are spacialy oriented.

If you were to drag that same group to its new location in Logic as a region, you'd have no control over the performance as it moves across tempo changes, unless they've done something to compensate for that.

You're probably right about that. You can use time stretch to correct the dragged notes, but then you have to cut the Region where the tempo changes. Anyway, I don't think the point depends on how Logic does it.

We should have an absolute grid. I get that. But deal breaker? C'mon. Don't be ridiculous. Shooshie

I think someone suggested it's been deal breaker for seven years. That's a long painful divorce. But there might be someone whose entire job is snapping cues to grid positions.

[stoecklem]

Yeah..thank you. that VCA article is very helpful. It's been so long since I've used pro tools HD I forgot how nice that is. DP is really close to being perfect for me... HW inserts, VCA's, absolute grid(as option), and other little things like MIDI mute note tool. I'm really hoping they'll suprise us with some other new features.

[HobbyCore]

We should have an absolute grid. I get that. But deal breaker? C'mon. Don't be ridiculous. Shooshie

I think someone suggested it's been deal breaker for seven years. That's a long painful divorce. But there might be someone whose entire job is snapping cues to grid positions.

That was kinda me. I didn't say it was a dealbreaker for 7 years though. It's worn me down over the course of 7 years using DP. Having to do these workarounds for this otherwise simple feature (that already partially exists!), has become very tiresome.

It also doesn't help that as time has gone on, I get more clients that require a workflow where the task of editing audio to a specific time is common.

I'm sure you can imagine if there was one small thing in your workflow that required you to do 5+ more clicks than another software. Now imagine someone waiting on you, or looking over your shoulder and asking 'why can't you just... like in...'. It gets really old. Especially when the alternatives seem to look pretty decent.

Not only that, but I'm not the only person to ask for it! In fact, if you search the forum, you'd fine quite a few people who decided it was actually a deal breaker, and didn't purchase DP or moved on. Similar things on gearslutz as well, where the last 3 DP threads I've seen have people complaining about the lack of an absolute grid! One thread I recall has folks recommending not to touch DP if you work with audio because of it...

[Michael Canavan]

Not only that, but I'm not the only person to ask for it! In fact, if you search the forum, you'd fine quite a few people who decided it was actually a deal breaker, and didn't purchase DP or moved on. Similar things on gearslutz as well, where the last 3 DP threads I've seen have people complaining about the lack of an absolute grid! One thread I recall has folks recommending not to touch DP if you work with audio because of it...

Every DAW of any merit has distracters though, and I'm sure you're aware of that if you hit places like KVR and Gearslutz.
The thing is every DAW is missing something, no way around that. I use Live as well as DP, mostly because the time stretching and looping in Live is miles above DP, but the amounts of things DP does better than Live is a large list. I switched back to DP from Logic not because I hated Logic, but because I thought DP and Live filled each others gaps nicely, and I was done searching for 'the' DAW. In many ways DP is, but Live has all the 'missing' features in DP. That's why I made the comment about getting another DAW, you don't have to give up the one you use right now if you do.

Though honestly we have no clue as to whether DP9 has snap to grid, or probably about half of the new features. I get the impression besides the spectrum display feature, we haven't seen the biggest changes, and we certainly haven't seen the 'under the hood' changes like Snape to Grid, or my hope which is key commands for quantize settings in the Arrange as well as in the Quantize features. <-- another thing you can do in Live, change the grid quantize with a key command.

So yeah, stay focused on the positive at least until we know the full feature set of DP9.

[monkey man]

... For grid monkeys...

Aah Stubbsy... you've met my cousin, Kong. He's notorious for having held a beautiful princess captive whilst this try-hard fella called Luigi pursued her relentlessly. Yeah. Like he even stood a chance.

Unicorns, Unicorns, please, lend me your horns:

Why don't we just lower the blowtorch temp a little on HobbyCore, eh? Crumpets, surely we all understand the need some may have for the "feature", if it should even be so called.

We all like to trumpet DP's amazing ability to allow each of us to work the way he / she likes, no? With this in mind, the "absolute grid" snapping, fapping or whatever it's called should be an option for those who wish to work with it, IMHO.

I suspect we're all a little on edge in anti-poo-piss-citation of the goodness DP9 may hold in store for us. I know I am.

Your loyal, edgy buddy, the poopy-parting... I mean, party-pooping Monkster.

[Babz]

Lately I've had to do several projects, remixes and stuff, that require that I take pre-existing audio, audio that may have no particular tempo, or no timing relation to the tempo of the project, and chop it up and place these edited clips on specific beats, often down to an exact 16th note. In this kind of situation you really need a simple, coherent grid snapping behavior. MIDI, or audio that I've recorded into the project myself, is a different matter.

Obviously, we want to keep the relative snapping we have now for those situations where that is helpful. Logic has 3 different grid snapping modes. I'm just saying, if you're going to have only one grid mode, one would think it should be what you would expect when you think of snapping something to a grid, i.e., so-called "absolute" grid snapping. It's not a deal breaker as much as a head-scratcher why basic grid snapping has not been there from the start.

I may get emphatic in these "feature request" threads, but I don't mean to seem overly harsh or critical about DP. MOTU has always listened to its users and added just about every feature I've really wanted over the years. (The comp tool and track folders -- things that Logic had years ahead of DP -- come to mind.)

DP is still the best at so many things, particularly scoring to picture (which is increasingly one of the only ways left to get paid in music)! But tempo grids, and placing audio clips at exact points is an important part of that workflow too.

Since doing these remix projects, I have acquired and started learning Ableton Live, NI Machine, and may even get back into Reason, which I haven't used for ages. Ableton is great, because it opens up completely different ways of working with audio. But working with it for just one day also immediately reminds you of so many areas where DP is vastly superior.

Loop/clip/scene/grid workflow features in general are an important part of today's music, and currently a bit of an Achilles heel area for DP. It is an area where there are lots of little ways it could become a more fully-featured product.

Babz

[bayswater]

That was kinda me. I didn't say it was a dealbreaker for 7 years though.

Yes, I know, I was kidding. And I did come to the conclusion that we do need to be able to snap to the grid. It appears the thread has come to that conclusion to. While they're at it, MOTU might come up with a few more places to snap to.

[Babz]

Well, it would make things more "snappy."

[stubbsonic]

Apologies to anyone who took offense at "grid monkeys". I call myself a monkey with immense pride-- but I know it doesn't always translate.

Behind all this back & forth about workflow & grids is a basic agreement:

One modifier key to toggle the grid state on/off and another modifier key to toggle the grid preference from relative (the proper and correct one) to absolute (the one that is redundant with quantizing).

So if I like to keep the grid defaulted to ON-- I hold command and it is off, (and vice versa).

And if I like to keep the grid defaulted to absolute-- I hold option and it is relative (and vice versa).

That's an easy and elegant solution.

I know I'm alone on this one (and I've said it a 1001 times) but I would love it if MOTU would change drag-selection back to the way it was before: where grid snap was ALWAYS off during lasso selection regardless of the grid state for dragging.

[bayswater]

the one that is redundant with quantizing

No No No. Bad Monkey !!

[James Steele]

Audio tracks can now display spectrograms as well as waveforms. You can view both or either one.

That will be very useful. Even better if you can edit within it; I forget which DAW does that currently.

You can edit audio while in spectrogram view.

[HobbyCore]

I know I'm alone on this one (and I've said it a 1001 times) but I would love it if MOTU would change drag-selection back to the way it was before: where grid snap was ALWAYS off during lasso selection regardless of the grid state for dragging.

Yeah, you're alone on that one. That would absolutely drive me crazy!

I can see how it would be very useful when working with MIDI, and I would imagine that you want that to be the default, but with audio I can't see how that would be particularly useful to always be that way.

Could you explain your usage where this helps with audio, if it does?

[frankf]

The relative grid "dragging" now in DP helps preserve natural performance. I'd hate to see that go. "Absolute" grid snapping would be a good option. While we're waiting Quantize does the job. Set up the Quantize window to absolute values, select your notes, hit "q", then enter and you have it.