Many Bugs and I'm at my wit's end...

For seeking technical help with Digital Performer and/or plug-ins on Windows.

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This forum is for seeking solutions to technical problems involving Digital Performer and/or plug-ins on Windows, as well as feature requests, criticisms, comparison to other DAWs.
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Impulse 101
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2016 7:04 pm
Primary DAW OS: Windows

Many Bugs and I'm at my wit's end...

Post by Impulse 101 »

I've been working with DP9 for a little over a year on my PC (specs below), I like the program and the workflow but I've had so many issues that I'm considering abandoning it completely.

Every time I get it working somewhat close to well, I try something stupid like installing a new set of plug ins or buying a new soft synth and all hell breaks loose. Usually in the form of my playback and processing usage going insane on the meters in the DP GUI, but the resource monitor in windows task manager doesn't seem to showing any much activity at all.

I've learned to live with the usual bugs, not being able to undo a recording or not having numerical values showing in the parameter windows of the MOTU MAS plugins. (I know there is a fix for this but I haven't reinstalled yet.) I've gotten used to having to save A LOT because of crashing when bouncing or adding multiple tracks and just having inconsistent performance.

I've increased the priority of DP9 in Windows from Normal to High. I've increased the buffer size of both my audio and systems drives.

I even wiped my computers system drive and started from scratch with a fresh Windows 10 install and I have only installed my most vital audio programs. I'm still having issues.

Is DP9 for windows ready for prime time or is it just a "we can do that too" effort?

Here are my system specs as presently installed.

I7-4770@3.4 mhx(8 core)
Gigabyte B85M-HD3 Motherboard
16 meg ram
RME HDSP 9652 Lightpipe interface
Win 10 64 Professional
Samsung EVO 850 500Gig HHD System
Samsung EVO 850 250Gig Audio Drive
Multiple internal and external 1TB storage drives

Plug In Packages (other than MOTU)
Waves Gold
Kush Complete

Soft Synths (other than MOTU)
Loop Loft/Native Instruments Drum Direktor
Steven Slate Drums
Cakewalk Dimension Pro
EZ Keys Grand Piano and Mellotron
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stubbsonic
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Primary DAW OS: MacOS
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Re: Many Bugs and I'm at my wit's end...

Post by stubbsonic »

Wow. I feel your pain. Seriously. That is hugely frustrating! Losing work is a drag, and having to save every time you do an edit is not a very creative head-space to be in.

I hope someone can chime on and offer you some helpful advice. If you haven't reached out to MOTU's tech support, please do. They can be very helpful.

I'm sad to say DP continues to be the most crash-prone program I use. It is also, by far, the most ambitious program I use. I'll echo sentiments that have come up over the years, that dedicated DP users would love to see MOTU's developers invest the necessary time to make the program stable and get legacy features back up to speed before adding new bells and whistles.

Best of luck.
M1 MBP; OS 12, FF800, DP 11.3, Kontakt 7, Reaktor 6, PC3K7, K2661S, iPad6, Godin XTSA, Two Ibanez 5 string basses (1 fretted, 1 fretless), FM3, SY-1000, etc.

http://www.jonstubbsmusic.com
Impulse 101
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2016 7:04 pm
Primary DAW OS: Windows

Re: Many Bugs and I'm at my wit's end...

Post by Impulse 101 »

Thanks,
I have talked with MOTU support on many occasions and they try to be helpful but most of the issues I have need to be handled by a developer or team of them.

PD is an amazingly deep piece of software, it works really well on a mac, I have a little MacBook Air from work and it runs great, even when I over tax the thing far beyond its limits. Unfortunately my main studio machine is a windows box and with Apple screwing up their professional/creative line so thoroughly I'm not likely to jump ship to a Mac any time soon.
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cuttime
Posts: 4291
Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS

Re: Many Bugs and I'm at my wit's end...

Post by cuttime »

Have you tried the latest 9.13 build 72621? It has resolved a number of crash issues for many and was released yesterday.
828x MacOS 13.6.5 M1 Studio Max 1TB 64G DP11.31
Impulse 101
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2016 7:04 pm
Primary DAW OS: Windows

Re: Many Bugs and I'm at my wit's end...

Post by Impulse 101 »

I upgraded last night. The resource issue still persists.
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kelldammit
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Re: Many Bugs and I'm at my wit's end...

Post by kelldammit »

A couple of questions about your resource issue:
Where are your samples located?
What buffer size are you running?
Are you using a high performance power plan in windows? (Be sure to turn off usb selective suspend, and to not turn off hard drives)
Have you disabled core parking in windows?
Are you adding virtual instruments after a bunch of audio tracks are present/being manipulated?

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Feed the children! Preferably to starving wild animals.
ASUS 2.5ghz i7 laptop, 32Gb RAM, win10 x64, RME Babyface, Akai MPK-61, Some Plugins, Guitars and Stuff, Lava Lamps.
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bayswater
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Re: Many Bugs and I'm at my wit's end...

Post by bayswater »

stubbsonic wrote:users would love to see MOTU's developers invest the necessary time to make the program stable and get legacy features back up to speed before adding new bells and whistles.
I agree, but I can say the same thing about a lot of the apps I use, including most of those produced by Apple. DP stability is not an issue for me, but there are older features I'd like to see updated and fixed.
2018 Mini i7 32G 10.14.6, DP 11.3, Mixbus 9, Logic 10.5, Scarlett 18i8
Impulse 101
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2016 7:04 pm
Primary DAW OS: Windows

Re: Many Bugs and I'm at my wit's end...

Post by Impulse 101 »

Kell,
I made an error when I copied and pasted my system specs.

The system drive and audio drives are both SATA SSDs.

Buffers for the audio drivers vary depending on if I'm recording MIDI, audio or mixing. But 1024 is average.

Buffered for the audio drive cache is 2000--ish. I'm not in front of my machine.

I have manually adjusted the program priority for system resources and I have turned off most of the appearence settings to add more performance. Though with the system I have and the meager number of audio tracks that I'm using in my sessions it really should not make a difference.

I add soft synths as I'm working on tracks but rarely run more than six in a session, including drum software.

I have ordered Cubase 9 Pro, the dongle arrives tomorrow. I will post see how performance varies between the two systems in identical sessions and report back.
Orbit-50
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Joined: Wed Nov 13, 2013 2:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: Windows

Re: Many Bugs and I'm at my wit's end...

Post by Orbit-50 »

How did it workout man? I abandoned DP a while ago because out of the all the DAWs I have, DP on Windows has the worst performance, to the point of being completely unusable. I was even going to try to see if they made DP better by trying the demo of DP9 but I keep hearing the same problems over and over and I just don't see them ever bringing DP Windows up to speed with the Mac version. It's literally like they don't care at this point. It's been years already and it's still basically the same. At this point, I really think they only made the Windows version to see if they could generate some quick cash flow. I happen to be one of those on the butt end of that marketing. Sorry to hear that you're in the same boat.
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Alienware i7 R3 loaded with billions of DAWs and plugins.
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