DP 9?

[Prime Mover]

I keep coming back to the fact that MIDI Mute strikes me as a terribly minor and "work-around-able" feature in the grand scheme of things. There are a number of ways of basically achieving the same thing via other means, specifically duplicating the take and deleting the "muted" notes for another take. Though I can understand people's desire for this feature, I'd rather MOTU concentrated on implementing features for things that we just can't currently do or have to jump through many hoops to achieve them. MIDI Comping, Save-able drum maps, hierarchical bundle management, assigning keyswitches to non-note interface objects (as someone mentioned earlier), these things would provide far more new workflow advantages to MIDI Mutes. That said, MIDI mutes would probably be the easiest to implement of all these features.

As for DP losing it's edge and DAW comparison? I've never really considered that one DAW was objectively superior to any other. Each tends to concentrate on slightly different workflow concepts and has advantages in different areas. DP certainly was the first on the block to implement many widespread features (advanced surround sound, take comping, multiple sequences, fairly high quality pitch correction, etc). Also consider their recent focus of streamlining code, 64bit, and windows compatibility. DP6-8 hasn't really been able to see huge feature advancements because of the focus on improving existing elements. I do hope that DP9 has some major new features though, as I think they've pretty much taken the existing program as far as it should go at this point.

Look, DP6 was definitely a slight setback, but they got things turned around mighty quickly with DP7. Since then they've made leaps and bounds to streamline the program, so they've had nothing to apologize for for quite some time (if at all).

[Shooshie]

Geez, how many times must these exact same arguments come up and proclaim DP "obsolete?" Personally, I think DP rocks. Having tried some of the other DAWs with their so-called cutting edge features, I find them more like Garageband than DP when it comes to getting actual work done.

Sure, it would be nice to have all the features mentioned, though I may not use many of them. Still, because there may be some people here who haven't heard it yet, I feel compelled to mention a workaround or two. Not saying the workarounds preclude the need for the actual features; just that at some point you have to quit waiting for the bus and take the subway instead.

MIDI Mutes: we don't have 'em, so set up a scratch track (as many as you want), select the MIDI events you want to mute, then switch to the Tracks Overview Window and drag selection to the scratch track. Scratch track can be created with the same attributes as the track you're working in. COMMAND-CONTROL-S (add similar track) will do it in one stroke.

To UNmute, Play-Enable the scratch track, or select the scratch track and drag back to the original track. Scratch track data merges with existing data. (Tracks Overview Window) If you want to keep the data separate for future "muting," you can put the original track and the scratch track in a folder together, whose name is the same as the original track, and which stays collapsed until you need it.

Sounds complicated, and it's more complicated than just using a mute tool, but when you've done it a lot it's very simple, to the point that you hardly think of it.

Another method for muting MIDI notes is to select them and use the Reshape Tool to set them all to Zero velocity. This has the disadvantage of losing your velocity data. So, sometimes you might be able to effectively mute the notes using a Proportional Drag (CONTROL-SHIFT-Drag) to reduce all velocities (or Breath Control or Expression) to less-than 10. This has the advantage of retaining the basic shape of the expression data, which you can proportional drag back up to normal and have something like the original shape.

There are probably other methods, too which I'm currently not thinking about. Experience teaches you to quickly appraise the situation to determine which method would be the quickest and most effective for that moment and space in time. Then again, a MIDI Mute Tool would be #1 on the list for most situations. Believe it or not, there are times when I'd prefer the scratch track method. It has the advantage of only having to select the data once.

MIDI Regions:
Of the features most often asked for, the one that I actually would not use, which works against my work methods, is MIDI Regions. MIDI Regions act as one object which you can move around like Lego pieces to mix up in a puzzle or to position precisely as a group whose members relationships remain exactly the same. You're only lining up the first note; the rest follow. Some DAWs take that to an extreme that makes it harder to change those relationships within the group or Region.

I work on a Selection base. A selection base can function like a Region if you take care to keep its member events selected without picking up unwanted events. So, it's the art of creating, keeping and maintaining a selection. DP has a number of tools that help make that easy, including a sophisticated Search dialog, which can be set up (and saved) to select some very complicated data sets. Once created and saved, they can be recalled quickly. In this way, any data can be in not just one region, but in as many as might lay claim to it. To me, it's a much more flexible way of working.


MIDI Comping: A big fat YES to that. I'd love to have it. Meanwhile, work as I've worked since the 1980s in the Tracks Overview Window, where you use Range Selections (Set this under DP Prefs / Tools / Range, Event, or All selection types), then break out the takes into individual tracks, with one empty track as the final destination. (you can use "Add Similar Track" to create an empty track with the same I/O) Now, drag bars from one track to another until you have one track created from two or more. Select a bar and audition it (Option-Spacebar or Command-Spacebar, or however you have that set up). When you find the one you like best, you drag it to the "comp" take. Not as easy and intuitive as Audio Comping, but I've been using this technique as long as there has been a Tracks Overview Window. This is why I get a lot more out of that window than a lot of people.

Glory Days:
That never happened. Conversely, they've always been there, including today. I find DP to be insanely great. Incroyable. Other-worldly wonderful. Not blind to these little niggling details that could make it even better, I'm just focused on getting the job done when I'm using it, so I'm not worried about what's not there unless it's some glaring omission from a previous version. When you accomplish a lot in a given era, you tend to think of those as "glory days." It can happen when your DAW is limping on two left feet. Or you can have every feature under the sun and moon, and still get nothing done. Then you wonder whatever happened to the glory days.

If you ever took DP into a studio in the 1990s, you almost were 100% certain to run into a studio rat who would make wise cracks about DP and how it was too bad you didn't have a PRO app like... let's see... what apps have PRO in the name??? Oh yeah. PRO-Tools. These guys smugly gestured to the moving faders on their boards in Studio A, with the $100,000 installation of Pro Tools, and laughed that you were even attempting to compete with them, using your little Digital Hobbytool? Defecated Percolator? What's that thing you use??? You'd watch as one of them would inevitably approach your project manager and suggest that they fire you and hire a real pro, since any real pro would never consider using whatever that thing was that you had.

I once did a shootout between a whole studio and "just me." The project moved into the studio for three days to work on one song. They didn't finish it, and many of the moves they were making were incomplete, not fully baked. An engineer on the studio version who was a friend of mine dropped off the final CD for me to hear as soon as they had moved out of the studio. He hinted that I should show the clients what I could do. In four hours I had duplicated their mix within DP, completed all their half-baked moves, improved on their mixing, and FINISHED it. I left copies of MY version on the desks of the project manager and the soloist of the project. When they got home late that evening and found my version, they listened. Their jaws hit the floor and the came to me asking questions. "How did you do it? How did you know exactly what we were trying to do, when we couldn't even agree on it? How did you complete it in 4 hours when we couldn't complete it in 3 days?

They never mentioned working in a "big professional studio" again. Those were Digital Performer Glory Days, depending on whom you asked. Today is the same.

There's much, much more, but I'll stop here. I doubt anyone's reading it anyway.

Shooshie

[mikehalloran]

I read and enjoyed, having used DP since 2.x.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Hey, if you guys want to complain about something, download Finale 2014... I'd ad a laugh here but it really ain't funny. It's damn serious!

[toodamnhip]

Been reading all the posts, lots of focus on “MIDI mutes”. Though I requested this, it was but one of many requests. Seems to be the one everyone focuses on. But there are even better ones in my list such as better CC automation and separation, MIDI comping etc....
Hope my whole original post doesn’t continue to be boiled down to MIDI mutes or that DP sucks. Either of which would be a highly oversimplified analysis of what I wrote.
And again, I think CC data manipulation is an area where MOTU can reclaim it’s cutting edge development status. It’s like a prize sitting there to be “won”. Look at all the incredible things Orchestral VI’s and what is now needed in this NEW day and age as far as CC automation. No one has changed anything in years to address this!!!
Trimming CC data, riding faders of CC automation etc.....Dedicated tracks of separated CC automation, all “trim-able” and automatable with faders.......And the rest of what I wrote..
No one comments on a dedicated hardware control surface for DP? Improved time stretch? Clearer MIDI CC GUI with grab-able handles?
A far cry from merely requesting MIDI mutes and saying DP sucks...it doesn’t suck at all.

[Shooshie]

Been reading all the posts, lots of focus on “MIDI mutes”. Though I requested this, it was but one of many requests. Seems to be the one everyone focuses on. But there are even better ones in my list such as better CC automation and separation, MIDI comping etc....
Hope my whole original post doesn’t continue to be boiled down to MIDI mutes or that DP sucks. Either of which would be a highly oversimplified analysis of what I wrote.
And again, I think CC data manipulation is an area where MOTU can reclaim it’s cutting edge development status. It’s like a prize sitting there to be “won”. Look at all the incredible things Orchestral VI’s and what is now needed in this NEW day and age as far as CC automation. No one has changed anything in years to address this!!!
Trimming CC data, riding faders of CC automation etc.....Dedicated tracks of separated CC automation, all “trim-able” and automatable with faders.......And the rest of what I wrote..
No one comments on a dedicated hardware control surface for DP? Improved time stretch? Clearer MIDI CC GUI with grab-able handles?
A far cry from merely requesting MIDI mutes and saying DP sucks...it doesn’t suck at all.

I had some practical advice about MIDI muting, which is why I talked about it. There are ways of working in DP that do not resemble the other DAWs, and I find them very efficient. I prefer to talk about those rather than to focus on whether MOTU should or shouldn't add features. The latter is non-productive. The former can put someone in action today, working around what he thought was a roadblock because everyone says it is.

As for Continuous Controller lanes, I'm not sure I'd be on board with those. Logic has something like that, and I find it unusable for my purposes. I like seeing either of two views: all controllers together where I can see them interacting, or one at a time so that I can edit them individually. We've already got that. But lanes? I'm picturing lanes as in a bowling alley, all parallel to each other, each with its own controller in it. That forces me to scan an entire screen instead of just one color-coded lane that shows them all interacting. With color coding and icons I can easily follow several controllers at once if they appear in the same space. Put them in separate lanes, though, and I have to look at each one individually, with my eyes jumping from lane to lane trying to compare them. I don't see the same scale between them, and I can't judge their relative heights when they are each in their own lane. Together or QuickFilter: those are the options I find usable.

But if someone wants lanes, who am I to stop them? I'm just not interested in the dialog, because I don't think I'd use them. The ones in Logic taught me that.

And now it's late and I'd rather not continue. Maybe tomorrow, but again, I think it's a waste of time to debate this stuff. MOTU isn't interested in our debates. I prefer to give out useful information when I can.

Oh... it just dawned on me. I think that you think I'm responding to YOU. You must think that I'm knocking down your suggestions. No, the thing that hooks me every time is showing people some alternatives that they can use right now. That's not responding to you. It's offering people something to use this very minute, with the features already in DP, rather than feeling blocked. It's not about my judging whether these features are worthy. Most of them are. But it's about that line I wrote in my previous post:

"Sometimes you have to quit waiting for the bus and take the subway instead." Sometimes you have to quit waiting for lanes, mutes, regions, or whatever, and just make music with what's there. I have some pretty useful workflows, I think. I'd rather focus on presenting those when they could be useful to other people, not on debating the worthiness of adding features. That's MOTU's domain, not mine. But using their software with a great deal of power, that's my domain, and hopefully others will make it theirs. It teaches opening up a whole different perspective on DP.

Shooshie

[Bowman]

Hey, if you guys want to complain about something, download Finale 2014... I'd ad a laugh here but it really ain't funny. It's damn serious!

Oh my, yes. There is a perfect example of taking something that worked very well as it was and ruining it.

[toodamnhip]

Been reading all the posts, lots of focus on “MIDI mutes”. Though I requested this, it was but one of many requests. Seems to be the one everyone focuses on. But there are even better ones in my list such as better CC automation and separation, MIDI comping etc....
Hope my whole original post doesn’t continue to be boiled down to MIDI mutes or that DP sucks. Either of which would be a highly oversimplified analysis of what I wrote.
And again, I think CC data manipulation is an area where MOTU can reclaim it’s cutting edge development status. It’s like a prize sitting there to be “won”. Look at all the incredible things Orchestral VI’s and what is now needed in this NEW day and age as far as CC automation. No one has changed anything in years to address this!!!
Trimming CC data, riding faders of CC automation etc.....Dedicated tracks of separated CC automation, all “trim-able” and automatable with faders.......And the rest of what I wrote..
No one comments on a dedicated hardware control surface for DP? Improved time stretch? Clearer MIDI CC GUI with grab-able handles?
A far cry from merely requesting MIDI mutes and saying DP sucks...it doesn’t suck at all.

I had some practical advice about MIDI muting, which is why I talked about it. There are ways of working in DP that do not resemble the other DAWs, and I find them very efficient. I prefer to talk about those rather than to focus on whether MOTU should or shouldn't add features. The latter is non-productive. The former can put someone in action today, working around what he thought was a roadblock because everyone says it is.

As for Continuous Controller lanes, I'm not sure I'd be on board with those. Logic has something like that, and I find it unusable for my purposes. I like seeing either of two views: all controllers together where I can see them interacting, or one at a time so that I can edit them individually. We've already got that. But lanes? I'm picturing lanes as in a bowling alley, all parallel to each other, each with its own controller in it. That forces me to scan an entire screen instead of just one color-coded lane that shows them all interacting. With color coding and icons I can easily follow several controllers at once if they appear in the same space. Put them in separate lanes, though, and I have to look at each one individually, with my eyes jumping from lane to lane trying to compare them. I don't see the same scale between them, and I can't judge their relative heights when they are each in their own lane. Together or QuickFilter: those are the options I find usable.

But if someone wants lanes, who am I to stop them? I'm just not interested in the dialog, because I don't think I'd use them. The ones in Logic taught me that.

And now it's late and I'd rather not continue. Maybe tomorrow, but again, I think it's a waste of time to debate this stuff. MOTU isn't interested in our debates. I prefer to give out useful information when I can.

Oh... it just dawned on me. I think that you think I'm responding to YOU. You must think that I'm knocking down your suggestions. No, the thing that hooks me every time is showing people some alternatives that they can use right now. That's not responding to you. It's offering people something to use this very minute, with the features already in DP, rather than feeling blocked. It's not about my judging whether these features are worthy. Most of them are. But it's about that line I wrote in my previous post:

"Sometimes you have to quit waiting for the bus and take the subway instead." Sometimes you have to quit waiting for lanes, mutes, regions, or whatever, and just make music with what's there. I have some pretty useful workflows, I think. I'd rather focus on presenting those when they could be useful to other people, not on debating the worthiness of adding features. That's MOTU's domain, not mine. But using their software with a great deal of power, that's my domain, and hopefully others will make it theirs. It teaches opening up a whole different perspective on DP.

Shooshie

Naaw bro, my response wasn’t ONLY to you. You were one of a # that addressed MIDI mutes so it was more a sum total. In my original post, I actually mentioned you as the man that has the plan as far as work arounds I believe?
As far as CC lanes, I am not sure what exactly to call it, and “lanes” may be the wrong word. If it not for me to design this unless MOTU wants to pay me...lol.

It is for MOTU to come up with a design which allows for mutliple views such as all at once, and individual “lanes” etc.
All I know is that it is sorely needed.
Try automating CC 1 or 11 on a orchestral cue? Wheres the automation faders? Wheres the trim to keep the curve of things but bring it all down a touch to take the edge off? Yes, you can use the tools, and you are the man for that. What REALLY happens with me, is I will be on an automation pass of CC data, and it goes wrong in the middle. And there is no way to program a proper punch of the cc data. You have to go in and erase, set the CC 1 wheel to match where the punch will occur, touch it just the right time and way to resume the CC writing....pain in the boooooty.

But imagine mixing audio with tools only and you’ll see what you have been forced to do.
Would you like to get rid of your flying faders and mix audio volume with DP edit tools? I think not. Just because you could doesn’t mean you would or should.

It’s the same thing. Once you had fully automated faders for CC data, and started to grab faders, especially with a control surface, you’d never want to go back. If you would be totally fine mixing audio volume without faders, using tools, than I guess you really don;t want what I am striving for here.
I think CC data has expanded in recent times and the software has not addressed that fully. SImple as that.
Again, here’s a chance for MOTU to shine and show they are looking ahead.
And us talking here? I think they see all of it.
Debate is the American/Universal way is it not?...And out of the mess and strife, comes consensus and progress, messy at it may be.

[MikeInBoston]

Shooshie, you're great! I wish I had half your knowledge about workflow and all these work-arounds, but particularly your workflow. I would love to sit behind you and watch you work on a piece. I would bet that it would be an eye-opening experience. I feel so clumsy in the way I use DP sometimes. Oh well, at least you're on this forum sharing you're knowledge with us all. I know you've helped me in the past, and I'm truly grateful for that. Thank you.

Mike

[toodamnhip]

Shooshie, you're great! I wish I had half your knowledge about workflow and all these work-arounds, but particularly your workflow. I would love to sit behind you and watch you work on a piece. I would bet that it would be an eye-opening experience. I feel so clumsy in the way I use DP sometimes. Oh well, at least you're on this forum sharing you're knowledge with us all. I know you've helped me in the past, and I'm truly grateful for that. Thank you.

Mike

Go to the DP tips sheet, SHooshie has some amazing video tutorials....you can watch and get the viewing you ask for.

[frankf]

There are a number of ways of basically achieving the same thing via other means, specifically duplicating the take and deleting the "muted" notes for another take.

This is exactly how I work with MIDI and not only with "muting". Takes are named as "orig", Out b9-17, q[quantized] b3-4, and,oh yes, Take 2! It keeps things much cleaner for me in the Track Selector


Frank Ferrucci

[bayswater]

Shooshie, I've learned DP in large part by reading your posts over the last several years. I agree that we can do just about anything with a little effort learning the available commands and tools. It's all there. But I still think many of these feature requests make sense, despite the fact that they are not strictly necessary.

Going to basics: there are operations, and there are things. Operations apply to things. Operations can include commands, selections, plugins, delete/copy/paste, fader moves, etc. In MIDI, things can include notes, regions, tracks controllers and groups, etc.

DP lets you apply some operations to some things directly. You can mute a track, but not a note. You can apply a plugin to a track, but not to regions. You can expand this scope, as you describe, by the proper use of selections, reshapers, distribution of MIDI notes to multiple tracks, etc.

Other DAWs go further and apply more operations directly to more things. So you can apply a mute command to a note, a region, a track, or a group. You can apply a plugin to a region. And so on. You can carry this to an extreme, applying operations to things for the sake of a design philosophy, and end up with the Logic Environment, or hybrid tracks, and other abominations.

DP has already gone a long way down this road. It could selectively go further to gain simplicity, productivity or accuracy, or to create more workflow alternatives. Comp tool to MIDI, fader to controller, mutes to notes, plugins to regions, and maybe a few more.

[Shooshie]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

Let me reiterate that I agree that most of these features should be added, even if there are a few I wouldn't use, such as controller lanes and regions. I' an advocate of giving people what they want and need to work better, faster, and easier.

But at the same time, I like for people to see ways of doing things with what we have. That's the only real reason I respond in threads like these — just to add ideas that get people thinking about making their own workflows that enable them to accomplish stuff even when the ideal tool for such stuff hasn't yet been added.

Shoosh

[toodamnhip]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

Let me reiterate that I agree that most of these features should be added, even if there are a few I wouldn't use, such as controller lanes and regions. I' an advocate of giving people what they want and need to work better, faster, and easier.

But at the same time, I like for people to see ways of doing things with what we have. That's the only real reason I respond in threads like these — just to add ideas that get people thinking about making their own workflows that enable them to accomplish stuff even when the ideal tool for such stuff hasn't yet been added.

Shoosh

Here’s the thing Shoosh, I do do things with the tools we have just like you, every day.
I don’t think many of us are just “stuck” without a solution. I am never stuck. Most users know 2-3 ways to do anything in DP. We just don;t like the solution or the inconvenience while you seem to be more at peace with it. But we don’t complain because we don;t use what’s there. If we didn’t use what is there, we wouldn’t get our tracks done..lol.
I use the re shapers, the trim tools, all of that. I use multiple MIDI tracks, creating copies and dragging possible alt takes into copies, etc... And I go into CC data manually to adjust the data all the time.

The basic concept remains the same. The world of VIs and need for convenient and precise VI CC control has expanded.... and DP has not in this area.
I think it is a tremendous opportunity for MOTU to shine.

[Shooshie]

Ok, so you know the controls and work well in DP.

Tell me, what on earth would CC lanes offer you? With each CC separate from the others, how can you compare them? Without the Velocity tics to show you exactly the point of attack, how could you ever effectively edit a breath or expression control? Or for that matter, even volume control, whether done as MIDI or automation? I guess you could have a cursor that covers them all, vertically, but I need those things overlaid so that I can see what I'm doing in relation to other controllers and velocity tics.

Does Quickfilter not give you what you need?

I have another idea: let's call it "Rotating Quickfilter." Add a little wheel out next to the Quickfilter lane, which you can spin up or down and the other controllers in a lane reveal themselves, first overlapping the previous one, then by itself, then overlapping the next one, then the next one is alone, and so forth until you've cycled through them all.

For that matter, this dial would be a great solution for locating and highlighting automation parameters, rather than having to search through multiple hierarchical menus for each one.

Then, in addition, have a setting in the MIDI editor where all visible tracks can show their controllers at once (rather than only the marked track, but the background tracks' controllers are grayed out unless the pencil selector is marking that track. Again, this would be an option, not the normal default state.

Finally, we ARE talking about the MIDI Graphic Edit Window, aren't we? If you're working on MIDI controllers in the sequence editor, well... that's not smart
when you've got that amazing MIDI Graphic Edit window sitting right there. But you're probably not using the Sequence Editor, because you're a smart guy.

But separating controllers into individual lanes, all separate from each other, where you can't see them all at full height, superimposed over each other, would be utterly useless to me. Logic has something like that. I think it's called the Hypereditor or something. It sucks royally. Timing is difficult to get with precision. Of course, I never upgraded after Logic 8 Studio, so a lot could have changed, but that's where it was when I left it. Logic folks brag about their MIDI tools. The thing is, they don't know enough to realize that the tools are pretty low-resolution and the displays are awkward to visualize. I was determined to learn to make it all work, but finally gave up when I realized that at BEST, it was never going to be as precise and easy to edit as DP.

So, IMHO, CC lanes are simply a bad idea. Good intentions, perhaps, but a bad idea. That's my opinion, and I'm sure you have yours, but I've been doing this for about 28 or 29 years, during which I've worked in files with 350 tracks and files with 3 tracks on machines that were a fraction of the speed of what we have today, and monitors that allowed me to see what would now occupy just the top left corner of my current monitor. (You can see it when I open a file from the 1980s; the windows are still arranged and sized for the old 1984 Macintosh monitor) Nevertheless, I still find the single CC lane with Quicklook to be very fast and easy.

You want my opinion? Let's add that dial for cycling through CCs and automation, and let's NOT clutter up the screen with lanes that divide everything up where they aren't together anymore. Having an overlapping controls display is one of the beauties of using the MIDI Graphic Editor. That's where we should be focusing. Keep it as is, but add something like that dial that makes it easy to cycle through the active controller, even while seeing others in the background grayed out.

Shooshie