How did you come to using DP ?

[apanacci]

Just wondering about how you discovered DP? Reading different posts I started wondering about your discovery of DP. I was a user of Vision and Studio Vision and when I heard they were going out of business I got good advice to look at DP because it was close to Opcode. I started with DP 2.7 and have never looked back. I do use PT because in my basement studio people will bring me PT files to mix or continue with. I find MOTU to be a solid and very good company to fall back on. Love the hardware. Any ways , chime in if you have a story to tell, thanks from Toronto !

[mikehalloran]

I had a project with enough of a budget to explore digital. I wanted a way to record 8 tracks remotely without filling my van with gear. I already owned a Mackie 1604.

Working with Sweetwater, I bought a Fostex FD8 to record in the field, a MOTU 2408 to provide an analog to ADAT so that I could record 8 channels on the FD8 simultaneously (from the Mackie) and a Beige G3 so that I could dump those 8 tracks via the 2408 ADAT optical. The 2408 came with AudioDesk and I used it to update to DP 2.something. I remember being upgraded to 2.7 immediately and 3 a few months later when it shipped. I leased the whole system through AMEX. The deal included a number of other components and cost me about $10K.

My first few gigs, I recorded to a TASCAM 80-8 analog and to the Fostex in a parallel setup. Then I used a 238S 8 channel cassette as a safety. Finally, I dropped the analog backup altogether.

Seems like a lifetime ago.

[Michael Canavan]

In the 80's I was in an electronic industrial band, the keyboard player bought a Mac + and we started with the first version of Vision, but MOTU's Performer came free with a Memorymoog I bought out of the newspaper, and we upgraded to the 1.5 or something version after deciding it was better software. About ten years later after playing in bass guitar, drums bands for years I wanted to get back into MIDI sequencing with a sampler etc. So I bought DP 2.11.

At around 2.7 jumped ship to Logic 4-7 for years, but had some issues with Logic that ruined my gloss feeling and DP5 looked solid, honestly didn't start really using it as the primary DAW until version 7 though.

[BKK-OZ]

I wanted to do digital video art - and I decided to record the music first.

I work in surround, and at the time (still?) apart from ProTools (prohibitively expensive), DP had the best surround tools. My music dealer suggested and 828, which came with Audio Desk, the upgrade to DP was pretty cheap, and I bought a Mac at the same time. I started out on DP 3. It took me about a year to be able to get everything working together properly.

Big learning curve, DP 3 was a bit flakey for me, and the Mac I had at the time couldn't do what I wanted/needed. Its been a long road.

In another 10 years I reckon I ought to have the set up I want/need. Ha!

[cuttime]

...

[philbrown]

I started working with MIDI in Master Tracks Pro in the 80's on a Mac Plus. I sync'd the Mac up to a Tascam cassette multitrack to do home recording and songwriting. When MTP went south (maybe someone else can date that?)* I switched to Performer and have been with it ever since. Back in those early days I told people "Mark my word (that's back when people said that) someday you'll be able to edit multitrack audio and MIDI seamlessly."

*In googling to find the date when MTP went south I see it's been re-released in Aug of 2013.

[monkey man]

Upgraded from ATARI with CueBalls, a Mackie CR-1604 and ADAT to a Mac after hankering for one (Apple) for 12 years or so.

All set to buy Logic, cash in hand and about to place it in the dealer's hands, a little voice deep inside me insisted I opt for DP. I knew nothing about DP but was aware of it as I'd seen it at a trade show in Melbourne (Australia) circa the mid '90s. I'd researched Logic for years and had had my heart set on it, but life had taught me to go with gut feeling, no matter how uncomfortable or illogical it might be. One of the gutsiest things I've ever done. I handed the cash over and said, "Is this enough for DP?". He was shocked, and so was I!

FWIMBW, I then blew my entire studio budget (loan, the final I was ever able to get) on 3 successive Macs and over $3000 worth of RAM in an effort to stop the (OS9) system from freezing every time I engaged the record button (DP2.7). This took 2 and a half years or so. Upon the store's advice, I persisted with complete re-installations of OS9, DP and the MOTU (2408) drivers. 39 full installations later, and after literally hundreds of nights experimenting with extension removal and reordering, system and DP settings and so on, the store offered for me to try its (floor demo) 324 card. You wouldn't read about it, but suddenly everything worked. Pity I had no money left for all the other gear I needed, and that the store didn't seem to be aware of what I'd gone through; it thought of me as "that PITA guy who rings us every day to ask the same questions".

Interestingly, immediately following this, after 5 IBM Death Star™ units in a row that either arrived DOA or failed within 30 seconds, I had a nervous breakdown after said store screamed and swore at me, accusing me of being a trouble maker. I bought every member of the staff a gourmet pizza (from a high-end Italian restaurant), had them delivered and never called them again.

15 years later, I'm still not quite there (getting so close I can smell it!), but the recovery, thanks in no small part to the budget constraints brought on by subsequent long-term health issues, whilst painfully slow (now there's an understatement!), is nevertheless almost complete. My love for DP and all things MOTU, along with, of course, my passion for one day producing my own music as a solo effort, have somehow kept me going and I will never give up.

MOTUNation (it was formerly Unicorn Nation) has been critical in helping me to keep that dream alive, and if it were not for James and all the wonderful peeps (I call them 'Cornies) who frequent this sector of cyberspace, imparting their wisdom, knowledge and support without ever counting the cost, I honestly don't know what would have become of me. I dare say things would've been a whole lot different had I discovered this community 5 years earlier; I'd have been churning out product since 2001, in my estimation.

Should I ever have a hittoon, or indeed a hit album, you can bet your house on the fact that a nauseatingly-gushing thank-you note to these folks shall accompany whatever pithy drivel I manage to concoct and pass on to the masses as art.

[bayswater]

I went from Atari Cubase to Mac Cubase when Atari folded, but after years of poor support for the Mac version from Steinberg, I looked over the alternatives which at the time were DP and Logic (PT just to expensive at the time).

DP made more sense to me than Logic, but the clincher was this forum, and the help I got here when I started using DP. Support from MOTU made a difference too.

I sure I could have figured out Logic eventually -- millions have done it, and I still use it to work with others that have it, but the community and support for DP is they key for me.

[stubbsonic]

My sequencing life started with a 505 drum machine, at some point, I had an Ensoniq EPS and an Atari 1040 ST with some nice sequencer. I want to say it was Master Tracks, but I honestly can't remember. It was good, whatever it was, and probably one of the "biggies".

I remember starting to work with Performer at a local recording studio. Then I got it for my mac at home, this was around 1990 or 1991, I reckon. I was really enjoying using it as a tool for composition.

[HCMarkus]

Opcode's original "Sequencer" was on my Fat Mac with aftermarket SCSI and a huge 1MB hard drive. Slaved to reel to reel via SMPTE, Sequencer looked really great on the little grayscale Mac screen, but timing went to hell once more than about 2 MIDI tracks were playing back simultaneously. I stumbled onto Performer v 1.x, which had rock-solid timing. Migrated to DP once the MOTU PCI audio hardware was introduced, and have been using ever since.

[Rainman]

We had a project studio in the 80's using an Otari ½ inch 8 track and a 16 channel board. Then purchased a Mac SE for $3200 which I thought was absolutely amazing, 20 meg built in hard drive, wow! Also started with MTP, don't remember when they went south, just recall they were based in Half Moon Bay? Started syncing to tape via some kind of Yamaha interface and then moved to a Fostex B-16, big leagues now. Switched again to 2 Adats with the big controller, can't remember the name, big something? Used Vision at that time, new computer when Vision went Studio Vision Pro, could do about 8 tracks of 16 bit audio at that point and edit the hell out of everything. SVP bought by Gibson bah!! and mothballed. Again had to switch DAW programs and finally settled on Motu 2.9. Never looked back after that.

[mikehalloran]

Switched again to 2 Adats with the big controller, can't remember the name, big something?

Alesis BRC. I think it stood for Big Remote Control, right?

[Rainman]

BRC, how could I forget. Remember "striping tape" and "SMPTE offset"?

[amergin]

In 1999 bought a full ProTools setup including Mac for about €15,000. Wasted two years arsing about with PT until I decided to try DP. Took another few years until I gave up on the PT hardware and bought an 828. From there life got far easier. Now I'm still on DP7 with 2 828 mkIIs and a new 5k iMac and everything is soooo smooth!

[BKK-OZ]

This is all starting to sound a bit like Monty Python's Four Yorkshire men.