DP8 Quick Poll

[strikingtwice]

How many of us are willing to admit that we really only want/need to see DP8 because we're upgrade junkies?

I'll go first. I go to motu and native instruments daily, because despite the immense amount of features, a HUGE percentage of which I'll never use, and another percent that I have a lifetime to master, I am an upgrade junkie. I'll even get crazy over 7.3 (remember how awesome the 4.5 upgrade was??).

I am an upgrade junkie, and my name is Dave.

[midilance]

Are we talking 12 Step program time?

[strikingtwice]

Are we talking 12 Step program time?

Not sure, but maybe approaching. It's not just music programs, it's really all of them.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Well Dave (if Dave's still here...) I hear you but don't agree.

I upgrade because I tend to use new features as they become available. Sometimes I don't know how I will use something but I always use it somehow (not everything, of course). As the programmers (DP and others) add new and exciting features, my work becomes more and more streamlined or the workflow more sophisticated in ways I never imagined.

Part of it also involves supporting the companies the provide the tools I need. I bought DP at version 2.7 and upgraded loyally but never actually used the program until version 3.5 or so. I was using Studio Vision Pro and it was enough (and I didn't like DP then) but I knew SVP was on the way out and I like DP better than the competition (I especially disliked Pro Tools and do to this day).

With Finale, I bought it in 1995 and got every update except 2008. 2007 was a dog. 2009 was a little better. 2010 more stable, 2011 damn near perfect for me (although some there are not at all happy with the current version). Many still feel Finale 2006 was the best and it was damn good, but they still update. Not to be cool or because they want to feel the love, but because they want to continue to invest in the companies and the concept of what the companies represent. Progress.

Now my computer is another story, as is my truck. I still have the dual 2.0 G5 I won from macworld in 2003 by simply giving them my email address in a survey. Cool, huh! I still have my 1994 Ford Ranger I bought new as a 40th birthday present for myself. Do I want a new Nissan Juke. OMG! Like crazy, but that's not an upgrade, it's really an abandonment of an old friend who has seen me thru so much I can't begin to tell ya (without my lawyer present) As for the Mac, I think I just want to see how far I can drive that puppy too.

So yeah, I get it, but there's a lot more to it than just wanted to be a junkie. It's being a man with a purpose.

[strikingtwice]

MLC,
I totally agree, it was more of a tongue in cheek joke. I do want an upgrade mostly due to obsession, but I've found a way to use most of the major new features that motu has incorporated. It was more of a statement that 7.whatever is one of the best iterations of any program I've ever used, complete in almost everyway.

I loved tiger (10.4) so much, when news of leopard came, i was like, meh I think tiger is perfect. Leopard changed everything. I thought, there is literally nothing else they could do that would excite me. SL came, i thought meh, got it, once again, brilliant.

As I said it was more of an admission that MOTU has so much covered, but I really just want to see a number rollover more than anything!

[bayswater]

I nearly always upgrade when an upgrade is available because the upgraded version is usually better. Software is not mature -- it has a long way to go, still in its Model-T phase, so most updates will be good. If you don't believe that, go back one version on your OS and apps, and see what it's like.

[Shooshie]

I think I'm the opposite of an upgrade junkie. From the very start, I wanted software to stand still so that I could master what I had before having to relearn it a different way, and often upgrades meant a COMPLETE relearning. (I'm talking all software, not just DP) But I do love new features if they are useful to me. "Take-Comping," for example; I'd upgrade every item in my system if that's what it took to have Take-Comping. Fortunately, all it took was a simple little upgrade from MOTU a while back. Themes is another biggie. I would have done just about anything for themes, and in fact I was going to a lot of trouble to get them. Thankfully, MOTU saw the light when Andy's AmpGUI mods started rocking the DP world, and they added themes. Wow! Yes indeedy, I upgraded for that.

One of the most exciting upgrades for me was back in about 1991 when the Graphic Edit Window was added, giving us "piano-roll" MIDI. Wow! What a HUGE difference that made. Another big anticipated upgrade was in December, 1997, when several dozen of my suggested features and fixes were incorporated into a single upgrade of both Performer and DP. Les Quindepan told me on the phone, "Shooshie, this one's for you!" I was blown away. Oh, and then there was DP 3.0 in early 2001 which incorporated the multi-track, color-coded MIDI Graphic Edit Window, allowing us to see and edit our entire MIDI arrangement (or any portion thereof) in the piano-roll graphic edit window. That was one I'd been requesting for many years, but which couldn't be incorporated in the 1997 release.

When I'm working professionally I do not upgrade until there is a break in a project, or between projects. But now that I'm just working for me, I upgrade so that I can report on things here. I believe that those of us who are not going to lose anything by upgrading can provide a useful service here by doing it and finding out whether it destroys your files, smokes your Mac, or sends you to the nuthouse. Fortunately, DP's recent upgrades have been pretty wonderful with few negative artifacts.

Well, well, well. I guess I DO like getting upgrades after all, when they add useful features or fix dastardly bugs. But it's not something I usually await with bated breath. Just sometimes.

Shooshie

[Michael Canavan]

Being a DAW •••••, I'm all about upgrades, at least ones that add workflow improvements and improve on what's there. DP had a few things that were pretty old school thinking before the last two upgrades, no contextual menus and clinging to SDII past Digidesign abandoning it come to mind.
I would definitely upgrade if DP added a few things from the "common to every DAW but missing in DP" pool, namely snapping MIDI note start time to the grid, the ability to mute single MIDI notes etc. <-- Just to clarify, DP has multiple features others only partially implement like Mix takes, Clippings, Chunks, all I'm saying is that I do think that as long as MOTU keep on the improving workflow and adding to and improving the features it already has routine they're on in 7, then DP upgrades are welcome.

[kassonica]

Not a UG Junkie here.

If the new version has something I really need, such as the 4.5 MW EQ, or V6 proverb etc I will upgrade.

I missed 5 completely as there wasn't much I needed and there was lots of bugs etc.

I'm still on 7.21 even though I have 7.22, I believe in stability and my system just doesn't crash ever, so I'm staying put for a bit.....

Well correction it went through a small phase of quitting but that was due to a free 3rd party limiter I was trying, took it out, and not a crash since and it's been 6months or so

[n2mpujack]

I used to be an upgrade junkie but not for a long time. I started finding out that being on the bleeding edge more often than not got me into trouble that only a total rebuild of my system would cure things. And with most of the stuff that I use having challenge/response copy protection reloading software became a week-long deal I grew increasingly intolerant of.

Now I'm finding life a lot easier with not jumping on every upgrade out there. I only upgrade now if said upgrade actually does something I need to do (new feature or rework of an existing feature that I depend on). Lots less headaches (and my blood pressure stays more level).

[FutureLegends]

I tend to be a bit of an upgrade junkie when it comes to free upgrades. With payed ones I need a bit more temptation. But with DP8 I'm really looking forward to it because of the 64bit... In the hope that it will run better with PLAY 3 64bit... At least I hope I won't having PLAY's memory server steal ALL available system memory and not letting go anymore

[williemyers]

Another big anticipated upgrade was in December, 1997, when several dozen of my suggested features and fixes were incorporated

I guess I DO like getting upgrades after all, when they add useful features or fix dastardly bugs.
Shooshie

FWIW, I *do* wait with baited breath for every upgrade/update, but not because I'm looking for any single new feature...I'm looking for existing things to be *fixed*.
As much as I/we all love working with this and other softwares, there are a multiplicity of things that need to be fixed/addressed. Sometimes, in upgrades, they are...often they're not.
So I look to updates/upgrades for fixes...and I look to new versions for features.

[mikehalloran]

I would like software to be perfect and stay that way. It killed me when Intuit forced me to upgrade my $6,000 Mac+ system (no computer system has cost me half that much since).

I upgrade when a new version has features I need or my old system can no longer cut it. For years, it was MacInTax (now TurboTax). When my hardware no longer ran it, it was upgrade time.

Although I have used DP since 2.3 (I think), DP 4.61 was the first really stable version for me. I upgraded to 5 because of OS 10.5 and Time Machine. 5.13 turned out to be just as stable as 4.61 so I am happy with it - it runs on my new iMac as well as it did on my G5 so that is good.

DP 6 was a bust for me. Nothing I wanted or need so I don't use it. I saw no features in 7 that I needed so passed on that for now. If a project requires something in 7, however, I will get it.

As to the issue MLC brought up: I upgraded my G5 because of SalesForce, the program I use for my work. One would think that, being browser based, SF would run just as well on a G5 but that was not the case. When my daughter went to school in Denmark, she left her recent vintage iMac at home and the performance upgrade, especially in the Chrome browser, was astonishing. I could get more done faster with her system. That it ran so much cooler than my G5 was icing on the cake - I often ran my air conditioner just to keep my office cool because of the thermal output of my G5. My daughter's boy friend told me how much cooler the intel towers ran. Assessing my current and immediate future needs, the iMac made much more sense and saved me a couple thousand $$$$ over a new tower - no idea if I will regret that later but, for now I m fine. My wife tells me the electric bill is lower since I gave away the G5, BTW.

I am expecting to upgrade to DP 8 when it comes out. I expect it to run 64bit and be the version designed for my new Mac. Will it have a bunch of cool, new features that make my life easier? Frankly, I doubt it but it will be time and I may be pleasantly surprised - as I was by the reasons for my current hardware upgrade.

I am an old school paper and pen composer and still do most of my original work in Encore and Finale while doing other people's projects in DP. Logic 9 is mostly unused. I am thankful for the available tools especially since I lost the use of my dominant hand 2 years ago - writing with my right hand is bad enough but writing music is now impossible without a computer.

The only reason I upgraded to Finale 2011 was the promise that they finally got the lyric tool right. As I am working on a re-orchestration of The Messiah, I figured it was time.

I understand that Office 2011 loads faster on my intel Mac than 2008. I looked at it and saw no ofter reason to switch. For now, I'll pass.

[cowtothesky]

I'm an upgrade junkie, but I usually don't use half the features in any given upgrade.


One DP upgrade I would LOVE to see. When editing, if I jump to a different location, the volumes for each tracks do not update. For example - I have a bass line that is really loud in measures 13 - 20, and then get really soft at measures 21 - 28. If I skip from measure 27 to measure 14, the bass is low in volume and isn't updated unless I start at measure 13 where the info to raise the volume is given. I would like to see the tracks automatically read the last volume, automation, etc information and update it when you skip around.

[Tim]

I would like to see the tracks automatically read the last volume, automation, etc information and update it when you skip around.

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