Six reasons why I love DP (and a few things I wish were better)

[bayswater]

Polar- I recently rediscovered this, top notch looping setup.

Ha! So this is literally the opposite of the “Man, I wish DP did x,” I later learn that it does do that, and has done that for like 10 years thing that OP mentioned:

I coulda sworn Polar disappeared somewhere around DP Vers3 or 4!

Or wait, maybe I'm thinking of another looping paradigm that DP had? What was the window that allowed you to loop a section while recording and it would essentially perform unlimited layered overdubs (I almost said "non-destructive" but my recollection was that you couldn't go in and extract, undo, or otherwise separate each subsequent layer, they just all got summed to a single composite audio file.)

That would be cycle record. Been there forever. I use that rather than Polar which seems fussy to control. AFAIK the important difference is that Polar used RAM so you didn't have to worry about slow disk drives.

[pencilina]

I LOVE dp for:

MIDI Editing and arranging especially w/tracks overview
Its structure (chunks, clippings, takes)
Processor efficiency - DP can handle A LOT of plugins
Tempo manipulation especially in regards to picture.
Flexible window configuration.

I, also, too have never found anything I couldn’t do with DP in terms of linear music production. I’m not sure if that’s because of my fluidity with it after decades or that DP is particularly good. I would bet familiarity is the key factor as plenty of music (most of it) gets made on other DAWs.

There are many long standing bugs and problems which are real practical problems and a time suck. I use DP on an almost daily basis which has resulted in me hating DP as much as I love it.

Stability - DP crashes more than any other SW I use. To be fair, I use it more then any other SW, but as SW has generally stabilized over the last 15 years DP, comparatively, has gotten only incrementally better.

DP can’t render industry standard plugin GUIs properly in Windows (waves, PSP, Soundtoys). MOTU has chosen to ignore the problem, which to me translates to DP not being supported on windows for practical purposes. Engineers building custom hardware has always been part of the ethos that’s always pushed innovation in the field of audio production. Being limited to apple’s insanely expensive pro offerings until they become cheaper and closer to obsolescence by MOTU’s lack of proper windows support IMO sucks as the end is near for hackintoshes. Its not the 90s anymore where users should have to pay the apple premium for support and stability.

Surround. 7.1 panners have been broken for almost a decade and there should be better and more flexible surround format options.

As mentioned before UI is all over the place which I imagine would would be a massive annoyance for anyone trying to learn DP. Also moving and resizing windows is generally an arcane PITA. There has to be a better way.

Editing could be modernized. It’s about time that objects (notes, soundbites, tools etc) should snap to the playhead if desired and ripple edits should be possible.

[Phil O]

FYI DP 11 has addresses some of the buggy bits of Drum Editor. I haven't used it a lot since upgrading, but I've noticed that some of the annoying issues are gone.

Your friendly neighborhood Phil

Can you give an example or two? I used the DE quite a lot but gave up. What's new there?

Nothing new that I've noticed. Mostly interface glitches that have disappeared. For example an operation would work for a while and randomly stop working. Maybe copy/paste. The solution would be to exit DE and re-open it. Sometimes the cursor wouldn't properly track the counter. Saving drum kits would sometimes cause a crash. Shift-D (to open the drum editor) would stop working. Quitting DP and re-launching would get it working again. It seems like most of the problems I've encountered happened "sometimes." So far in DP 11 I haven't experienced any problems...yet.

Your friendly neighborhood Phil

[bayswater]

Nothing new that I've noticed. Mostly interface glitches that have disappeared. For example an operation would work for a while and randomly stop working. Maybe copy/paste. The solution would be to exit DE and re-open it. Sometimes the cursor wouldn't properly track the counter. Saving drum kits would sometimes cause a crash. Shift-D (to open the drum editor) would stop working. Quitting DP and re-launching would get it working again. It seems like most of the problems I've encountered happened "sometimes." So far in DP 11 I haven't experienced any problems...yet.

Your friendly neighborhood Phil
[/quote]

Thanks. Reminds me of some of the reasons I stopped using it. Another: the DE had not been rejigged to work with Themes, so some of the GUI elements disappeared with some Themes. I'll have to give another go. Although I still think adding note naming independent of a MIDI Device, and the ability to show only used notes in the MIDI editors would be a solution.

[ed belknap]

That would be cycle record. Been there forever. I use that rather than Polar which seems fussy to control. AFAIK the important difference is that Polar used RAM so you didn't have to worry about slow disk drives.

Okay, so Polar is the one I was thinking of, I definitely remember its RAM-based memory as being one of the selling points
...and really, Polar still exists, it didn't get disco'd a decade ago?!?!

[bayswater]

Polar still exists, it didn't get disco'd a decade ago?!?!

Shift - P. Tada!