Things Missing in DP for a Long Time

[bayswater]

Or at least things I've wanted to see in DP for a long time but haven't ever happened. Here's my list.

1. Multiple mixer views. At least three mixer windows that can each have it's own track selection. So you could, for example put busses in one window, tracks you're working on in another, and Auxes with effects in another and have them all available, rather than one big window with everything. Cubase always had this and it was very useful.

2. Drum maps not requiring a MIDI Device. Maps that are not specific to the project. Yes, you can use Import as a workaround but that shouldn't be necessary. Looks like MOTU has addressed this with recent changes in the manual telling us to use a separate track for each drum instead of a Device Group with a Map. Even with this they're still not that portable. It's clunky. You should be able to create and save a map that links notes to drum name and save it.to use it in any project. Logic lets you simply name notes, and that does the job just as well, if not better than DP drum maps.

3. Spacial alignment of events in the MIDI Note Editor and a MIDI Track or MIDI Editor so the notes appear vertically above and below each other. Looks like MOTU has abandoned the MIDI Note Editor.

4. Conductor tracks that stay with a sequence. In a Song, whatever sequence is at the top of the window sets the tempo for all of them. I'd like to be able to play multiple sequences, with each conforming to its own tempo map. Dr T KCS did this. A lot of creative possibilities. A lot less math.

5. Have the primary outputs for VIs showing in Bundles so they can be named and set up along with the rest of the outputs. Why are the primary outputs for a VI not shown in Bundles?

6. Make the setup of custom plugin categories a lot more flexible, e.g., ordering entries, categories, etc. There have been a couple of nice workarounds for this here recently, but maybe MOTU could just fix this so it works properly. Seems other DAWs have built the categories for us, and set it up in a reasonably useful way, so why not? It's just a SQL, so should be really easy.

[mikehalloran]

Good list.

[monkey man]

Agreed, good list Stoivo.

[stubbsonic]

I think these ideas are brilliant and would really enhance my experience of DP.

Hopefully, MOTU will sit up and take notice.

[James Steele]

6. Make the setup of custom plugin categories a lot more flexible, e.g., ordering entries, categories, etc. There have been a couple of nice workarounds for this here recently, but maybe MOTU could just fix this so it works properly. Seems other DAWs have built the categories for us, and set it up in a reasonably useful way, so why not? It's just a SQL, so should be really easy.

Do you mean XML? Either way, one frustration I have as someone who has invested in an Avid S3 (EUCON) control surface, as it pertains to plugin categories, is that when you attempt to ADD a plugin via a EUCON control surface, there is NO hierarchy whatsoever. I have well over 1,000 plugins. I don't want to have to page through that many plug ins, 16 at a time on my control surface to find the one I want. Cubase, Logic and Pro Tools all present a hierarchy. DP dumps you into a root-level pool of every installed plugin in your system. It makes adding a plugin via the control surface virtually impossible.

[labman]

A VERY good list Bays. Can you please immediately move to cambridge and go to work for the already great MOTU team?

[stubbsonic]

7. Such a small thing: Edit preference, lasso always ignores grid setting.

8. Quickscribe, arrange window, allow user to insert line breaks- for custom measure spacing. Add slur line tool, some articulation tools-- even if they are just display only.

[bayswater]

A VERY good list Bays. Can you please immediately move to cambridge and go to work for the already great MOTU team?

My coding days are over. The Master Plan is to win the big lottery, buy MOTU, and have these changes made.

[stubbsonic]

3. Spacial alignment of events in the MIDI Note Editor and a MIDI Track or MIDI Editor so the notes appear vertically above and below each other. Looks like MOTU has abandoned the MIDI Note Editor.

Is there an example of what this would look like? Is this a Z axis kind of thing?

[bayswater]

Yes, just a matter of vertical alignment. A panel with the MIDI editor showing events, and another below it with the notation view, and some scaling so the two are aligned, making it easy to jump from one to the other as you edit.

[Michael Canavan]

Definitely agree that the Drum editor needs some love.

I'm going to say it. Track selection needs some work, if there's any area of DP that can throw you if you start messing with it while learning DP it would be this. It is pretty fast to fix errant selections between edit windows, but it's a pretty constant thing here, and IMO track presets aren't the best answer. Being able to 'lock' a selection to an edit window makes all the sense in the world, so the Tracks window doesn't include Aux tracks and other things that an overview would help with, and the Mixer window doesn't inlcude MIDI tracks with no automation on them. Switching to a different edit window with various tracks highlighted always makes for some seemingly random results. I get that you can kind of do this with track presets, but a lock function makes more sense and is far more "intuitive".

Intuitive is the thing that these days is missing in DP, we're all used to it, but for every other DAW out there besides Reaper, the initial interface elements are much easier to grasp than in DP, UX improvements in general are where I would love to see MOTU go with DP12. For instance there are two commands to open track selection, and depending on what edit window you're in, one will work and the other will not. There's no rational reason for this considering at this point just like every other DAW most commands work only if that edit window is the selected window. Looping is now tied to Clips, great, but as of now you cannot drag a Clip in the Tracks window to loop it. you have to be in the MIDI or Sequence windows. MOTU has hinted that Clips will get access to the Drum editor which is great because if anything is an obvious advantage of a clip that can be looped it would be percussion tracks.

There were a ton of UX improvements that happened in DP 7, I would like to see another round of that, I'm not in front of DP right now, but I could easily name a half dozen other UX What the heck? moments in the interface, that aren't necessary.

[bayswater]

I'm going to say it. Track selection needs some work,

I agree, but didn’t include it. A long back, there was a post, I think from Magic Dave, that said, if you want track selection to behave like this, do that. I did that and it worked. But I can’t remember what I did and, at the time, could not see why it worked, and can’t figure out what I’d do if I wanted it to work differently. That’s probably what you mean by “unintuitive”.

The way it works now, I don’t know what I’d do if MOTU implemented multiple mixer views, and exactly how I’d get them set up the way I wanted.

[James Steele]

My biggest pet peeve has been what I feel very marginal support of EUCON control surfaces. When I first got a used MC Control & MC Mix and started diving into using them with DP, I was taken aback by how many things seemed broken with DP's EUCON implementation. I sent several emails to MOTU and included links to videos I had made demonstrating issues... some serious that would result in crashes. A LOT of progress was made, but in a way I was kind of shocked that given how spotty Eucon support was that DP was released "into the wild" claiming it supported EUCON.

I now have an Avid S3 that I scored a deal on used that I use in combination with an iPad running Avid Control. The potential for this surface is enormous, yet DP continues to have serious drawbacks. I have reported these issues to DP, and I'm pretty sure they are aware, but I have no indication if these things will be ironed out any time soon.

For example:

1) There is a new "parameter mapping" feature that allows the user to choose which parameters appear (and in what order) on the control surface (S1 or S3... does not work with Artist Series). That mapping is saved in an XML file named for that particular plug in. This feature works fine in DP until you quit DP. On next launch, when you next attempt to edit the parameters of the plugin, all you see above the encoders is "n/a" instead of the parameter names. In fact, you have to go find the XML file in the Finder and delete it or you can't even get back to the default state where EVERY parameter appears on the encoders.

2) In every other Mac DAW I have on my system, Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools (that I only "dabble" with for comparison/testing purposes) it's a relatively easy matter to instantiate a plug in on an empty insert using a EUCON control surface. This is because they all support a hierarchy that lets you drill down to find a plug in you want. For example, first press on the encoder might show manufacturers names across the LED displays. You page over to find "Softube" for example... press that encoder... now you see the Softube plugs on the LED displays and press the encoder under the plugin you wish to load. DP, on the other hand, dumps you into one big pool of every plug in in your system. No categories at all. Do I feel like paging through 1,000+ plug ins, 16 at a time, trying to find what I'm looking for? No. Useless.

3) Also, can't assign tracks to groups in DP with a EUCON control surface.

Anyway... don't meant to gripe and I'm trying to keep a good attitude about this and report these things to MOTU, but I bought my S3 with a desire to bring the control surface more into my workflow as much as possible. Sadly, compared to other DAWs, Digital Performer's EUCON support is lacking in some key areas that sometimes make it rather frustrating. It's okay... but with a little more work it could be on par with the other DAWs I mentioned and be a good experience. Right now, it's got a ways to go.

[ronjams]

When I read post like these, I want to remain a mouse guy. These controllers like the EUCON and the Avid products and others make it too expensive to buy and not get your money’s worth.
My question to you is which one of these type products offers the best compatibility with DP? Until I know the answer to this I will remain a mouse guy. Please chime in with your thoughts and opinions. -Ron

[labman]

A VERY good list Bays. Can you please immediately move to cambridge and go to work for the already great MOTU team?

My coding days are over. The Master Plan is to win the big lottery, buy MOTU, and have these changes made.

Do it !!!