My VERY FIRST DP-realted complaint...

[FMiguelez]

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Can you imagine if DP had the BEST (ONLY the best) of the few great PT features?
It would kick arse...

I don't think it's just a matter of which DAW is better than the other one. DP COULD have the best of both worlds...

[Shooshie]

Why does MOTU insist on doing something differently that EVERYONE ELSE seems to have standardized?

Maybe because they implemented it before others did? Maybe others tried DP and saw that it could be improved, and created better ways.

Shooshie:
I hate to break it to you, but a lot of you're current operations are more like "hacks" then features.

When I describe ways of making things work in DP, they are legitimate ways of working. To call it a "hack" is simply to ignore the tools that are there, and to say you prefer not to do it. It's not a hack. It's a fast and easy way of working when you learn it.

I'm not saying it's better than the others. I'm saying it exists, and that it can be done. If you refuse to try it, it's your loss, not mine. You can always go to another application and use their tools. But as long as you're in DP, and as long as they have not improved on their rubber-band editing, you're nuts not to try using the tools that ARE there. Why waste your time here, badmouthing MOTU and anyone who demonstrates possible ways of working? Why not collect your energy and knowledge and take it right to MOTU and show them your designs for fixes to the problems you perceive? I've gotten many things changed in DP over the years by doing exactly that.

Meanwhile, those of us who do not feel as if we're using broken software will continue to work and get things done. For me, it's pretty easy going. Sorry it didn't work out for you. Hack indeed. You're entitled to express your opinions. Until James says otherwise, I'll continue to express mine, and I don't mind breaking that news to you one bit.

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

Funny thing. When people with a lot of experience, who have used an application daily for nearly 20 years, and who are very comfortable in it, speak up and explain methods of working, those who have only used it for a short time will often complain that we don't know what we're talking about.

Think about that. Doesn't that seem a little backward? Some of us encounter various situations every day for years, and learn that the best way of working is to be loose and able to change methods on a dime; to see the necessary result, and to instantly devise the work method that will get us there. The idea of having many things tied together (soundbites & automation, or MIDI and CC data) may sound smart, but when you encounter various situations, it becomes easy to see why it's not always the best. And yet those who can see that are told they are living in the past. There are easy ways of working with those things.

There is no need to split a group apart and take sides. This should not be a matter of old guys vs. young guys, or anything of a sort. Maybe we could all benefit from new features; I can think of many features over the past 5 years that have revolutionized my methods of working. I'm sure there are many more to come, and I look forward to them.

We each have our little tricks, our workflows, or methods. You can use them if you want. You can ignore them if you want. I've had many people now tell me that some of my suggestions are hacks. I can remember each person, and could tell their names, but I won't. Let me ask you; how could they be "hacks" if they work, they are fast, easy, and effective? How is it that using the toolbar, for instance, and knowing every parameter of every tool could be called a hack? Why is it that using the tools provided by the COMMANDS window would be called "hacks?" I select my controller data along with the notes to which they belong, and it takes me less than a second to do so. Let me see YOUR way of doing it that works so much better, and is NOT a "hack."

I really don't follow the mentality that calls others' methods "hacks." You have the right to ignore anyone's methods. You have the right to say anything you want. But doesn't it reflect a bit more on the speaker to call a perfectly useful workflow a "hack?" Who's got a problem there; the accuser or the accused "hacker?"


Shooshie

[Tim]

Also, dragging a soundbite to another track should bring its volume automation with it, ala PT, not leave the automation on the track.

there should be a way to lock automation to soundbites. but i wouldnt want this to be the default behavior.

If a Selection is made out of the selected Soundbite, the automation will come with it. There lies the rub though: making a Selection out of the selected Soundbite. Click on a Soundbite and it highlights in yellow, but not in green like when dragging the cursor to make what DP calls a "Selection".

It would seem that DP does not recognize a selected Soundbite as a "Selection", but it does, because Option-Shift Up or Down Arrow will move the "Selection" to an adjacent track.
So one workaround that I've found is: click to highlight a Soundbite, then hit Option Shift-Up/Down Arrow to move the Selection to the next track and back. Then the highlighted Soundbite will be yellow and green.


Hey MOTU:
We need a modifier key to automatically make a Selection out of a selected Soundbite!



Oh yeah.....i just remembered that green is the highlight color that I selected in System Prefs/Appearance, so it's safe to guess that yours may differ.

[Mr. Quimper]

Hey, Tim, thanks for the tip! I'll definitely try that!

[FMiguelez]

Funny thing. When people with a lot of experience, who have used an application daily for nearly 20 years, and who are very comfortable in it, speak up and explain methods of working, those who have only used it for a short time will often complain that we don't know what we're talking about.

Think about that. Doesn't that seem a little backward? Some of us encounter various situations every day for years, and learn that the best way of working is to be loose and able to change methods on a dime; to see the necessary result, and to instantly devise the work method that will get us there. The idea of having many things tied together (soundbites & automation, or MIDI and CC data) may sound smart, but when you encounter various situations, it becomes easy to see why it's not always the best. And yet those who can see that are told they are living in the past. There are easy ways of working with those things.

There is no need to split a group apart and take sides. This should not be a matter of old guys vs. young guys, or anything of a sort. Maybe we could all benefit from new features; I can think of many features over the past 5 years that have revolutionized my methods of working. I'm sure there are many more to come, and I look forward to them.

We each have our little tricks, our workflows, or methods. You can use them if you want. You can ignore them if you want. I've had many people now tell me that some of my suggestions are hacks. I can remember each person, and could tell their names, but I won't. Let me ask you; how could they be "hacks" if they work, they are fast, easy, and effective? How is it that using the toolbar, for instance, and knowing every parameter of every tool could be called a hack? Why is it that using the tools provided by the COMMANDS window would be called "hacks?" I select my controller data along with the notes to which they belong, and it takes me less than a second to do so. Let me see YOUR way of doing it that works so much better, and is NOT a "hack."

I really don't follow the mentality that calls others' methods "hacks." You have the right to ignore anyone's methods. You have the right to say anything you want. But doesn't it reflect a bit more on the speaker to call a perfectly useful workflow a "hack?" Who's got a problem there; the accuser or the accused "hacker?"


Shooshie

After spending a lot of time in this place, reading threads, etc., you kind of get to "know" people here. One thing I DO know about you for sure is that you never bitch or whine about problems in DP. Instead, you focus on the solutions and development of techniques to make up for possible lack of features in DP. That's great. I've learned a lot about those thechniques in the tips sheet, especially the ones regarding MIDI and CC selection/manipulation. I know there has been people who have mocked those techniques, or critique them from being too cumbersome or clumsy.
When you read about them they seem to be that way, but after ACTUALLY trying them they are very fast and serve very well. Now I use them all the time, but I would still like to see some improvement in those from MOTU soon.
I, for one, would definitely like MOTU to implement regions when dealing with MIDI (for different reasons than most loopers do). It SHOULD be a preference that can toggle that on/off, so it does not allienate consumate users, but provide others with certain benefits if one chooses to use that approach.

Hey, Shooshie. Just out of sheer curiosity:
If MOTU gave you the chance of implementing only 3 new features in DP, what would they be? And why?

[Shooshie]

After spending a lot of time in this place, reading threads, etc., you kind of get to "know" people here. One thing I DO know about you for sure is that you never bitch or whine about problems in DP. Instead, you focus on the solutions and development of techniques to make up for possible lack of features in DP. That's great. I've learned a lot about those thechniques in the tips sheet, especially the ones regarding MIDI and CC selection/manipulation. I know there has been people who have mocked those techniques, or critique them from being too cumbersome or clumsy.
When you read about them they seem to be that way, but after ACTUALLY trying them they are very fast and serve very well. Now I use them all the time, but I would still like to see some improvement in those from MOTU soon.
I, for one, would definitely like MOTU to implement regions when dealing with MIDI (for different reasons than most loopers do). It SHOULD be a preference that can toggle that on/off, so it does not allienate consumate users, but provide others with certain benefits if one chooses to use that approach.

Hey, Shooshie. Just out of sheer curiosity:
If MOTU gave you the chance of implementing only 3 new features in DP, what would they be? And why?

First of all, thank you for looking at what I said with some balance, rather than shooting the messenger. I appreciate that. I seem to have acquired a reputation for thinking DP is perfect, which is far from the truth. It's flawed; very flawed, but the other DAWs are just as flawed, and when people start talking about "fixing" DP, I sometimes see them wishing for fixes that really mask a lack of experience, rather than enhancing their skill. That's what often gets me at odds with the crowd in threads like this.

Three features I'd like to see? Gee, I'd have to think about that for a long time. There are too many things I want to see, and it would be hard to prioritize them down to three.

#1 would have to be Fix the Bugs! I could get off the hook quickly by making #2 and #3 the same request. There are plenty of bugs to fix. I'd like to see all features work as advertised, all the time, and a return to the stability we knew in the 1990s.
#2 Make freezes and unfreezes of instrument tracks transparent and simple. Let bounce-to-disk incorporate automatic freezes simultaneously, rather than having to do both.
#3 This one isn't for me, but for people who are just starting out or who have less experience in DP: a setup wizard, and active help application that would incorporate wizard-like examples for everything from setup to mixing and automation, to bouncing. I think people need something to get them over the hump of little details that pull things down to a halt until they find the answer. For example, people do not always realize that an instrument track has to have an audio output assigned to it before its MIDI channels show up in MIDI output menus. That's the sort of information I'm talking about: one detail brings everything to a halt, and if you don't know your way around, you don't even know what to look up in the index. It can be very frustrating for people, and that's why I hang around here and answer questions. A help wizard would make things much easier for all of us.

But ask me an hour from now and I'd probably choose 3 other things. And 3 more tomorrow. There are too many things I want to see, and I know we won't ever see them all. I think we could do more with color, for example. Color tracks are great, but I'd like to see the ability to color-code notes and events within tracks, and perhaps use those as selectable features in "Search." Then there was the recent suggestion of making track folders reveal the merged contents in a track, and edit the group as if it were one track with layers, as in Photoshop. I'd like to see more parameters assignable in Groups. I'd like to see a simple window that shows the length of a selection. I'd like a toggle that would auto-select all CC data that goes with a selection of notes, sort of like range selecting, but just corresponding to selected notes, even if there are gaps between the notes (thus, gaps in the CC's as well). In other words, what I do with keyboard selection of those CC's should be a toggle to make it automatic for a given selection. Meanwhile, I don't mind doing it "my way," but it should be easier. Compatibility with other audio formats would be a plus. The list goes on.

Shooshie

[Frodo]

...It's flawed; very flawed, but the other DAWs are just as flawed....

Thank you for saying that. Balance in expression is the key here, and that balance can so easily get lost in a moment of frustration. I don't think it's always intentional, but messages often get mixed in some contexts.

I'd rather judge DP on its own pros and cons rather than to do too many cross comparisons. For all of my personal twiddles, there are reasons why I stay with DP which far outweigh its shortcomings. Likewise, there are reasons why I don't have other apps as my go-to DAWs-- simply because what these other DAWs do not offer outnumber (for me) what DP does offer. I spend a lot of time delving into the quirkiness of DP because I care about it and believe that it deserves to work well.

If your native language is Russian, speaking Canton will always require an extra layer of thought until such time a certain level of fluency is reached. Likewise, if you started out with another DAW you'll naturally approach DP with some sort of predisposition. Half of the frustrations I've read are associated with where/how one's predisposition from using another app comes into conflict with a new working environment, where DP is the new working environment.

It takes quite a bit of reading between the lines to determine a certain validity in some arguments, and posts must be read very carefully to suss all of that out. A first reading of some posts come across one way, but a second or third reading can reveal a totally different subtext. We don't always make it to the re-read phase before we respond, and that's where things can fall apart.

But the purpose of reading the tips of others is not so much to take them literally where the manual would serve the same purpose. There are always things to be learned in understanding how someone else works-- new ideas can be spawned and new techniques can be applied as users assimilate and refine their own working methods.

Even discovering what you *don't* want can have it's merits without an exchange of destructive criticsm.

To attack the workflow of one person is basically to attack the person-- who may have only offered their technique in a situation where frustration prevailed and other solutions were lacking. True happiness is devoid of "want", so if someone is successful doing things a certain way, then therein rests a measure of happiness *for that person*.

Perhaps when we initially disagree with someone we should first inquire further why their technique works for them before we put the technique or the person down. Then, the next question would be with respect to how one might make a troublesome process work better for them-- rather than to poo-poo the working method entirely. Doing so only leaves the issue back at square one with no solution at all.

Once a feature gripe is expressed, it's most likely that an awareness of a certain limitation within DP has already been encountered. Wishing a glitch away is as futile as wishing that DP worked more like some other app. At the very least, it doesn't help one's immediate needs.

The only constructive thing we can really do is to put our heads together when something in DP poses a problem. Even where those who share their techniques do so with great time and effort-- and such effort is indicative of sincere concern. Anyone who is *that* concerned would also be keenly interested if someone else came up with a better or *another* solution.

And what's the harm in having several methods of doing the same things? Everyone then has a choice where none previously existed.

And where our own tips and workarounds prove to be insufficient despite all possible diplomatic collaborations, these issues should routinely and faithfully be sent to MOTU since MOTU is the only entity that can make the real difference.

[blue]

Meanwhile, I don't mind doing it "my way," but it should be easier.

That perfectly sums up how I feel about performing certain operations in DP. Through the heavy and sometimes unwieldy use of key commands, I have developed methods that work well for me. But sometimes I wish MOTU could develop a smarter and more elegant way to get me where I want to go in a particular situation.

That's usually where I'm coming from when I suggest that existing methods should be improved. It's not like I'm not getting my work done, or bitching for the sake of it. I just want MOTU to apply their masterful programming skills to that particular operation. Often my message gets distorted, with implications made that I don't know the app well enough or that I somehow want it dumbed down to make it easier to comprehend. Neither are the case. When I bought DP and hunkered down to learn it, I was amazed at how MOTU had managed to make such a deep program so intuitive and elegant. I was inspired to learn everything I could and actually read the manual cover to cover twice, once on the road and once in front of the computer. Rarely does a piece of software actually inspire me.

Most of the items on my wish list have to do with emerging technologies and how to incorporate those into the workflow. I do just about everything in the box these days, and that requires new methods of operation. I am grateful for V-Racks, track folders, input monitoring and tracks enabling/disabling. Those are tremendous additions to this new work style, but there is some way to go. MIDI editing needs to be addressed and CPU consumption could be greatly improved.

[richard]

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I agree that a lot of the things we've complained about are doable, but they could be just much easier to accomplish.

I've written to MOTU about this. I trully hope they implement some of the features we are asking. Otherwise, our beloved DAW will follow the same pattern as a boring wife, that doesn't take care of herself anymore. Inevitably, our eyes would start looking at other women, and (your deity here) forbid that we yield to our desires elsewhere.

I'm sending MOTU ANOTHER email regarding this.

Thank you for sending MOTU more info... FM, you've shown passion here in the past for making music, and I think it's great. I think your 'complaint' here is more justified than many other's since you're obviously not here to just complain but to improve your music while helping others do the same.

I've been using Logic more and more recently just because of some of the things I can do in Logic are harder to do in DP. I love many things about both applications, and as a software developer in my past, I know that it's very difficult to make everything work well..... Personally, I'd love it if DP really ups-the-bar and makes some large steps forward soon since I'm still better at using DP than Logic.

I'm thinking though that the next version of Logic might really be less of a Pro-Tools killer like some have said, but a DP killer. How can you argue if Logic becomes easier to use BUT also continues to include its great plug-ins and CPU friendly architecture? Both have plusses and minuses... all Apple/Logic has to do is get rid of some of the minuses and it seems like a no-brainer to me. (Logic will win.)

I hope I'm wrong because there's been some great stuff in DP...

Richard