NAMM REPORT (2nd hand): DP SIX!!!!!!!

auptown · Post by **auptown** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 8:49 am

Overall, I like the look of the improvements. I wonder it will pan out on multiple monitors, every view looks tabbed on the photos.

And, talking about under-the-hood improvements, to my eye this looks like a Cocoa implementation. Wouldn't have to be, of course, but it's my hunch. grimepoch, what do you think?

Timeline · Post by **Timeline** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 8:55 am

Look closely at the transport control. I love the thin redesign but hate the controls being LEFT of center. They should be below the readouts always IMO if I had a choice.

This is pretty unacceptable to me unless you have a pref to reorder/swap machine controls as designed to the opposite side or even better, a transport breakaway.

Added: Where is the slider reposition bar? Did they take that away? If so that would be unfortunate as I have gotten used to using it. BTW I never use consolidated windows ever.

TheHopiWay · Post by **TheHopiWay** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:25 am

666 wrote:It seems that all of the shots are using the Consolidated window. I hope that's still optional. I seldom use the Consolidated view.

Though it's grainy and hard to be certain I zoomed in on some of the shots and it appears the "Arrows" that remove sidebar items from consolidated view are still there.

filtertone · Post by **filtertone** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:43 am

I was at NAMM too. I was hoping the transport would be integrated into the consolidated window, as it is in Logic. This saves valuable screen real estate. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool DP supporter and long-time user, but this update leaves me somewhat cold. The redesign is nothing more than color-switching most of what's already there. There are no real structural changes to the GUI, as far as I can tell so far. I actually spent 4 hours looking at Logic 8 after feeling underwhelmed by DP6. This is blasphemy, I know. Of course, none of us have seen it on our own monitor, so it's probably unfair to judge it right now. And VI pre-rendering is worth its weight in gold though, so there are some things to cheer about.

bongo_x · Post by **bongo_x** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:54 am

filtertone wrote:I was at NAMM too. I was hoping the transport would be integrated into the consolidated window, as it is in Logic. This saves valuable screen real estate. ...

I was hoping for that too, at least as an option like in pro tools where you can have both. even if you could just make the transport one row high all the way across the screen.

bb

bongo_x · Post by **bongo_x** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:59 am

pietervd wrote:
dmuckala wrote:
gearboy wrote: Ummm... what do you mean?
sorry not more specific.
unified instrument tracks, so one doesn't need a separate MIDI track and an aux (dp calls them instrument) track. Logic was the first, then protools, then cubase. everyone pretty much does it.
i don't mind the separate tracks. very often i have different MIDI channels for one instrument track anyway...

I still think Tracktion has everyone beat for that, and it's suprising after all these years considering it's a "low end" app. In Tracktion you just make a track. If you put MIDI in it it's a MIDI track. If you put audio in it it's an audio track. If you have a MIDI track with a VI and you render it you can have it render in place and become an audio track in place of the original VI track, or make a new audio track. The simplicity is amazing.

bb

Timeline · Post by **Timeline** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:13 am

Bongo I love that idea but what about editing and what happens to the MIDI track after renduring?

blue · Post by **blue** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:18 am

filtertone wrote:The redesign is nothing more than color-switching most of what's already there. There are no real structural changes to the GUI, as far as I can tell so far

Structurally it's pretty similar, but that's a good thing in my mind. I think DP's structure is superior to other DAWS I've used and I'm glad they didn't change it to match what everyone else is doing. Just my opinion, obviously.

I think the new GUI does much more than "color-switching." It address one of the biggest problems the app has faced over the last several years: monitor resolution has increased dramatically and DP's interface is not scalable. It was getting harder and harder to read. Now things look more naturally spaced. From what I can tell looking at the photos, it looks a lot easier to read.

I still feel like this redesign was borne more out of need to get the code up to date (and to appeal to new users) than to rethink the program. At least that's what I hope. In any event, I like it a lot so far. After checking out the photos, I opened up DP on my machine and it looked sooooooooo 1990s.

Timeline · Post by **Timeline** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:24 am

blue wrote:
filtertone wrote:The redesign is nothing more than color-switching most of what's already there. There are no real structural changes to the GUI, as far as I can tell so far
Structurally it's pretty similar, but that's a good thing in my mind. I think DP's structure is superior to other DAWS I've used and I'm glad they didn't change it to match what everyone else is doing. Just my opinion, obviously.

I think the new GUI does much more than "color-switching." It address one of the biggest problems the app has faced over the last several years: monitor resolution has increased dramatically and DP's interface is not scalable. It was getting harder and harder to read. Now things look more naturally spaced. From what I can tell looking at the photos, it looks a lot easier to read.

I still feel like this redesign was borne more out of need to get the code up to date (and to appeal to new users) than to rethink the program. At least that's what I hope. In any event, I like it a lot so far. After checking out the photos, I opened up DP on my machine and it looked sooooooooo 1990s.

I see major differences in the transport control. I guess we'll have to wait and see if they throw stuff away.

blue · Post by **blue** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:26 am

Timeline wrote:Look closely at the transport control. I love the thin redesign but hate the controls being LEFT of center. They should be below the readouts always IMO if I had a choice.

You're not still using the mouse for those controls are you?

I like the look of the new transport, but I don't get why the buttons have to be so friggin huge. Also, there seems to be a lot of white space around the counter. Definitely easier to read that way, but it seems like the info underneath could have been stacked to shrink the width of the counter a bit.

I really hope MOTU gives us the option to customize the transport, kind of like the way Mac apps let you customize the toolbar. Personally, I don't need to see a play button to tell me my sequence is playing. Or forward/reverse buttons, or chunk buttons, etc. T'would be nice to cull some of that stuff.

blue · Post by **blue** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:30 am

Timeline wrote:I see major differences in the transport control. I guess we'll have to wait and see if they throw stuff away.

Well, the buttons are rearranged but the idea is still the same. I assume structure means something a bit deeper, like the way information flows. In that regard I see little in the way of change program-wide. But, like you said, we'll just have to wait and see.

bongo_x · Post by **bongo_x** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:33 am

Timeline wrote:Bongo I love that idea but what about editing and what happens to the MIDI track after renduring?

editing is normal, if you put MIDI in a track it's a normal MIDI track, same with audio. if you render the MIDI track you have a choice to have it replace the original MIDI track or make a new audio track.

it's worth checkin out the demo just to see the ideas. people who don't like the consolidated window would hate it, it only has one window. I believe they were on the forefront of that. tracktion is not as full featured as the big daw's but I usually recommend it to people who want something simple.

bb

Timeline · Post by **Timeline** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:33 am

blue wrote:
Timeline wrote:Look closely at the transport control. I love the thin redesign but hate the controls being LEFT of center. They should be below the readouts always IMO if I had a choice.
You're not still using the mouse for those controls are you?

I like the look of the new transport, but I don't get why the buttons have to be so friggin huge. Also, there seems to be a lot of white space around the counter. Definitely easier to read that way, but it seems like the info underneath could have been stacked to shrink the width of the counter a bit.

I really hope MOTU gives us the option to customize the transport, kind of like the way Mac apps let you customize the toolbar. Personally, I don't need to see a play button to tell me my sequence is playing. Or forward/reverse buttons, or chunk buttons, etc. T'would be nice to cull some of that stuff.

I use everything once in a while and love the large buttons because my eyes are not great. I agree and hole heartedly would love to be able to customize DP but up to this point they have provided the skimpiest set of prefs of any "Professional" DAW in the world as if we're a bunch of beginners here.

As far as the tallies, I don't mid them and in fact, if you were controlling an audio deck for instance it would be nice to remote the machine controller interface with the tallies for even more feedback. I have an AMPEX 1200 24 track and 16 track I lock up via lynx from time to time and I can't se the deck from my desk.

There still many reasons to keep almost all of the features rather than assume everyone is using it one way. I say let the Pref's appear!!!!!

Timeline · Post by **Timeline** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:36 am

bongo_x wrote:
Timeline wrote:Bongo I love that idea but what about editing and what happens to the MIDI track after renduring?
editing is normal, if you put MIDI in a track it's a normal MIDI track, same with audio. if you render the MIDI track you have a choice to have it replace the original MIDI track or make a new audio track.

it's worth checkin out the demo just to see the ideas. people who don't like the consolidated window would hate it, it only has one window. I believe they were on the forefront of that. tracktion is not as full featured as the big daw's but I usually recommend it to people who want something simple.

bb

That's good you can still work on the MIDI and replace it with the original track but only being consolidated makes it unusable to me unless changed to breakaways and such in the future. Thanks for the info.

nathan m · Post by **nathan m** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:57 am

looks pretty nice and all of the new features sound great.

i have to confess that i haven't read every post in every dp 6 thread, so i apologize if this has already been asked and answered. I was pleased to see direct from dp cd burning in the new features listed. when logic studio came out i had a look at the website and one of the features i was a little jealous of was the "burn uncompressed surround stems directly to DVD-A" option. does anyone know if this will be an option with DP 6s new burn discs feature? or is it cd stereo only?