DP 6.01 bugs and gripes

[bayswater]

I guess I've been doing it that way for over 20 years in DP, and it just seems natural, but yes, I see your point; someone coming from another DAW might not share my easy acceptance of how DP solos tracks. But do you think they should change it? It's certainly not on my list of "to-do's."

Shoosh

Certainly it's not a big priority, but it's not a big change either. The function exists, just lacks a GUI element.

[Mr_Clifford]

Maybe I'm still not getting solo functions in DP: but it seems to me there IS a functional difference. When I click on a solo button in the mixer, it also takes DP into solo mode. And when I turn off all the solo buttons in the mixer, it takes it out of solo mode. In the SE and TO, this doesn't happen using the play enable button, and it would make no sense if it did. So if I just want to hear an audio track by itself for a second or two, and it is not enabled in solo mode in the TO, isn't that more easily done in the mixer than the TO or SE?

The trick with soloing in DP using the Track Overview or Seq Editor is the option-click. You set up a key command for solo-mode then you can hit it and then option-click the track you want to solo, then hit the key command again to go back to normal. This quickly solos only that track. The only caveat to this is if you (and I do this from time to time) option-click a track when not in solo mode and accidentally mute all your tracks for 'real'.

[Shooshie]

The trick with soloing in DP using the Track Overview or Seq Editor is the option-click. You set up a key command for solo-mode then you can hit it and then option-click the track you want to solo, then hit the key command again to go back to normal. This quickly solos only that track. The only caveat to this is if you (and I do this from time to time) option-click a track when not in solo mode and accidentally mute all your tracks for 'real'.

Doncha hate it when that happens, and you had spent 5 minutes getting all the right tracks enabled for what you were working on? Well, maybe more like a minute, but it seems longer, and it's not something you want to do twice. Then option-click... OOPS!

[bayswater]

The trick with soloing in DP using the Track Overview or Seq Editor is the option-click. You set up a key command for solo-mode then you can hit it and then option-click the track you want to solo, then hit the key command again to go back to normal. This quickly solos only that track. The only caveat to this is if you (and I do this from time to time) option-click a track when not in solo mode and accidentally mute all your tracks for 'real'.

Thanks. I don't think I've come across that in the manual. Your caveat makes me think, yes, we DO need the mixer solo button replicated in the SE tracks

[martian]

I must experiment more - but it would be great if the mixer really did follow around the one track u have selected...

a solo button would be great - there is a toggle solo function and if you can remember the track number - not pretty....

[Shooshie]

I must experiment more - but it would be great if the mixer really did follow around the one track u have selected...

a solo button would be great - there is a toggle solo function and if you can remember the track number - not pretty....

The mixer WILL move to the selected track if you want it to. That's a preference selection. Some people like their mixers to stand still and be predictable.

Track number? That makes no sense. The solo setup in all but the mixing board is the same as the play-enable setup. The button is context sensitive. When the SOLO mode is engaged (SOLO button on the control panel), then the Play Enable buttons become Solo enable buttons. I just don't see the problem here. Not pretty? What's not to like? It works great! It's simple and uncluttered. Horizontal space is precious in the Tracks Overview window, and another column of buttons would take up more of that precious horizontal space. This is much ado about nothing.

If you want your solo buttons visible while you're in Non-Solo mode, then open the mixing board. Violá. The other windows have their functions, and the shorthand solo button method (context-sensitive play-enable buttons) they use is perfect for those windows. MOTU has already bent over backward to make all setup menus available in the three main windows. You've got your I/O, Enable, color, Name, solo exempt, and all that sort of thing available in the Tracks Overview, Sequence Editor, and Mixer. That's a lot of redundancy so that people will not be confused about where to look. All the windows have a method for solo-setup. Need there be exact duplication of the mixing board in each window? It sure doesn't seem important to me. If you want to see separate solo buttons that are always visible, just use the Mixing Board, and if you can't see enough tracks, then switch to narrow-view.

It's one thing to complain about an actual deficiency in DP, but to say DP "ain't pretty" just because you personally wish it had another set of buttons that most people would prefer NOT to have (because of space), then that's taking things a little far, IMO. I don't mean to get personal with anyone; it just leaves me a little incredulous that a discussion about something that works perfectly well -- and has always been the method of working in DP -- is suddenly taking an ugly turn. In every DAW, the designers expect you to go to use certain windows for certain things. The Mixing Board window is exactly that: a mixing board. That's where you find the separate solo/mute buttons. The Tracks Overview and Sequence Editor windows contain Mixing Board functions, but in a different format. You want Mixing Board format? Go to the Mixing Board. My goodness, it couldn't possibly be any simpler. There are window sets that can change your windows in a flash. You've got tabs that will change a window instantly. You can COMMAND-CLICK from the Sequence Editor to open the Mixing Board. It's not like this is hard to do. You can even leave it open all the time if you've got the screen real-estate to do it. But if you stay in the Sequence Editor or Tracks Overview, You solo-enable tracks the same way you play-enable them, except that you engage the SOLO button first. Then there's the MIDI Edit Window, in which all tracks you can see are soloed. Simplicity!

Ok, I've said too much, but with all the complaints I hear, you'd think DP was a piece of junk. In fact, it's one of the finest DAWs in the world.

Shooshie

[Mr_Clifford]

I must experiment more - but it would be great if the mixer really did follow around the one track u have selected...

My experience with that preference is that it works if the mixer is in the consolidated window (I often have a single channel strip from the mixer in the sidebar, then select the track in the TO show the strip for that track), but not if you have it as a separate window (like when you have the mixer on a separate monitor).

[FMiguelez]

2- Crossfades are random in how they are remembered- sometimes you get them back, sometime you dont (even if you perform in an in-sync bounce)

I get this also, with all kinds of fades. It is VERY annoying, and I've had to spend hours redoing the stupid fades, and looking for which ones are gone and which ones still work. I'm still in DP 4.61, so the fact that SOME people are still having these problems shows how long this issue has remained unresolved.
Every time I open a DP project with a lot of fades, the 1st thing DP does is recalculate them. But that's where I think the problem is... like it forgets to recalculate some. Very weird.

Other than that (and a couple of other minor things), DP rocks. And when I get the cojones to install version 6 in my main DAW, I'm sure I'll love it even more. But this issue with the fades, which only a handful of us have, should be addressed by MOTU like yesterday. Version 6.02, perhaps?

[Armageddon]

My personal bug may have started back on 5.1.3 (though I don't quite remember it being this profound or consistent): every time when I first launch DP 6.01 (on Tiger, by the way), it loads up very slowly. About half the time, on this first start-up, it also won't recognize my audio interface (a TC Konnekt24D) and prompts me to select a device, which it can't seem to reconcile, so it turns the MAS engine off. All I have to do at this point is let DP finish loading, don't open a project and quit. Then, I open it a second time, it loads incredibly fast, recognizes my interface and everything's perfect. It's not a deal killer, but I haven't been able to use DP 6 on its first startup since I got it. It's just part of my routine now that I have to start DP 6, quit and start it a second time before working with it.

My second major gripe is the jarring and unexpected "poofs", which are now happening about once a session, depending on the size of the project, how many VIs are loaded, etc. Instead of a CPU warning, I get a spinning beachball, and if it goes on for a certain length, I more or less know that the next thing that will happen is that DP will just suddenly disappear, and whatever unsaved work I've done goes with it. I then go through the routine detailed above and I'm back to where I was at my last saved point with no problems. I've learned to save a lot more frequently than I've done in the past ... however, sometimes, the poof will happen AS I'M SAVING.

I've also encountered some problems with projects I initiated in 5.1.3: VIs, especially IKMultimedia's instruments, will experience hanging notes unless I start from the beginning of a song. I've even tried saving these projects out as a MIDI file, opening a new session in DP 6 and recreating my setup from the 5.1.3 project, only to experience the same problems. Projects I initiate in 6 seem to work okay, for the most part.

I've fired off detailed notes to MOTU via my account, just to make them aware of these bugs for a future update, but it appears as if MOTU's techs are no longer reading those.

I agree that DP is an excellent program, even in its current state, and for MIDI and film scoring in particular, it has no equal. I love the new interface and the little touches (I definitely appreciate that I actually know, in dB's, how much I'm sending to a bus now!), and the pre-rendering thing, once it finally gets works out, is a godsend to people who don't have quad-core Intel Mac towers. But with all due respect, DP 6 is a half-assed upgrade, and definitely should have been finished before its release.

[ccrane]

Maybe I'm still not getting solo functions in DP: but it seems to me there IS a functional difference. When I click on a solo button in the mixer, it also takes DP into solo mode. And when I turn off all the solo buttons in the mixer, it takes it out of solo mode. In the SE and TO, this doesn't happen using the play enable button, and it would make no sense if it did. So if I just want to hear an audio track by itself for a second or two, and it is not enabled in solo mode in the TO, isn't that more easily done in the mixer than the TO or SE?

As for clutter, yes, this would add one more icon per track in the SE. This could be managed in edit window preferences.

Yes bayswater! Perfectly stated.
A simple one click solo in the SE window would be soooo welcome. I was rather stunned to see that missing when I first came to DP after StudioVisionPro and ProTools.
Surprisingly, it does not appear that MOTU, or the long time DP users sense a need for this often used basic feature in the SE window.
Currently I autoscroll to the track I wish to solo in the consolidated mixer window and then solo.

[ccrane]

The trick with soloing in DP using the Track Overview or Seq Editor is the option-click. You set up a key command for solo-mode then you can hit it and then option-click the track you want to solo, then hit the key command again to go back to normal. This quickly solos only that track. The only caveat to this is if you (and I do this from time to time) option-click a track when not in solo mode and accidentally mute all your tracks for 'real'.

Doncha hate it when that happens, and you had spent 5 minutes getting all the right tracks enabled for what you were working on? Well, maybe more like a minute, but it seems longer, and it's not something you want to do twice. Then option-click... OOPS!

Indeed! MOTU tech support suggested this approach to me, and at first it seemed like a decent idea...and within an hour I had messed up all of my mutes in a pretty big sequence

[DP Fan]

Getting strange behavior shift-clicking in DP6.01. Just curious if this is the case for everyone. What I'm doing...

My file has two audio tracks. Let's just call them Audio Track 1 and Audio Track 2. I'm in the Sequence Editor. I select a couple of measures of Audio Track A...say...measures 1-5. Then I hold down shift. Then I click on the name of Audio Track B. What happens...Audio Track A gets deselected and Audio Track B becomes selected.

This can't possibly be right... I have never seen a program in my life where shift-click was NOT "add to the current selection". It seems to work fine in other windows like Tracks, etc. It also works normally if I am using the I-beam (as opposed to the Marquee Tool) and shift-click on the body of the track. But shift-clicking on the track's name with the I-beam also doesn't work. Oddly enough, Command-click is behaving like I expected Shift-click to behave (with both tools).

Anyway, not sure if I'd classify that as a bug or a gripe, but there t is...

[Shooshie]

Getting strange behavior shift-clicking in DP6.01. Just curious if this is the case for everyone. What I'm doing...

My file has two audio tracks. Let's just call them Audio Track 1 and Audio Track 2. I'm in the Sequence Editor. I select a couple of measures of Audio Track A...say...measures 1-5. Then I hold down shift. Then I click on the name of Audio Track B. What happens...Audio Track A gets deselected and Audio Track B becomes selected.

This can't possibly be right... I have never seen a program in my life where shift-click was NOT "add to the current selection". It seems to work fine in other windows like Tracks, etc. It also works normally if I am using the I-beam (as opposed to the Marquee Tool) and shift-click on the body of the track. But shift-clicking on the track's name with the I-beam also doesn't work. Oddly enough, Command-click is behaving like I expected Shift-click to behave (with both tools).

Anyway, not sure if I'd classify that as a bug or a gripe, but there t is...

In DP6, MOTU finally adopted the OSX standard practice of using the COMMAND key for adding to a selection. The behaviors can be sort of subtle, but I'll try to summarize. Best to experiment yourself and learn how they work, and where.

In Lists and Timelines:
SHIFT is for selecting ranges in OSX, and MOTU uses it for that purpose in lists. SHIFT-CLICK to extend a selection linearly between the two click-points.
COMMAND is used for adding/subtracting items from a list. This includes the Event List, as well as track names in the Tracks Overview Window.
COMMAND adds items non-linearly, as opposed to ranges
COMMAND-DRAG enables non-linear ranges in lists only.
In Editing Windows
SHIFT still adds-to or subtracts-from the current selection.
COMMAND is used for different purposes in the edit windows (usually toggling grids on/off), so it cannot be implemented that way.
SHIFT adds or subtracts individual objects non-linearly in the edit windows.

If your Shift key is not working as it always did in edit windows, then your key is broken or something. The function has not changed except in lists. The change in lists is a welcome change, as new users felt the inability to COMMAND-CLICK items in a list was very un-Maclike. MOTU has struck what this observer thinks is the very best balance possible in trying to observe new Mac practices while being faithful to 20+ years of habit in edit windows.

Shooshie

[DP Fan]

I see your point about lists. That change is very welcome in the Soundbites Window and others.

But that's not what I'm talking about... Try this and tell me what it does for you.

- Make a file with two audio tracks.
- Go to the Sequence Editor.
- Select a time range on Track 1.
- Shift-click on Track 2.

It deselects Track 1 and selects Track 2. That is definitely not what I want it to do...and feels VERY un-Mac-like.

I made a very quick and small screen-capture movie of this, just in case I'm not being clear. It is here:

http://dpmovies.googlepages.com/home2

If you do the same thing but do it in the Tracks Window, it behaves normally. That's the next video. There you can see...when you shift-click on the next track's name...the selection is expanded.

If it behaves differently for you, I'd be curious to know that...

I'm using DP6.01 and OSX 10.5.6.

Thanks!

[bayswater]

- Make a file with two audio tracks.
- Go to the Sequence Editor.
- Select a time range on Track 1.
- Shift-click on Track 2.
It deselects Track 1 and selects Track 2. That is definitely not what I want it to do...and feels VERY un-Mac-like.

Same thing here.