DP7 THE WISH LIST

[kassonica]

"Multitrack Bounce. Each track to a file" (As done in Samplitude)
Great for export to other DAWs.

WOw now that would be awesome

+10

[mike_o]

1 more for dropping MAS all together, just go with AU and build in a VST wrapper, there is no justifiable reason to not support the original, oldest and most wide spread plugin format, no one really develops in MAS at all, and I am a serious Automap user, MAS plugins do not wrap in this system, which I understand why novation has not supported it, its a MOTU only thing and they need to develop one product for all DAW's.

1. Ditch MAS - PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. add native VST support - I should not need to buy a wrapper to use these, and the wrappers to not work with VST 2.4 anyway

3. Drop all instrument plugins and replace them with Ethno and Symphonic - maybe keep and upgrade modulo so there is a basic but powerful synth, add FM ability to it as well, and maybe keep bassline as its good at what it is - but the model 12 is a BAD sampler, not bad as in good, bad as in bad, upgrade to a 24 part version or just throw it out

(ethno and symphonic are not major sellers and would not really hit MOTU's bottom line, it would simply make DP a more powerful package with a better included sample library)


"Radiogal wrote:"Multitrack Bounce. Each track to a file" (As done in Samplitude)
Great for export to other DAWs."


and definitely this.

[bayswater]

How many others of you feel that the time-line should be re conceived such that a 2/4 measure takes up half the space of a 4/4 measure, as some other DAWs wisely have it? A quarter note should be the same visual length, take up the same amount of horizontal real-estate, and the playback wiper should only change speed if the tempo were to actually change speed.

A measure line is nothing more than a marker in time, a visual aid to group beats by feel. We should see what we hear.

I don't get it. The space taken up by a measure changes with the horizontal zoom level you use, so what does this mean? If you are referring to script, then again, there is no general relationship between space, tempo and the number of beats in a measure. It's more a matter of readability of the layout.

[sdfalk]

Frankly, I can only speculate, but it seems like MOTU's entries into the plug-in market may be designed to generate revenue and that's why they do them. But it does not good to release them with issues, or not follow up and aggressively stamp out bugs etc. or demonstrate a strong commitment to the product. How long was the wait between MachFive 1.0 and MachFive 2.0. How many of MOTU's own plugs don't work with DP6's ability to bounce them down without printing to audio? When was the last MachFive update? How many third party developers even bother with releasing instrument libraries as MachFive format? It's all Kontakt from what I understand.

and the reason why I've left MachFive for Kontakt...

[danworks]

Frankly, I can only speculate, but it seems like MOTU's entries into the plug-in market may be designed to generate revenue and that's why they do them. But it does not good to release them with issues, or not follow up and aggressively stamp out bugs etc. or demonstrate a strong commitment to the product. How long was the wait between MachFive 1.0 and MachFive 2.0. How many of MOTU's own plugs don't work with DP6's ability to bounce them down without printing to audio? When was the last MachFive update? How many third party developers even bother with releasing instrument libraries as MachFive format? It's all Kontakt from what I understand.

and the reason why I've left MachFive for Kontakt...

True, but usually standard have more to do with compromises & money than "better product".
VHS wasn't the best video system, ProTools probably not the best DAW out there, 44.1 not the most easy-to-imagine sample rate format, but they're are/have been all standards.

About MachFive, you can read AKAI, Roland, Giga, Kontakt etc directly from ISO image, without the need of re-saving the patch if you don't want to. And whenever you recall the DP project, M5 does recall all those presets fm the ISO images. As far as I remember, Kontakt behave differently (need to translate first, then save - am I right?) and - sorry to say - its GUI isn't the most easy to use and to find thing in it while on M5 everything is right there.

Having said that, I agree that MOTU has been very slow on upgrading M5 and still is. UVI WS, EKeys, and BPM have the new UVI engine while M5 hasn't that yet. And for the flagship sampler of a software house, it's hard to believe

[gaucho]

gaucho wrote:
How many others of you feel that the time-line should be re conceived such that a 2/4 measure takes up half the space of a 4/4 measure, as some other DAWs wisely have it? A quarter note should be the same visual length, take up the same amount of horizontal real-estate, and the playback wiper should only change speed if the tempo were to actually change speed.

A measure line is nothing more than a marker in time, a visual aid to group beats by feel. We should see what we hear.

I don't get it. The space taken up by a measure changes with the horizontal zoom level you use, so what does this mean? If you are referring to script, then again, there is no general relationship between space, tempo and the number of beats in a measure. It's more a matter of readability of the layout.

In the tracks overview window, each measure is a block. However, an 4/4 measure is the same width as a 2/4 measure. It should be visibly twice as long. (Performer gets around this by having the playback wiper zip past the 2/4 bar more quickly).

[gaucho]

I should specify, "when the tracks overview window is zoomed to the 1 measure resolution"

[gaucho]

which brings up another problem: when the tracks overview window is scrolled down to tracks at the bottom of a template, where the conductor track is not visible, one has no indication of the meter at all. So, in addition to having the measure widths change to visually illustrate the proper length of time passing (as it did in Studio Vision), the conductor track should remain visible at all times and not scroll out of view (or at least the meters should be visible)

[Todzilla]

• Master Pitch Control
• A much better manual - (hint #1 - EVERY term listed on a menu should be in the index)
• A way to set a mixer panel as default when you click on mixer (can't find a way to do this in DP6 without loading mixer every f*ing time)
• Auto-Save and/or Auto-Backup
• Better mastering plugs (multi-band compressor sounds pretty orful, including its de-esser setting)
• Most Important and a Market Changer: A De-suck plug-in

[Armageddon]

I'm late to this, but that one I disagree with. Forget the plug-ins. Improve what's there. How about finally being big enough to admit that hardly any third party vendors support MAS any more and scrap the "MAS AudioUnit Support.bundle" thingy, which is a wrapper, and built direct AU support into DP. I often wonder if the reason some AU's give DP problems and they don't in other DAWS is this AU --> MAS abstraction layer? If need be they can make the bundled DP plugs into some sort of proprietary "built-in" format so that people can't use them in other hosts, but just embrace Audio Units already. And again, no new plug-ins... leave that stuff to the specialized plug-in developers who do that better for the most part and focus on making a solid, efficient HOST DAW.

Frankly, I can only speculate, but it seems like MOTU's entries into the plug-in market may be designed to generate revenue and that's why they do them. But it does not good to release them with issues, or not follow up and aggressively stamp out bugs etc. or demonstrate a strong commitment to the product. How long was the wait between MachFive 1.0 and MachFive 2.0. How many of MOTU's own plugs don't work with DP6's ability to bounce them down without printing to audio? When was the last MachFive update? How many third party developers even bother with releasing instrument libraries as MachFive format? It's all Kontakt from what I understand.

I was under the impression that MachFive and other of their plugs are actually contracted out to the French company that makes UVI Workstation. I don't know if that's why upgrades are slow in coming or not, but it seems like maybe being a smaller company might take stock and evaluate how many irons they have in the fire and decide whether it's best to do a few things extremely well, or a whole bunch of things in a mediocre fashion. With Presonus hiring good talent over from Steinberg and releasing Studio One, they're about to have yet another competitor. And the Presonus folks have already said on gearslutz that hardware inserts with delay compensation is something they are already working on, but it might not make it into the 1.0 release. What are our hopes for seeing such an imminently useful feature in the near future? Anybody want to bet who will bring that feature to market first?

My point is that the competition is hungry and if you competitors are energetic and aggressive and willing to innovate and address customer needs ad requests promptly, while you leave them waiting and wanting, you're going to be in trouble. Relying on the ineptitude or the legacy issues of one's competition for success isn't going to cut it indefinitely. It's the law of business... the law of the jungle. The DAW industry and music technology industry isn't one of those industries liable to get a government bail out, so it's truly sink or swim.

Heck... I'm still waiting for transport control of DP from CueMix. Let's see... the same company makes both apps, so how hard could that one be? How many more years for that one?

Don't get me wrong. I love DP, and I do my best to support MOTU... but it can be a frustrating thing.

Good post, James! I never understood why they didn't ditch MAS when they made the transition to OS X, especially if AU is being considered the de facto plug-in format (I won't even get into VST support, which has baffled me since DP 3!) ... and it seems to me that there really is zero difference, at this point, between MAS and Audio Units, aside from the obvious compatibility problems. If they threw out MAS and focused on better AU support, it seems to me they'd be in a better position to compete with Logic, even ProTools. I think DP is in a transitional state, where they're really trying hard to incorporate AU, but are seemingly afraid to let go of their proprietary format. I, for one, could do without three or four versions of the same plug on my machine.

[Michael Canavan]

My list is short. I would love for DP to avoid sample libraries and FX etc. that you can buy third party as AU.

1. Improve DP's ability to edit while the song is playing. It glitches audibly on low cpu and HD track counts here.

2. Multitrack bounce.. Live and Logic both do it, and until DP gets live performance features like Live has, I could really use this to import tracks.

3. the ability to edit MIDI in an object oriented way, if implemented at this point, they could easily have it key command switchable which would be the best of both worlds..

4. Live performance features, smooth transitions between chunks etc. <-- kinda ties in with request #1.

5. Something similar to the FX and Instrument mapping that Studio One is reportedly using where a controller keyboard is instantly mapped to a virtual instrument of effect when that plug in is opened. Global MIDI mapping of virtual instruments seems so intuitive I'm really surprised that it hasn't happened before.

[Timeline]

I second Multitrack bounce and pitch control. Wow, great adds there.

[danworks]

Heck... I'm still waiting for transport control of DP from CueMix. Let's see... the same company makes both apps, so how hard could that one be? How many more years for that one?
Don't get me wrong. I love DP, and I do my best to support MOTU... but it can be a frustrating thing.

James,

you sounds like me

[Umbrella]

Be the most badass program ever

and:

continue in the direction of maximized code efficiency (ala 6.xx)

make hyperthreading and streamlined multitasking / editing while playing : seamlessness, etc, a priority

Eat humble pie and shelve MAS as a legacy plugin format to preserve older project compatibility - there is probably no single 3rd party plugin that is MAS only.

And/or - develop/streamline DP's AU implementation - maybe really eat humble pie and go AU only and build a 'translator' or some such helper app/feature to bring older projects using MAS plugs quickly into AU-only plug based projects (with presets intact, etc).

Incorporate as much Snow Leopard/Open CL optimization as possible while maintaining backwards compatibility

a cool VARISPEED! option/feature... MOTU did it with pitch... They can do it with speeeed (I know, I know, they're inter-related)

[James Steele]

gaucho wrote:
How many others of you feel that the time-line should be re conceived such that a 2/4 measure takes up half the space of a 4/4 measure, as some other DAWs wisely have it? A quarter note should be the same visual length, take up the same amount of horizontal real-estate, and the playback wiper should only change speed if the tempo were to actually change speed.

A measure line is nothing more than a marker in time, a visual aid to group beats by feel. We should see what we hear.

I don't get it. The space taken up by a measure changes with the horizontal zoom level you use, so what does this mean? If you are referring to script, then again, there is no general relationship between space, tempo and the number of beats in a measure. It's more a matter of readability of the layout.

In the tracks overview window, each measure is a block. However, an 4/4 measure is the same width as a 2/4 measure. It should be visibly twice as long. (Performer gets around this by having the playback wiper zip past the 2/4 bar more quickly).

Seems like this is a really minor thing. I use the word "thing" because I almost said "inconvenience" but I can't remember being inconvenienced by something that seems rather trivial to be honest. I'm fairly certain there must be literally hundreds of fixes/improvements that would be higher priority than implementing this. Is Logic this way? Is that why this issue was even conceived?