DP8 announced: 64 bits and available for Windows!

[stephentayler]

Thanks for this James.

Finally, what I have been wanting, DP will output video through MOTU's video interfaces.......

Stephen

[stephentayler]

Oh and full screen video too!!!

[bayswater]

I'm presuming that the plugin with the B icon (lower left) makes everything Bigger, Ballsy and Badd-ass.
Best, Bolla.

It's the Boston Bruins choir VI

[monkey man]

Thank you for the report and posting the vid, James.

Oh, and everything else you do for us.

[Shooshie]

It's not so much that I'm a PC hater, I just hate PCs!

Honestly, I've been using a Mac with Performer/DP since '86 or whenever it first came out. As far as I'm concerned the two are one. They go hand in hand. Even though DP has some dated functionality and runs somewhat counter intuitive to OSX, it is consistent with older versions of the Mac OS and early versions of DP. I guess it is foolish to keep it that way for new users, but for us old timers it's nice that it hasn't changed much over the years.

Hear! Hear! To me, DP and the Mac are sort of the same things. I bought the first Mac when it first came out, partly because I recognized that here was a computer at last that offered something to benefit me, but the BIG reason (and kinda the same reason) was that they had banners from MOTU in the store showing full-scores of music, beautifully laser-printed. THAT, I thought, is what I want. I wasn't even thinking about MIDI. I was thinking about how easy it would be to transpose scores and print them in a different key, transpose parts, correct mistakes, and all that without having to rewrite the entire score every time I needed a change. I was a performer, and I arranged most of my own stuff. The Mac was there to help.

That said, a "ground up" re-write is in order and some upgraded under-the-hood technology (i.e. pitchshift/timestretching algorithm) is in overdue.

I think they've finally finished the rewrite they started years ago. DP 8 will be entirely a Cocoa app. That meant rewriting it, and they've been doing it piece at a time, breaking things in the process, but making some things better, too. But I hear you about "functionality differences." Every time I hold down the shift key to select individual notes in MIDI, or soundbites in audio, I wonder how that goes over with new users, to learn that the command key doesn't work for that. And since a version or so back, the command key works for appending to lists, but not notes, so there's a duality of old and new staring us right in the face of our basics. But to change over to the new Command/Shift duality would mean sacrificing functions essential to the use of DP, such as toggling the grid. Move that to the Control Key, and you lose proportional dragging. I'm not anxious to update that stuff. I kinda want it to stay where it is, for fear that they'll just drop something that's important to me.

At the moment, I'm anything but a Mac groupie. In fact, I'm a bit hacked off with the direction Apple is going. I have an iPad and I don't get the hype... especially for "pro" audio. Apple's proprietary everything, instant obsolescence, and indifference to the pro market is enough to make most of us want to jump ship. But a PC just isn't even an option for me. That said, I don't have the money to upgrade my OS and all my apps/plugs once a year and drop $4000+ for a new CPU every couple years just to keep up with Apple's upgrade cycle and fill their pockets. It's tiresome. I know I've chastised folks here about whining for having to upgrade - no has had to upgrade - but in the last few years Apple makes it near impossible to do otherwise.

Dropping MobileMe is a perfect example. It's a service I've relied on for several years for syncing my devices and poof... it's gone. To move to iCloud I have to upgrade to Lion.

Again, agreed. I have to admit that my Mac Pro, which will be 5 next month, does not feel old at all. It still feels like a kick-ass machine, and it seems to handle everything pretty well. It's got some things that worry me, such as running a 32 bit kernel, even while running everything else in 64 bit, but so far that has not been a problem. I haven't felt limited yet. I'll have to see how it goes when it's time to move to Lion. Will my computer run Lion? I don't even know. If not, then there I go again on the upgrade trail, and another $3000 + to Apple, whose size in dollar terms seems to have been fueled largely by my upgrades.

To be fair however, Lion doesn't turn my Mac into an iPhone. You may not like the GUI, but it's just a change to give their devices a more consistent feel. My Mac still has all the same goods under the hood. Now depending on what happens with the Mac Pro is a different story.

I have a feeling though, Apple is moving away from the all in one tower format. With TB they can essentially do OTB what one used to have to do ITB... except for card slots. But that's really the point... you don't really need card slots anymore. TBs speeds already exceed most slot bus speeds. A comment an Apple employee made to me was that most Mac users never even use the FW400 port on their computers, so what's the point of having it. If that's the case with FW how much more is Apple thinking about doing away with card slots. That's the downside to working with a company that "thinks different." Okay, I depart.

I can get by without FW400, but what happens when they say "most users use USB, so why have Firewire at all?" That kind of thing happens. I'm not most users. Most users don't make pro-quality music on their Macs. I do. I'm a pro-quality musician. If we design to the lowest common denominator we destroy the ethos implied by all of Apple's "thinking different." The troubling thing about Apple, since Jobs return in 1997, is that it has gone from "look at us empowering you" to "look at us." It was truly exciting in the 2000's to see this company making us a set of tools that were the envy of almost any rational computer user. They didn't just look wonderful, they were easy to get into, easy to modify, and super-powerful. So many things made so much sense. The idea that now we can do all that with Thunderbolt has a disturbing subtext: "let someone else make the drive bays, PCI compatibility, connectivity, and so forth. We've done our part by giving you a little wire through which all info can pass."

I'm not comfortable with that. I want to see the Mac Pro continue its development. I want for Apple to continue to empower the .001% of us who make the stuff that everyone else wants to read, watch or listen to. And remember who we are. We're not corporations who can funnel a percentage of our profits to you and still make money. We're trying to eat out here.


Shooshie

[Radiogal]

This is such great news!!! MOTU rocks.
Hope Andy will hold up with his great Amplidood GUIs. Can´t live without them!


Gaah. I see Andys´ page is down!!!

Yup, Did some investigations and Andys site is up and running again
http://ampguimods.net/

More good news: AMPGUI Themes will port right over to DP8 on Mac.

[dinobass]

Hope the Mac version of DP 8 supports VST 3: that would be great when working with VE Pro and being able to get more MIDI ports per VE Pro instance. With DP being 64-bit, and with the new ability in VE Pro 5 to work around the AU spec limitations, VST support might not make a big difference anyway but it would be nice to have the option.

Looking forward to Spring and DP 8!

[zed]

The troubling thing about Apple, since Jobs return in 1997, is that it has gone from "look at us empowering you" to "look at us."

Well put.

It was truly exciting in the 2000's to see this company making us a set of tools that were the envy of almost any rational computer user. They didn't just look wonderful, they were easy to get into, easy to modify, and super-powerful. So many things made so much sense. The idea that now we can do all that with Thunderbolt has a disturbing subtext: "let someone else make the drive bays, PCI compatibility, connectivity, and so forth. We've done our part by giving you a little wire through which all info can pass."

I'm not comfortable with that. I want to see the Mac Pro continue its development. I want for Apple to continue to empower the .001% of us who make the stuff that everyone else wants to read, watch or listen to. And remember who we are. We're not corporations who can funnel a percentage of our profits to you and still make money. We're trying to eat out here.

I'm not comfortable with a lot of decisions Apple is making these days. Dumbing things down to the lowest common denominator is not a good thing. It takes much of the stuff that made Apple such a great platform and throws it right out the window.

In terms of software, if Apple really wants to dumb things down, why not have an "easy mode" for the OS and an "advanced" or "expert" mode. Advanced users could set the preference to "expert" and choose which of the features to add to the expert list so that users who need control and want to customize can have more control.

In terms of hardware, I want Apple to still make that external hardware that is going to connect via Thunderbolt. They should at least provide an Apple option for that, so those of us willing to pay a bit more for an AppleCare supported external device can still get looked after when things go wrong.

To Apple's credit, they looked after me when my graphics cards went south a couple of weeks ago. They shipped a new one to me, overnight, up and into Canada and at my door before noon the next day. That is good service.

[bayswater]

They shipped a new one to me, overnight, up and into Canada and at my door before noon the next day. That is good service.

Well, it probably came from that huge warehouse in Richmond. Even so, that's good.

[bayswater]

I want to see the Mac Pro continue its development. I want for Apple to continue to empower the .001% of us who make the stuff that everyone else wants to read, watch or listen to. And remember who we are. We're not corporations who can funnel a percentage of our profits to you and still make money. We're trying to eat out here.


Shooshie

I think it makes perfect sense for Apple to relook at it's line of computers and go to a more modular approach where we can add processors, storage, memory, and other units to gain more power or functions. Thunderbolt can enable that. And it can make our systems infinitely customizable to our needs.

The real question, I think, is how Apple creates the happy path from here to there so professional users can move to the newer technologies when and how it suits them, rather than being forced into it, or feeling abandoned or fleeced. Apple always pushes the envelop on this, and sometimes a little too hard. Maybe the FCP experience will get them to think twice.

[BobK]

DP 7 already has pre- and post-roll, but I found it clunky enough that I never had the patience to get comfortable with it.

From James' video, it looks like Punch Guard just records the pre and post-roll without you having to, say, drag sliders around in the timeline. My guess is that there's a place where you enter the amount of pre and post-roll you want, or disable it, but otherwise Punch Guard seems to just operate in the background without you having to fuss with it.

What looks so cool is that the boundaries stay at the in and out points, so if you don't need the preroll, you don't have to edge-edit the soundbite to get rid of it. But if you need it, it's there.

If that's the case, I imagine it could make overdubbing a lot easier. Great idea, MOTU!

[zed]

They shipped a new one to me, overnight, up and into Canada and at my door before noon the next day. That is good service.

Well, it probably came from that huge warehouse in Richmond. Even so, that's good.

Actually, I tracked the package from California, since they had taken my address wrong and I had to call them back to deal with that while it was still on the way. I don't think it came from a local warehouse. The UPS guy said it is a service called "UPS Saver" which promises to get the package to you overnight and before noon the next day... even in Canada.

I have had a lot of bad luck with UPS, but my latest experiences were great (largely because I was available to receive the packages). Twice in one week, UPS delivered the package before the day that it was expected, and in the case of the Apple graphics card it was several days in advance. I just assumed replacement computer parts must get across the border without much fuss.

The real question, I think, is how Apple creates the happy path from here to there so professional users can move to the newer technologies when and how it suits them, rather than being forced into it, or feeling abandoned or fleeced. Apple always pushes the envelop on this, and sometimes a little too hard. Maybe the FCP experience will get them to think twice.

Very well put.

[roberth909]

All I want is for the crowded sound of the digital mix bus to be addressed, all the rest is a bonus.

[Shooshie]

All I want is for the crowded sound of the digital mix bus to be addressed, all the rest is a bonus.

Crowded sound? Explain. I haven't noticed any such thing that's not also present on every mixing board made since 1960. You always have to carve out space for every sound that you want to shine. Are you talking about something different? If not, I don't think that's going to be a feature so much as a skill.

Shooshie

[Prime Mover]

Yeah, I think you're hearing things, Robert. If you phase-reverse an aux group with it's through-put counterparts, you hear silence. There's no processing going on when bussing audio. What you're hearing really is the summed digital signal, as is true with any DAW or digital mixing board. If you don't like the sound that your summed tracks are getting, then it's up to you to blend them better.