DP Workflows

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Get a STacy. Mind the shorting of the case....

[bayswater]

Of course. But that's for when I'm on the road. (Shipping weight only 56 lbs)

[anselm]

I don't mean to sound unsympathetic about Vision; I really don't. It's anyone's worst nightmare to lose their primary DAW. But at some point you just have to let it go, and the Opcode debacle occurred 15 years ago, give or take a year. That's half a career. Half the life of the Macintosh! I enjoy threads that discuss Vision, but not those that lament that DP can't be like Vision. Same with folks who still can't get over Atari. The truth is, if we went back to any of those things, people would be in shock over how bad it all feels. I remember early versions of MacOS and Performer fondly, as I spent some of the best years of my life using those sometimes 36 hours a day. (sorta true...) But when I go back now on an old machine, just for the "fun" of it, I feel shackled and limited, and I can't wait to get back to what we have now.


Shooshie

I don't want to be misunderstood. Obviously, I don't want to go back 15 years and relish in that technology. I was honestly asking out of curiosity. I do think that particular organizational feature of Vision was great, but I am quite sure I must be wrong thinking that that particular aspect was better. Perhaps most users found that type of flexibility confusing or easily disorganized. I still have that program available, but I haven't used it in some time. I strictly have been DP for a long time, but I always just worked in one sequence before. I am trying to take advantage of every feature that will benefit me.

I really appreciate the input, and I think perhaps I am on the right track, reading the responses.

[Guitar Gaz]

I don't want to be misunderstood. Obviously, I don't want to go back 15 years and relish in that technology. I was honestly asking out of curiosity. I do think that particular organizational feature of Vision was great, but I am quite sure I must be wrong thinking that that particular aspect was better. Perhaps most users found that type of flexibility confusing or easily disorganized. I still have that program available, but I haven't used it in some time. I strictly have been DP for a long time, but I always just worked in one sequence before. I am trying to take advantage of every feature that will benefit me.

I really appreciate the input, and I think perhaps I am on the right track, reading the responses.

I feel your pain having been through the transition but the point I am making is you can make DP work like Vision and in most ways its now better. It just took a while to find a way of working - Song Window is fine as long as you have V Racks's and it works much the same as Vision as long as you chain the chunks and make sure the end points of the chunk are what you want them to be (you can check in the Chunks window for end points which can often be wrong and need manually amending). The wiper did not really work in Vision's song sequence as it wasn't a sequence - just a chain of sequences playing one after the other with no pause. So no loss in DP - and you can always read the counter to find out where you are.

[Shooshie]

Right or wrong doesn't matter. Whether DP is better or worse that Vision is a dead question, and even when it was a relevant question the answer depended on who you were, how you worked, and what kind of music you wrote or played. For songwriters, Vision was apparently the better choice. For orchestral composers and arrangers, DP was usually cited as the first-draft pick. But either could be used for whatever you wanted, providing you learned the ropes.

You've got the Song Window in DP which in some ways emulates Vision, but few of us use it regularly anymore. What's a more productive method for many of us is to write fairly linearly, but when you finish the first verse, select the verse exactly (employing markers make this easy) and drag the whole verse (all tracks) to the Chunks Window. Now you've got a verse chunk. When you finish the first bridge, do the same. These chunks can be dragged right back into the Tracks Overview when needed, acting very much as they would in the Song Window, excepting that you have nothing in particular to "snap" it to. If your selections were clean, then dragging the chunk to the Tracks Overview, then releasing it where you want the new verse to start (at the top-left-most cell of that region), will be a simple and accurate drag and drop. The next verse is in place.

Exploit the difference between Event selections and Range selections, choosing which one you use for certain circumstances. You'll find a mention or two of Range Selections in the Tips Sheet first page, if I recall correctly. (Do a "find" on "event selection" or "range selection.") Check the Preferences under "Tools" for Event, Range, or Both selections. (Hint: dragging the I-Beam tool will always produce a range selection in any edit window.) To convert an existing selection from Event to Range is a little trickier, requiring a work-around involving some customized commands in the Commands Window, but once you learn how to do it, it's nearly instantaneous. See page 2 of the Tips Sheet thread for some help with that.

I talk a lot about selections, because the key to working in DP is creating and maintaining selections. DP will actually remember a selection. The mini-menu is actually in the Selections area of the header of an edit window, or you can find it in the Selections Window. It remembers ranges, not events.

Getting fluent in how and what to select, then, is the key to making your workflow fly. It's usually a two-handed approach, with one hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse. The Search feature (Edit/Search) can be employed to greatly speed up the process of selecting, using Boolean operators and even a rhythmic grid for searching within range specifications. Save a search and use it over and over, often as the first step for a more refined selection, or as the last step in a process of elimination.

What you select, then, can be dragged to the Chunks Window, or you can use the Edit menu to store it in a Clippings Window. Clippings, like chunks, can be used over and over, inserted wherever desired. Almost anything that can be selected can be saved as a clipping:

• • a perfect rhythmic groove
  • the vibrato (pitch bend) of a violin
  • a set of audio and aux tracks for turning a MIDI sequence into MIDI with audio
  • a set of controllers used as key switches in a VI track
  • anything you can remember to try

Anything you can contrive not to have to do twice will save you time. Any selection you can make with ease will save you time. If you will be selecting the same thing often, consider putting it (temporarily, perhaps) in its own track. I use scratch tracks for this. There is a keyboard command for creating a track similar to the one in which you're working. I think the default for it is Control-Command-S (for Similar), and it gives you an identical, but empty, track to which you can drag your selection in the Tracks Overview Window (or copy/paste in an edit window). Since its I/O is identical, the selection plays within the scratch track as if it never left its home track. You can go back and select that anytime with great ease.

Using Markers, you can select all that lies between them merely by clicking on the next marker.

That's a start. When you run against a wall, assume that there is a door. Look for it. Ask about it. Don't lose hope just because there isn't a menu for it. There are usually ways to do most things. That's why so many professional composers really like DP.

Shooshie

[Guitar Gaz]

These chunks can be dragged right back into the Tracks Overview when needed, acting very much as they would in the Song Window, excepting that you have nothing in particular to "snap" it to. If your selections were clean, then dragging the chunk to the Tracks Overview, then releasing it where you want the new verse to start (at the top-left-most cell of that region), will be a simple and accurate drag and drop. The next verse is in place.

Shooshie

I have to disagree with this as a viable method - fine if the Chunk has an identical track layout - you can drag the Bridge into the Track Overview window where , say, the Verse Chunk is open. But it just does not work if there is any difference in track layout - the Track Overview window will not accept the Chunk.

Maybe every Chunk has a track layout exactly the same, the way you do it Shooshie - but its not the way I work. If I copy a Chunk that way, then I work on it and say add a solo on audio that is not on the Chunk I copied, and maybe a string line on a MIDI track - then you try and copy it back from the Chunk window to add to the original Chunk - it does not accept it.

That's why we need the Song Window - and you can then also merge different Chunks with different Track layouts - so MOTU don't listen to anyone who says we don't use the Song Window anymore - we do and we need it. Try it Shooshie's way and you see it won't work if the track layout is even slightly different. Sorry Shooshie as you are the guru on DP but I think your advice above about dragging to the Track Overview will actually confuse more than help as some may try this and find it doesn't work and then not understand why.

[Shooshie]

I haven't used this method in a while, maybe 6 months or so. Did it change? It used to work, regardless of the track layout. If the track layout isn't identical, it just adds the tracks. You can then move the content to previously existing tracks if you want to. I know it works, or used to, because for years I had hundreds of MIDI files without audio, left over from the Performer days. I added audio to every one of them this way, and there were no similar track layouts at all. I guess I'd better go try it out and see if something has changed.

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

Just tested it, and I think it's working the same as it always did. And yes, it's viable, though maybe not everyone's preference. Here are the rules:

• • If you drag a chunk into the Tracks Overview, where there are no matching tracks, you must drag it to the left-portion of the window. There, it adds the tracks and their contents from the chunk.
  • If you drag the chunk into the Tracks Overview, where there are the same numbers of tracks of each type, in the same order, you can drag it directly to the cell in which you want it to merge. The data in the chunk will merge with the existing data in the Tracks Overview, or if the cells are empty, the chunk will be inserted.
  • If you drag the chunk into the Tracks Overview, where the numbers of tracks have been increased, per track type, the data in the chunk will be merged with the existing cells as follows:
  • - As long as the track types are still in the same order, and as long as you have NOT DECREASED the number of each type, the tracks will drop into place without issue, filling the first tracks it encounters of each type until its tracks each have a position.
    • - As an example, let's say you have (from top to bottom) 6 MIDI tracks, four Aux tracks, and 4 Audio tracks. You made a chunk from them, perhaps a verse of the song. Now you're dragging it back into the song to repeat that verse. Since then, you added 4 MIDI tracks, 2 Aux tracks, and an Audio track to the original song, for a total of 10 MIDI, 6 Aux, and 5 Audio tracks. The chunk will place its 6 MIDI (being the topmost tracks) anywhere in the top 5 MIDI tracks, so that it has 6 inclusive tracks to merge to. The Aux tracks will go to the first 4 Aux tracks it finds, and the Audio will go to the first 4 Audio tracks it finds. The fact that the layout has changed, and there are more of each type will not matter, as long as they are still in the order of MIDI, Aux, and Audio from top to bottom.
  • If you mix up the order of track types, it will not work. Of course, you can still drag to the left side of the Tracks Overview Window, and it will add the tracks with the data at Bar 1|1|000.

I just tried these successfully. Will let you know if I find anything else. Of course, I'm not saying that this is the best or only way to do it. It's just one way, and it's one that I've used a lot.

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

Hold it! I did find a problem. A bug.

As long as you are making chunks of a single data type, it works as described above. But when you make a chunk with multiple track types, it works the first time or two, then no more. I tried it about three times, each a little differently, and it worked each time. Then I came back to it and did some more, and I got the alert dialogue about how it will only work with exactly matching track types. So, I created new sequences and new chunks with varying track types, and it worked... this time once per sequence. All subsequent attempts failed.

I was more successful using Clippings to do the job. It's not even so concerned about data types and orders, if it can just find the tracks it needs to merge the data into.

I think that DP has still got some post-Cocoa ironing out to do, but the chunk method is still a viable one if you are not mixing track types. The bug only shows up when you have more than one type of track in the chunk that you're dragging into the original song. Geez... this is not one that I look forward to explaining to MOTU.

Shooshie

[dewdman42]

Actually what I would love to see in DP someday, but doubt I will, is something more like the Live and Bitwig arrangement screens, I don't know what they're called, but you can very easily grab song parts, or parts of song parts, some of the tracks or all of the tracks, loop around, etc.. Vision used to be awesome that way, but really the way Live and BitWig handle it is a bit more flexible in terms of the repeating song sections having variations from earlier ones, which allows you to easily mess around with trying different combinations of looped tracks and parts and create loads of linear variability.

DP Song mode kinda does it too, but I don't know, I find it unwieldy. Motu should catch the Live/Bitwig buzz in this regard... I don't have more specific feedback then that, but perhaps others can comment more on how the DP song window compares to working with Bitwig or Live. Especially BitWig

[Shooshie]

DP Song mode kinda does it too, but I don't know, I find it unwieldy. Motu should catch the Live/Bitwig buzz in this regard... I don't have more specific feedback then that, but perhaps others can comment more on how the DP song window compares to working with Bitwig or Live. Especially BitWig

All I can say is that the DP Song window really feels its age. It's been there as long as Chunks, and I don't think it's changed a bit during all that time. Maybe they added user-defined columns later. I don't remember for sure. But it's not the easiest thing to work with, because you're still working blind. We worked blind in MIDI for many years before the first Graphic Editor. They should have updated the Song Window so that it's not blind. You can open a Tracks window for each chunk in the Song window, but it doesn't show how it fits with the next one, there's no wiper to tell you where you are, and each one is numbered from bar 1. It really doesn't give you any way at all to follow what you're doing, except converting the Song back to a Sequence. If you want to experiment, that's a clumsy way to do it.

Honestly? Most of the time I just select stuff and use it in the Tracks Overview Window. If I'm going to use it more than once, I'll usually make a chunk of it, or make some easy way to get back to it. The TO Window is actually fast and easy to use when you get proficient at it. It doesn't seem that way at first, but it's great if you know it. One secret is to use the I-Beam for range selections, so that you can drag over a larger area easily.

Another BIG secret of the Tracks Overview Window (shouldn't be a secret, though) is that if you position the cursor carefully at the top of the desired track, the cursor turns to a + sign. At that point you can drag horizontal and vertical ranges simultaneously, that is, select a large area with multiple tracks. Shift-key along with the + allows you to select discontiguous ranges, all quickly and easily.

If you add Markers at all transition points, it's very easy to select sections for copying, dragging, or whatever. Markers are probably one of the most sensible ways to go about it. It's always about access to specific ranges of data or events, and Markers enable you to select them immediately.

DP does looping very well. It inserts placeholders so that you know it's a loop. I wish it would insert ghost notes in the edit windows, but it does not.

Shooshie

[dewdman42]

a step to making that easier would be more complete support for regions, where automation and everything is self contained within the regions. You have to be careful about automation data overlapping past the beginning or end of a range, even with markers..its easy to get into trouble.

The nice thing about vision was that a sequence was totally self contained. I guess a chunk is too right, but if you are selecting from a range between markers to create a chunk, it can get ugly if not careful with dangling MIDI and automation events.

[Shooshie]

a step to making that easier would be more complete support for regions, where automation and everything is self contained within the regions. You have to be careful about automation data overlapping past the beginning or end of a range, even with markers..its easy to get into trouble.

The nice thing about vision was that a sequence was totally self contained. I guess a chunk is too right, but if you are selecting from a range between markers to create a chunk, it can get ugly if not careful with dangling MIDI and automation events.

There needs to be a better way to deal with MIDI controllers, but NOT the way Logic does it. I found Logic to be horrifically cumbersome and inaccurate when it came to editing controller phrasing as it pertains to the notes. With each one in its own lane, it might seem easier at first glance, but you couldn't select them with the same stroke as the notes, and that's a problem. The same problem exists in DP, but I developed a workaround to convert the note selections to ranges that pick up the controllers for those notes, plus a way to grab the dangling ones quickly and easily, all with a few keystrokes. (Tips Sheet, page 2) So, if you use that method, it's actually pretty easy in DP. I'd just prefer that MOTU come up with a brilliant, unique solution that revolutionizes MIDI and controller editing in this VI-heavy era. Maybe their version of lanes (upcoming in DP9) will do that. We'll see. I hope it's not like Logic's. That would be a huge disappointment.

Regions sound like the answer, but the problem is "what is a dangling event?" There is literally NO WAY for a region to know what events are dangling from the previous region, and which are anticipating the next region (pedals, for instance). Smart Selections are supposed to insert those when you cut out a region and take its pedals or other controllers, but I've never really seen it work as it should. Maybe I misunderstand what it's for. I really never stopped to figure it out, because I'd already learned how to grasp things quickly. But it takes eyes on the target and decisions to be made on the spot. It can't do that automatically, nor can any other DAW. It depends on where you intended for those controllers to be, and what you intended them for, and only you know that. That's why I think my method works so well. It does not take away your control of the situation, and yet it gives you immediate access without mousing around.

[frankf]

Is it 15 years that Opcode went Gibson? Wow. I switched to DP and never looked back. I've done a lot of work on DP as I did with Studio Vision but I agree that it's a dead subject at this point. Allow me to keep a little place in my heart for SVP.

Oh, there are still active Opcode users out there, a Yahoo user group, and files available.


Frank Ferrucci

[dewdman42]

Yea at some point I tried to ressurrect SVP, the windows version, but I was never able to get it working due to antiquated MIDI drivers if I recall. SVP is definitely dead.

SVP had a way of handling MIDI data so that any given "sequence" was self contained. It would cleanup any dangling MIDI events. So if you had a song sequence which basically plays back a list of sequences...each one would make sure to include note-off's at the end of itself, and its been a while, but I believe it would not leave any sustain pedals hanging either. each sequence was self contained. Of course if you needed to have a sustain pedal sustain past the end of a sequence, then you couldn't do it. You'd have to record that event on the higher level song sequence instead, which makes sense.

Because of this, you could work on a verse or chorus or whatever, as a sequence and it would be completely self contained. Then including several different sequences into a song was simply a matter of naming the order. No concerns whatsoever about dangling MIDI. This is pattern based music production, which DP does not excel at. Pattern based work can be very quick to work out ideas.

There are downsides, which are that the music can start to sound kind of overly pattern-like. The linear approach of DP sort of forces you to use more variation and have some kind of musical events which overlap different patterns, such as dangling sustain pedals, notes that are held past the end of the pattern, etc. Those kinds of things can be done in pattern based production, but requires more work and so often skipped. In linear mode of production there is a lack of any patterns or blocks of self contained music at all, so those boundary lines between sections doesn't exist.

There is a time and place for both methods of production, but unfortunately DP is lacking in the pattern based toolset. IMHO.