DP 5: features, enhancements, issues

[chrispick]

Awaiting delivery.

Are we still stuck with SD2 files only? Or can we now use WAV files in DP5?

Also, is there export to BWAV? Or only WAV?

Thanks
Bob

No BWF yet.

I was able to successfully export WAVs in DP 5, should that be of interest.

[grimepoch]

Yeah, I saw no Broadcast Wave format either. Also, I believe it still converts to SD2 files for use internally.

I have a different problem that I didn't have before.

Let's say transport is stopped, wiper is at 20. I highlight from measure 5 to 7, tell it to loop that region, then turn the loop button on. If I hit the rewind, DP freezes sometimes and never comes back. I always save before I do this or move the wiper first inside the region now instead of using the rewind.

Strange to say the least.

[matwell]

...5 instances of Ivory are running at once. As you can see, there are a lot of notes. This is for illustration purposes only, since most people would never use more than one instance of Ivory at a time, but the second interesting thing is that the CPU performance meter shows only about 35% usage. In this same song, under DP 4.61, it ran pretty much always in the red, never dropping below 95%. Here, it never gets above about 75%, and often dives down to very low values. This is one of the busier parts of the song.

That may not seem like much to some of you, but I'm using a Dual 1GHz Quicksilver (2002) with 1.5GB RAM. It's not the most VI-friendly computer on the planet, I assure you, and Ivory is a virtual CPU pig. Of those five pianos, I've got three running with 6 levels of samples, and two running with 8 levels, and the sampled piano is the Yamaha 7' grand. It seemed very odd to me that this played so freely in DP5. Some songs didn't change that much on the CPU meter. This one did radically. Something's going on here! I can't believe that DP5 could be that much more optimized, but I can't find anything else to account for the difference. ...
Anyway, I thought someone might like to see that.

Shooshie

Awesome!

[gatito25]

hi

i notice to that if you have more that one user (i have two in my powerbook, one for normal use and a second for audio work) you can not use DP5 with the second user you only can see a DP5 folder and if you click on it you recive a error message "application incomplete" in order to use DP5 with the second user you have to install the program login with the user that you will use DP5.
normally you dont have any user issue with DP4.61, or any DP version you can use the program with any user on your computer, maybe is something new with the program licence and copyright?

but anyway the program is AWSOME!!!!

[dpdan]

thanks Tommy M, you had me worried

Dan

[monkey man]

Shooshie wrote:

...5 instances of Ivory are running at once....CPU performance meter shows only about 35% usage. In this same song, under DP 4.61, it ran pretty much always in the red, never dropping below 95%. Here, it never gets above about 75%, and often dives down to very low values.
That may not seem like much to some of you, but I'm using a Dual 1GHz Quicksilver (2002) with 1.5GB RAM...It seemed very odd to me that this played so freely in DP5. Some songs didn't change that much on the CPU meter. This one did radically. Something's going on here! I can't believe that DP5 could be that much more optimized, but I can't find anything else to account for the difference.

Shooshie, you don't work at 16bit do you? I wouldn't have thought so....
If not, you must have saved your DP 4.61 project after toggling the bit depth for some reason without toggling it back!
What caught my attention was the 48/16 setting on your PCI/424!

Hope this helps, as it's my first post anywhere, ever! Besides, Shooshie's been such a huge contributor, I couldn't resist attempting to give ST back!

Go you good thing, Shoosh!

[matwell]

... Shooshie, you don't work at 16bit do you? I wouldn't have thought so....
If not, you must have saved your DP 4.61 project after toggling the bit depth for some reason without toggling it back!
What caught my attention was the 48/16 setting on your PCI/424!...

I noticed that too. That could account for better CPU usage. I'd be interested to see the difference if the project were switched back to 24-bit.

[lord funk]

Great thread, Shooshie. I'm also very interesting in VI performance. I've been waiting to buy NI Komplete until I get a new computer (I've got a Dual 1GHz), but if DP5 helps reduce the CPU load for things like Kontakt, I'll be buying it right now.

Could you do some more investigative work into that?

[Shooshie]

Shooshie, you don't work at 16bit do you? I wouldn't have thought so....

Indeed I do at this stage of the project, at least when CPU headroom is scarce. I switch to 24 for freezing and bouncing the final tracks before mixing audio. Until then, however, I go for pulling the most out of my CPU so that I can edit the MIDI "live" with as few freezes as possible. Audio is essentially a monitor at this point, and I don't find the difference between 16 and 24 to be critical for editing MIDI. I'd love to have a faster computer, but even then I'd probably work this way.

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

Actually, this whole thing has me wondering what the difference is to the point that I'm thinking about re-installing DP4.61 and seeing if it still runs in the red on it. Something changed without my knowing about it.

Current suspicion: maybe more Ivory instances were running at 8 levels originally. I save them as presets, but in Ivory there are minimum of 5 places to save presets. If any one of them gets altered, it's no longer the original preset even if it says it is. In the hierarchy of saves, if one is altered, all those above it will appear in italics. There could be something going on there. Maybe I was using bulkier samples in the original, without knowing it. I mean, there has to be an explanation for this, and I'm not getting the same tremendous results with all my files, just the ones that were running Ivory. It may also be significant that since installing Ivory 1.5 update, I haven't had the occasion to use it much until right before I got DP5.

Anyway, I probably should have done more testing before I posted that stuff, but I was so excited about it at first that I had to tell everyone. The excitement faded, though, when I realized not everyone was getting such a boost in speed. Oh well... for a moment I thought DP had out-optimized Logic. Sigh...

Shooshie

[Spikey Horse]

About pre-rendering of plugs: there is a setting (in studio config) for how pre you want the render to be. In fact it's worth checking out this window as it's quite different now, what with track enable/disable replacing the previous coffee vending machine approach to studio size ...

Although now I'm thinking, if DP is allowing us to really tweak its performance to best serve the various stages of a project - which seem to me to be one way of looking at it - then it might be useful in the future to be able to save our own favourite DP performance settings as presets. Possibly. Time to read the manual.

Oh yes another insy weensy feature is the 'dimples' on the track names column in SE -you can grab and pull out lengthways now .... presumably to have access to their drop down menus while keeping the tracks thin at the same time.

The click features look awsome, too.

[matwell]

...Oh yes another insy weensy feature is the 'dimples' on the track names column in SE -you can grab and pull out lengthways now .... presumably to have access to their drop down menus while keeping the tracks thin at the same time....

Fantastic new feature. I love it! No more squished, abbreviated names in the SE.

[wbrisett]

[No BWF yet.

I was able to successfully export WAVs in DP 5, should that be of interest.

What am I missing? I've been exporting WAV files from DP4 for a while. Also on the BWF thing, one of my major requests to MOTU was that they allow me to import poly-BWF files (more than one channel of audio). I was having some issues with my 424 card and when I had them on the phone, I asked them if they added this for DP5. They guy had no clue what a poly-BWAV file was, but then put me on hold and came back to say "no, that didn't get added".

I usually keep both the original BWAV files from my recorder for the timecode info, and the copies DP makes in the audio directory of my project. I just archive these all off to DVDs.

Wayne

[Shooshie]

Well, I've used DP5 pretty extensively since I got it. There's a lot to be happy about. Really, this one is a very nice upgrade, and I STILL haven't opened any of the new VIs. But I have one problem with DP5 that I haven't had since DP 4.0: sudden quits. I'm saving after every major move. Anything that sends out the spinning beachball is a candidate for a sudden quit. I've done that more than 5 times today. That's equal to the total number of times DP has quit on me since OSX came out, if you disregard the first month with the first version (4.0).

I can't pin it to any particular thing yet, but I'm trying. If anyone starts noticing a pattern, let me know. Twice it quit when I was tinkering in Alti-Verb.

Shooshie

[toodamnhip]

Well, I've used DP5 pretty extensively since I got it. There's a lot to be happy about. Really, this one is a very nice upgrade, and I STILL haven't opened any of the new VIs. But I have one problem with DP5 that I haven't had since DP 4.0: sudden quits. I'm saving after every major move. Anything that sends out the spinning beachball is a candidate for a sudden quit. I've done that more than 5 times today. That's equal to the total number of times DP has quit on me since OSX came out, if you disregard the first month with the first version (4.0).

I can't pin it to any particular thing yet, but I'm trying. If anyone starts noticing a pattern, let me know. Twice it quit when I was tinkering in Alti-Verb.

Shooshie

I have your darn pattern for you dude...

EVERYdamn upgrade seems to have to go through unstablity..it is just the nature of the beast I suppose...being along the lines that DP users have always been MOTU's guinniea pigs/beta testers....

Dave