DP 6 GUI - What do you think of it?

[vigormusic]

I just installed this today and I LOVE the GUI. It's beautiful and so far does everything I need it to. I took a screenshot of 6.0 before I installed 6.1 and I like the dulled down color scheme a little better. Just tracked some guitars and all is well!

[kassonica]

Err after using it for a couple of days I have to say I love the look and feel of it.

This is the best version ever IMHO

It's much clearer to me and after doing a session today in 5 and using 6 for my own stuff I don't want to go back to 5.

Gonna bite the bullet and install it on my main drive as it seems stable.

Still learning new features though. but I think I'm in love

[James Steele]

It's much clearer to me and after doing a session today in 5 and using 6 for my own stuff I don't want to go back to 5.

I feel the same way. Launching 5.13 gives me a claustrophobic, "cluttered" feeling. I do not miss the color bars on soundbites one bit. I think the improvements made on the 6.01 GUI versus 6.0 were significant. The track inspector is cool and it gives us the play/record enable in the editor window back. Not only that, you can choose patches from it as well.

[Tim]

MOTU has always been slow on the software side of things. Just look at the number of versions released compared with PT or Logic for example. I do agree though, that some of the really obvious bugs in this version really should have been caught.

They should give early betas to some members here, and have a private forum to work things out (maybe they already do; I don't know).
As it is now, it's like they're selling an early beta to the public.

[jlaudon]

I'm much happier with DP 6.01, and I've used a bunch of Amplidood's mods together with this update. I used his send level/pan knobs, fader (the 3d fader makes for too many lines and clutter), mixer colors, colored transport buttons, and a few other I can't recall. I've mostly been mixing, and haven't had any crashes (even the beachball resolves when I wait if it comes up). Leveler is so nice, and frees up more resources on my UAD card. So, life is getting better all the time with DP, IMHO

[jlaudon]

They should give early betas to some members here, and have a private forum to work things out (maybe they already do; I don't know).
As it is now, it's like they're selling an early beta to the public.

Totally agree with you - I have to wonder if they had people other than MOTU staff test DP 6.00 - even something as basic as the GUI would have been the first thing most of us would have given input on...

[bigwhitty]

The meter bridge Is aweful! IF ANY MOTU PEOPLE READ THIS STUFF: The Way your MW's EQ looks is killer...Make everything look like that, its beautiful...This other stuff is killing my eyes!

[monkey man]

They should give early betas to some members here, and have a private forum to work things out (maybe they already do; I don't know).
As it is now, it's like they're selling an early beta to the public.

Totally agree with you - I have to wonder if they had people other than MOTU staff test DP 6.00 - even something as basic as the GUI would have been the first thing most of us would have given input on...

I agree too guys. Surely we're potential gold for MOTU (and probably already are) - we're willing, we have the time (or we make it!), we certainly have the patience (LOL!), and last but not least, we've all got great taste.

I'm much happier with DP 6.01, and I've used a bunch of Amplidood's mods together with this update. I used his send level/pan knobs, fader (the 3d fader makes for too many lines and clutter), mixer colors, colored transport buttons, and a few other I can't recall. I've mostly been mixing, and haven't had any crashes (even the beachball resolves when I wait if it comes up). Leveler is so nice, and frees up more resources on my UAD card. So, life is getting better all the time with DP, IMHO

This is all great to hear John, especially in light of two things: The high standards I know you set having heard one of your albums (he's a talented kid, 'Cornies), and the fact that I know you weren't exactly enamoured with 6.0 when you first fired her up. Good stuff. Yay!

[magnetman]

I find that the new look is much harder to read and decipher. The icons are small & lacking in contrast and will entail memorization rather than seeing what they are. It also seems that there are less parameters available, meaning that things have become somewhat more nested. I'm not opposed to a redesign, but a redeisgn that slows me down is way not cool.

[jotff]

after a little over a month of using DP6, i've reverted back to DP5.13 on both my MacPro and my MBPro. i hate the new GUI changes in 6, but more than anything else the program is just too unstable. it crashes on me every 10 minutes or so for the most routine of tasks. i've sent over 15 crash reports - unacceptable. oh, and did i mention that i HATE the new look. it looks anemic, like it needs a transfusion; no personality, just a bunch of lines, circles, and off-white fills. what a welcome relief it was when 5.13 popped back on my screen - attitude, personality, and more importantly - STABILITY - not one crash since reverting back to 5.13.

[derrell]

Letter to Unicornation

What, in the past, has set DP's GUI apart from all the rest was it's killer high-tech 3D look... very easy on the eyes. It does not have that anymore. I guess 3D is passe` these days. Now it just looks like all the rest... cheap. Kinda' like Logic. Maybe that's what MOTU is going for... that "high-tech cheap" look. Check out the "Compact Files" progression bar. The color actually bleeds out over the outine boundary. Real professional looking. Also, way too bright background. Like looking at a cheap plasma TV. Makes my eyes water after 30 minutes of work.

Here's my 2 cents:

1. Keep the new features. (The track Inspector, breakout track takes, menu bar prefs, etc... this is really good stuff!
2. At least give us a choice of GUIs (along with the new features)
3. Restore all deleted features ex. "Send window to back" (that idea was so good it should be implemented in Apple's OS GUI),
"double-click on selection start/end" in Tracks Overview or is that a bug the way it works/don't work now...My point is everyone uses this program differently. Oh, thanks for putting back the play-enable and record-enable buttons back on the Grapics and other windows in 6.01. That's exactly what I'm talking about.
4. Fix all the bugs (ex. Grayed out Snap to grid/beat/marker in TO). Shouldn't DP6 work the same in 10.4 or 10.5 OSX, PPC or Intel machine?? Hire more coders, whatever it takes.

I certainly don't pretend to be speaking for everyone here but it seems to me that almost nobody, who has ever used DP prior to DP6, can really get any real work done unless they revert back to their prior version. That's sad; even worse when you consider we all paid $200 for the "Upgrade". I was so scared after reading all the negative reports I installed it on a separate startup drive instead of my main work drive.

DP6/6.01 is not the answer I believe we were all really hoping for. This is your "Flagship" product, truely the very best audio/MIDI sequencer ever coded... don't let the "flagship" sink!!

Oh well, back to work (on DP5.13).

Derrell Brown

[James Steele]

Letter to Unicornation

This is all well and good... but 2 points I would make:

1) It's MOTUNATION now.

2) More importantly, despite the name, this board is NOT affiliated with or run by MOTU, so after skimming your letter, it appears that your letter really should be addressed to MOTU and not this board.

Thanks.

[jlaudon]

Just did a quick look at all the other DAW GUIs - Cubase, PT, Logic, Sonar - with the mods we have now, and DP 6.01 own GUi enhanicements, I think I have to say it is the better looking (i.e can always get better) DAW. Had to work in PT the other night, and other than the faders (love the fader going red in record mode) and metering, nothing else looked that good.

Just a thought for DP which I might send off to MOTU - what if the fader knob would be the normal whitish color for playback, but go red for record mode, orange for mute, yellow for solo (all as a preference of course)?

EDIT: Oh and I forgot a BIG one - Pyramix... check it out if you get a chance (PC only though). The GUI is not what I prefer at all, of course the DAW is incredibly powerful (and $$). There's a native version, but no MIDI... but back to the GUI - the mixer is....

[nk_e]

I really like this 6.01 GUI alot.

...But I like what James' mods do to it. It's my default "version" of the interface now.

Thanks.

[aletheian-alex]

My impressions of just the LOOK of new UI are: too bright, cheap-looking, goofy in a minimalistic/Abelton way. The large empty white fields look under-thought akin to an early-release open-source beta. It also sucks more resources.

Functionally though, there are fewer graphic glitches than v5, which is nice. Redraw seem smoother on my system, and the graphic 'freeze' when popping open windows while playing back like v5 did, so good job there.

(Also, as a side note, I have torture-tested v6 on my system over a few days and I find it to be very stable for me. Better than any of the other DAWs I have running, and better with my setup than v5 was, about as stable as v4 and much more stable than v3 and v2.)