DP7 first impressions

[motuscott]

Hello all,
I am trying to upgrade to DP7 and SL and I have hit a snag. Any help will be appreciated. The story so far:
I cloned my imac HD (see sig for specs) to a FW external Seagate drive using Super Duper.
I booted from Seagate and installed SL. Some bugs, driver updates, worked it out mostly. Launched DP 5.13 and get this, "MacOS error: unexpected error (-8796)".
I click OK, but when I try to launch a project DP crashes. I try several times. No change. I try Audiodesk 3, same response.
Today DP7 arrives. SL on the Seagate is fine except for MOTU Software. I remove Ethno bundle and Ethno and Stillwell components to a folder on the desktop and install DP7. Same behavior as before. any ideas? DP7 looks awesome.
jarvis

[timriley]

Hello all,
I am trying to upgrade to DP7 and SL and I have hit a snag. Any help will be appreciated. The story so far:
I cloned my imac HD (see sig for specs) to a FW external Seagate drive using Super Duper.
I booted from Seagate and installed SL. Some bugs, driver updates, worked it out mostly. Launched DP 5.13 and get this, "MacOS error: unexpected error (-8796)".
I click OK, but when I try to launch a project DP crashes. I try several times. No change. I try Audiodesk 3, same response.
Today DP7 arrives. SL on the Seagate is fine except for MOTU Software. I remove Ethno bundle and Ethno and Stillwell components to a folder on the desktop and install DP7. Same behavior as before. any ideas? DP7 looks awesome.
jarvis

Hi..

Maybe you should try posting here..

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... =1&t=38101

Seems someone else is experiencing the same problem.

[rthorderson]

First, early, DP7 impressions...

[short]
It does feel more solid, but I am a little underwhelmed overall. If the stability holds true, the I am glad I spent the money to finally finish my DP 6.02 experience.

[long]
- I first cloned my System drive (10.5.6) to an empty partition on another drive using SuperDuper

- I then repartitioned my System Drive (which wiped out the old System drive) and split it in half so I could have two System Drives for future upgrades (a nice tip I saw on this board somewhere)

- Then copied the System drive back to the two new partitions...this all took hours of course, but I wanted to be safe rather than sorry. When I launched DP6.02, I had to reauth it, but everything seemed to be OK.

- I installed SL 10.6.1 on one of the System drives and worked on some stuff under DP6.02. I also installed the latest SL savvy MIDI drivers and PCI Card drivers for my 2408. It crashed a couple times while working on Projects for no apparent reason, so I am suspect of claims that SL+DP6.02 is pretty solid. DP6.02 behaved about the same for me in 10.6.1 as 10.5.6

- DP7 finally arrived and I installed on the 10.6.1 System Drive and fired it up.

- I REALLY NEED AMPLIDOOD'S GUI MODS BACK...AHHHH! I'M GOING BLIND!

- I checked the few plugins I own (see my sig) and everything seemed to work fine. I was especially concerned with GrooveAgent3...still takes a while to load, but works fine so far.

- Projects loaded a little faster...I have a Project that takes much longer to save than it should, and it still does in DP7. Something must really be hosed in that Project.

- I was looking forward to checking out the Cabinet Emulator (Live Room G)...I had some direct recorded Bass Lines I was hoping I could punch/tighten up a little...I thought for sure they would have a preset or two for Bass. WHOOPS. NO PRESETS. NONE of the new Plugins have presets. Now, I know no self-respecting DP user only uses presets, but they are handy if for no other reason than to get an idea of what the Plugin Authors were thinking. So, now getting to know all the new Plugins will require some effort...yuck.

- I was unable to find a Live Room G sound I liked for my Bass track...so I'll have to spend more time with it...did try the new Custom'59 Plugin though and that go me closer more quickly on a clean setting. Still no presets, so I'll need to really suss that out as well.

- The inline EQ/Dynamic Graph/Controls in the mixer are cool...but I misunderstood this new feature. I thought they had found a slick, low utilization way to have EQ/Dyn already in every channel (and not use an insert). I was assuming too much. It is in fact just a convenient display/adjuster for the EQ/Dyn you have in your insert. So, I like the Graph, but the controls will stay off for me as adjusting in the Plugin itself is more my thing.

- I have been trying to burn a master CD for weeks using just DP6.02 (because using iTunes had CD unreported errors). DP6.02 reported the errors but failed every time. I was hoping DP7 would turn that corner...nope...ended up buying Toast Titanium 10 and everything worked fine. So, DP is still striking out on this for me...if Toast can do it, then DP should be able to do it too (at least in my book).

- I think that the Markers in the new resizable Counter will be nice...it will wow my clients a little at least

- I had some interest in the new Chording capabilities in QuickScribe. I can put chords in one of 4 spots if there is a whole note rest. That is good. And I could hide the rests so I could have a plain chord chart (since there are no rhythm slashes)...so that is OK (could be better with slashes for syncopation). Then I tried changing the number of Measure Spacing to 6 (instead of Auto) and WHAM - "MacOS error: Internal error: parameter error (-50)". Forced Quit...relaunched and it complained about a couple files it needed to recover on a project I hadn't worked on yet. Weird. Tried the Measure Spacing again...no crash.

- My PopUp windows are still coming up blank occasionally (like they did in 6.02). So, still a little glitchy here and there.

Conclusion...Gonna take a couple months to really see how solid this is, and yes, it feels much more like a 6.5 than a 7.0 release, but I would still give the thumbs up I think from my limited exposure thus far.

Cheers!

[zed]

WHOOPS. NO PRESETS. NONE of the new Plugins have presets.

MOTU has posted some presets for download on their web site.

[dinobass]

Just had a weird glitch where in the Mixer window a fader became independent of the display window below it. I could move the fader but the display didn't change; or, I could change the parameters in the display but the fader wouldn't move. It only affected this one track, none of the others. I highlighted the track in Tracks view and the channel strip for that track came up; moved the channel strip fader and that re-established the proper behavior.

Sometimes DP7 gets a little sluggish: working in the Event List sidebar, once there was a noticeable delay when clicking on a field and the field highlighting. I was making a lot of tweaks and this was getting annoying. Restarting DP fixed that. Clicking on suites and sounds in RMX 1.9 gets sluggish, too (and the fact that you can't control DP from within Stylus is a PIA).

With East West Play, notes I play on my controller are no longer reflected in the plug-in's keyboard (I don't remember it NOT working with 6.02 and SL).

I think the thing that makes this feel most like just DP 6.5: the DP 6 dock icon! Come on!

[ToolFool]

remember the DP5 'V-RACK' button at the border of the mixing board?
It's back! God Bless MOTU!

It's a teeny thing but I used to use it over the shortcut because if you weren't
actually 'in' the mixer window the shortcut wouldn't respond (ie 1 click + shortcut would make it active)
Now it's just one click if you are working in another window.
The say it's the small things that make the difference (well, that's what she said)

[ramadev]

MOTU has posted some presets for download on their web site.

Thanks zed. I was looking in the downloads section for the presets link, but there it is on the home page! Doh!

It's the "New guitar tones for Digital Performer 7" link:
http://www.motu.com/newsitems/new-guitar-tones-for-dp7

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

Wow, my first run was interesting. I had a bunch of weird stuff happen (like MacOS errors and a project drive that suddenly looked empty) I think most of it was related to my Snopard 10.6.1 upgrade. Turned out that Snowpard broke the drivers for my Sonnet Tempo Express/34 eSATA RAID card on my MacBook Pro. The drivers for cards with SI 3132 chips get moved and installed over by Snopard.

Some of these reports helped and I think I've reinstalled drivers that work.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/aug ... tml#S25895

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/exp ... l#storytop

Once I got that straightened out, seems like things are working smooth on my Intel Machine. Also looks ok on my PPC machine.

One wish I have for DP8 is a buffer setting readout in the control panel (Maybe by the sample rate etc)

That's all for now. Looks promising and happily the project data on my drive is still there

[dix]

MOTU has posted some presets for download on their web site.

Thanks zed. I was looking in the downloads section for the presets link, but there it is on the home page! Doh!

It's the "New guitar tones for Digital Performer 7" link:
http://www.motu.com/newsitems/new-guitar-tones-for-dp7

That's a funny page. Hit as many examples as you can at the same time and it sounds like Guitar Center!

So far: Love the channel strip(s - the little one at the top too) and guitar effects. Having clear lines between channels on the mixing board is a huge improvement. Not impressed with the inline eq and compressor. It's a really good idea, but I just don't care for motu's vanilla parametric and I'm pretty sure I've never used that motu compressor. Be nice if the channels had the MW EQ and Leveler. All in all it feels more like 6.5 than 7, but it's a very nice update.

[motuscott]

Thanks for your reply timriley. I am chasing that one now.
jarvis

[Shooshie]

I'm wondering if the parametric EQ has been changed. The INTERFACE has been changed. They added color to it, somewhat like the MW EQ. Could it be that its function has changed? I wish they'd tell us this stuff.


Shooshie

[waterstrum]

First impressions......

I just installed DP7 on my clone drive.
So far, so good.
Everything came up as expected.
I messed around with some big projects and didn't experience any problems.

I opened various VIs and plugs and didn't encounter any glitches.

This is just my first look.
I'm hesitant to switch over for pro purposes.

[BobK]

Not impressed with the inline eq and compressor. It's a really good idea, but I just don't care for motu's vanilla parametric and I'm pretty sure I've never used that motu compressor. Be nice if the channels had the MW EQ and Leveler.

RTFM! You can use any of MOTU's EQ and dynamics plugs for the inline EQ and comp, including MW EQ and MW Leveler.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

RTFM!

I'm guessing there are better ways to go blind. LOL

[dix]

RTFM! You can use any of MOTU's EQ and dynamics plugs for the inline EQ and comp, including MW EQ and MW Leveler.

Oh hey, you're right! And from RTFM I found you can set the default inline plugin. Sweet!