DP Workflows

[Shooshie]

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

I've always thought that DP and MachFive should be bundled as one set. MachFive completes DP in that regard, as well as adding great time-stretching, pitch-shifting tools. The MX4 bundle news for DP9 is not unwelcome, but I was really hoping for MachFive. That's a combo waiting to happen. Even so, it doesn't necessarily give DP the integrated control over that pattern side of things, but it would help. From there, MOTU could combine them into one app with specific commands and menu items that would make DP a real pattern powerhouse.

Shooshie

[dewdman42]

I hope they will also release MX4 standalone as 64bit because I bought that once upon a time and would like to be able to use it in other hosts. But I like the step in that direction. for the past decade or so they've really created a lot of guitar-centric plugins and stuff which are bundled in and are really great stuff, but synths, samplers, etc.. has been kind of neglected, perhaps because they are selling those products seperately. MX4 probably ended as a viable product because there are so many other soft synths out there, they just let it die, so why not include it, might as well.

I guess M5 is still worth too much as a seperate product to give it away, especially with whatever licensing they have with UVI. Would be nice to see a lite version maybe, but myself I don't have much use for that. Most of the features people are wanting out of MachFive could just be integrated directly into DP with tighter integration. I have kontakt and numerous kontakt libs so purchasing M5 is never going to happen for me.

In general, Apple is giving a lot of great soft synths away with Logic and Mainstage. Their profit margin doesn't depend on that stuff, so just giving it all away just makes Apple look like a cool company with cool technology I guess. Logic is incredible value for the buck when you consider all that. Ableton has a lot of stuff, some of which they give away and some of which you have to pay more to get. Motu has left us wanting in general on that front, which is fine by me as I already own everything I would ever want, so no big deal to me really.

But anyway, I think some of the stuff we're talking about in terms of patterns (which are often MIDI by the way, not samples), pitch correction stuff, etc.. That could all be done better, IMHO directly in DP. However if that technology in M5 is actually part of the UVI engine, then therein lies the problem.

[dewdman42]

ps - some other pattern centric hosts worth checking out for comparison include FL studio, which is coming to the mac soon, and a look back at Cakewalk's Project5. P5 was a very cool product, I own it, but can't use it since I'm on a mac now. I think I got it working on wine once, but later on tried to get it working again and couldn't quite get it to work. Very pattern centric and quick to work out ideas. FL studio is also very pattern centric and comes with a bunch of cool synths and stuff also. I'm not sure I really like the workflow of Fruity Loops, but a lot of people really do, it is really a bit missing on linear oriented tools, its almost TOO MUCH pattern oriented. But what it does do, it does very well...

So why mentioning all these? I'm committed to using DP for my recording and mixing. I would love to be able to do the entire music creation process in DP, and for the most part I am, but I am also contemplating a purchase of one of these pattern centric products, its probably between BitWig and FL studio when it comes out. Cubase has a few features along these lines but I hate Cubase and I don't want to switch to Cubase, I am committed to DP for my projects but perhaps using a pattern oriented tool for working on ideas. I just wish DP really had those kinds of tools so I could just stay there from the beginning to end.

[Guitar Gaz]

- 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.[/list] [/list]
• 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.
[/list]

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

You say the Song Window is showing its age but even if it is it is still easier than your suggested method above. In the Song Window you can audition different orders of Chunks and then you can merge them into a bigger Chunk if you want to keep that. A helluva lot easier than the method you describe in the Tracks Overview. That seems a contrary way of trying to avoid the Song Window with no great benefit as there is a fair bit of selecting and dragging - Song Window is much easier in my opinion.

[bayswater]

I guess M5 is still worth too much as a seperate product to give it away, especially with whatever licensing they have with UVI. Would be nice to see a lite version

That would be the UVI player, right? I don't know, but from just looking at it, M5 appears to be a somewhat enhanced UVI player. Surely what we're paying for with M5 is the sounds and the IRCAM processors.
Logic and Mainstage do included a lot of usable (I think underrated) sounds and it's not that difficult to slave Logic to DP and use the EXS24 player, and bring those sounds into the DP mixer.

[dewdman42]

I haven't purchased Logic, but Mainstage was a no brainer yea. it has a number of very useful instruments. EXS24 is nothing like Kontakt and M5, but its pretty darn decent, way better then anything included with DP. It also comes with more than half a dozen synths, a couple of which are actually pretty good (EFM1, ESE, ESM, ESP, ES1, ES2, EVOC, RetroSynth) a physical modeler (Sculpture) which is actually fabulous, an electronic drum/rhythm synth (UltraBeat) which is also fabulous, a pretty decent organ and epiano instruments, a Drum Kit designer that has some ok drum kits and auto part creation capabilities, as well and a bunch of presets that tie together many of those instruments not to mention a large library of looped material.

Its a LOT Of value there. $39 for Mainstage. Logic is cheap too relatively speaking. Too bad I don't like working in Logic.

[Shooshie]

You say the Song Window is showing its age but even if it is it is still easier than your suggested method above. In the Song Window you can audition different orders of Chunks and then you can merge them into a bigger Chunk if you want to keep that. A helluva lot easier than the method you describe in the Tracks Overview. That seems a contrary way of trying to avoid the Song Window with no great benefit as there is a fair bit of selecting and dragging - Song Window is much easier in my opinion.

Well, look at it this way: I use both. I know both methods inside out. Sometimes I use the Song Window, but more often I use the Chunks, because they are much more convenient for what I may be doing.

If I want to do a full-blown song construction, where I lay down chords in a chunk, bass lines in chunks, melodies, solos, rhythm elements, drums, and so on and so forth, then I'm definitely going to use the Song Window to piece those together. But if I want to add audio tracks to MIDI files, its going to happen in the Tracks Overview Window, just dragging in the magic audio chunk and dropping it in the list. Presto! MIDI with Audio!

Then there are times when I'm working and I want to store a large section for later use. If I am storing just a track, then I use a scratch track to hold it temporarily until I need it. When I've finally finished with all I need it for, I delete the scratch track after copying the contents back to the main body of tracks. But when I have a whole section, maybe comprising 40 tracks or so, for 16 or 32 bars, where do I store that? I'm not going to create 40 scratch tracks! No, I just drag it into the chunks window, name it, and there it sits until I want to drag it back into the main chunk, perhaps repeatedly. That's much easier than going to the Song Window. It's a more appropriate method, given the task at hand.

So, it's not that we disagree; it's just that you may not be looking at all the situations and possibilities which beg for other methods. Having a lot of methods at your disposal, and being able to choose the most appropriate one for various situations, means a better experience in DP.

By the way, it's really not hard to use the chunks that way. If my description sounded complicated, that's my failing as a writer, not the chunks themselves. Nothing could be simpler than selecting what you want, dragging & dropping it in the Chunks Window, and dragging it back when you need it. Of course... there IS the thing about the bug. That didn't used to be a problem.

Shooshie

[Guitar Gaz]

So, it's not that we disagree; it's just that you may not be looking at all the situations and possibilities which beg for other methods. Having a lot of methods at your disposal, and being able to choose the most appropriate one for various situations, means a better experience in DP.

Shooshie

Absolutely not disagreeing with you really - just trying to emphasise that Vision was great but I have moved on and DP is great and allows you to work the Vision way or any other method you choose.

I just felt that your comments about the Song Window would mislead a former Vision user who probably needed to know that you could do things the Vision way (and better) - but that it was not immediately intuitive. I don't want to mention the whole manual issue again - some love it but I never have and thought Vision's manual was far superior in a workflow sort of way.

DP is ultimately flexible but sometimes it takes a bit of work to get the workflow that suits you. Let's be honest there is very little you cannot do in DP that you can do in other Daws like Logic, Cubase, Live, or Reason - but you have to customise to do it (V Racks's, Window Sets, Templates).

I just felt that someone used to the Vision way (sequences, subsequences, song mode, one Instrument set, one mixer) needed some help to see how this would work in DP. I have been there and nearly gave up with DP.

I think there were some helpful videos about Chunks - what we need is a Guy Mitchelmore type to do videos on different workflow methods (his videos are great by the way but he works with huge templates mostly for film scoring) - one method being the build up of songs from Chunks and auditioning and finalising arrangements in the Song Window - and how V Racks's can play such an important part in unifying the mixer/inputs/outputs which annoyingly to me are different for each Chunk and therefore without VI's make playback in the Song Window horrendous.

[bayswater]

A common mixer for all chunks would be an interesting feature. I suppose being able to move MIDI and Audio tracks to a V-Rack, in addition to VIs and Auxes would get us pretty close to that. I see that the Move dialog does reveal V-racks as an option for MIDI and Audio, although it can't be selected.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I totally agree with GtrGaz about workflow. One thing that remains 'odd' for me to this day is having to click on the squiggly line "handle" to drag a soundbite from the SB window. Allowing a simple click on the name and drag would cut out the need to find the squiggle and then wrangle the pointing device to that fairly small icon. Little things like that can slow the flow. Not a lot, just enough to be annoying sometimes.

[bayswater]

I totally agree with GtrGaz about workflow. One thing that remains 'odd' for me to this day is having to click on the squiggly line "handle" to drag a soundbite from the SB window. Allowing a simple click on the name and drag would cut out the need to find the squiggle and then wrangle the pointing device to that fairly small icon. Little things like that can slow the flow. Not a lot, just enough to be annoying sometimes.

That always bugged me too. It would make more sense to drag the name to the project, and to click on a squiggle, or an audio icon to hear the sample, than the other way around.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Peripherally (pun intended) dragging a sound from DP direct into MachFive would help the flow. No?

[billf]

M5 appears to be a somewhat enhanced UVI player. Surely what we're paying for with M5 is the sounds and the IRCAM processors.

Does the UVI Player only play UVI sounds? MachFive has the UVI engine, but it's a true sampler that can import and mangle all sorts of audio formats, so I think that is a big part of the selling point.

[Shooshie]

DP is ultimately flexible but sometimes it takes a bit of work to get the workflow that suits you. Let's be honest there is very little you cannot do in DP that you can do in other Daws like Logic, Cubase, Live, or Reason - but you have to customise to do it (VI's, Window Sets, Templates).

I just felt that someone used to the Vision way (sequences, subsequences, song mode, one Instrument set, one mixer) needed some help to see how this would work in DP. I have been there and nearly gave up with DP.

I think there were some helpful videos about Chunks - what we need is a Guy Mitchelmore type to do videos on different workflow methods (his videos are great by the way but he works with huge templates mostly for film scoring) - one method being the build up of songs from Chunks and auditioning and finalising arrangements in the Song Window - and how VI's can play such an important part in unifying the mixer/inputs/outputs which annoyingly to me are different for each Chunk and therefore without VI's make playback in the Song Window horrendous.

Are you using the word "VI's" interchangeably with "V-Racks?" Those sentences make more sense to me if I insert the word "V-Rack" in place of "VI." VI, of course, is one of the things you can put in a V-Rack. And yes, it can be very helpful to construct your entire audio routing foundation by way of aux tracks in V-Racks. That's one way of quickly making all your chunks identical in terms of audio.

Or, you can make each chunk MIDI-only, if you're outputting to hardware synths which you can hear, and when it's time to create a finished sequence, you put all your chunks together in a Song Window, and add an audio chunk stacked atop the MIDI chunks. When you convert the Song to a sequence again, it'll have the audio chunk running through it. There are many ways to do it.

The problem people tend to have in DP is that there isn't an anointed method. There isn't one that is "THE" method, with menus and dialogs and buttons to set it up and run it. ALL the methods for doing things like this in DP feel like work-arounds. They're not. DP's got all these tools laying around, and it's up to the user to find them and see if they can make something with them. Those who complain "but that's a work-around. I need a real method," really aren't 'getting' DP. After you create the method best for you, and after you use it for a few projects, it doesn't feel like a workaround anymore. It feels like the Standard, 1st Class, Primo, Assembly-Line method for which DP was intended. Someone else watching you might say "dude, why are you using all those workarounds? Why not just do it the real way? That dude is as deluded as all the rest. There is no 'real' way. Just whatever you come up with that makes work in DP fun and productive for YOU.

Shoosh

[Guitar Gaz]

Are you using the word "VI's" interchangeably with "V-Racks?" Those sentences make more sense to me if I insert the word "V-Rack" in place of "VI." VI, of course, is one of the things you can put in a V-Rack. And yes, it can be very helpful to construct your entire audio routing foundation by way of aux tracks in V-Racks. That's one way of quickly making all your chunks identical in terms of audio.

Shoosh

Yes well spotted - my mistake - for VI's I do mean V-Racks. I have edited some of the earlier posts in order to minimise confusion!