Any news on 6.02?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

.. I probably leave in the back seat of a Cambridge's Finest vehicle....

Well at least that's not the trunk! Or worse, in pieces inside MachFive boxes...

[bradswan]

My entire music recording career has been with Performer and Digital Performer.
I make the great majority of a good income this way.
Why is it that I can't shake the feeling that Motu considers DP something of an after thought?
Still on 5.13.

[bradswan]

Should add that I am very grateful for Motu and DP and all the opportunities
this software has facilitated for making great music.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

...I can't shake the feeling that Motu considers DP something of an after thought?

Don't confuse corporate decisions with human thought - there is no connection. Some exec who probably has no music experience per se is deciding where the resources go or don't go. Clearly, MOTU has limited resources (certainly compared to Apple or Digidesign) so the company is going to more fully support where they think the money is. DP is not that segment of their product line - hence the expanded hardware products and new (IMO very limited) software line, while the legacy products (DP, MachFive, MX4, et al) sit in limbo.

In one way, I can't blame them as they do have to remain solvent. OTOH, you have a customer base that made the rest possible and to make them orphans (providing a bit of gruel every so often) is a sure way to loose that base. In doing so (again, IMO) they jeopardize their existence if they can't make it on the subsequent products themselves.

It gets down to creative management and sound business practices - which don't always go hand in hand. We are on the consumer side and have little to say about how and when MOTU does what they will do. Then again, we have everything to say about whether we decide to buy future products from them. At this point, if a DP 6 or DP 6.2 came out as a paid upgrade, I would not buy into that. The same thing happened with Finale. I stopped upgrading for a few years until they got the $hit together. Logic is not that expensive that MOTU has a grip on my balls; squeeze too tightly and I'm out of here.

[James Steele]

He replied "In the next several (?) weeks we will be releasing a significant (he said it twice SIG-NI-FI-KANT) DP update that will be addressing a lot of the bugs, etc."

Sounds to me like June or something. So Motu enjoyed my money from the upgrade for almost a year before releasing a working copy of DP. I wish they had told me " Hey Groove, by the way, DP 6 with PPC and Leopard is a no-go for now, wait for 6.02 before shelling your credit card!"

I was at the dinner last night with a bunch of the MOTU guys, and although they have to keep their cards close to the vest, I think you're completely wrong about June. As I said, as much as I try, the MOTU guys never let secrets slip, but the impression I came away with was it will be pretty soon.

Also, the PPC and Leopard thing is only with some of the NI plugs when you use an OS that was not the original OS that came with the machine. I went back to Tiger for now and everything is working pretty good for me now.

[michkhol]

I think DP6 is the first new software product that forces to downgrade the operating system to be on par with the previous version. Brilliant, MOTU!

[James Steele]

I think DP6 is the first new software product that forces to downgrade the operating system to be on par with the previous version. Brilliant, MOTU!

You know, I complained about this myself, but I'm not sure why you have such a "thing" about MOTU right now. Yeah... 6 could've been better, but NOBODY forced me to go to Tiger. I had some VIs that I wanted to use that had a conflict and I think the issue will be worked out before too long. I could use Leopard if I wanted to, because to be honest, I don't really use FM8 or KotaktPlayer all that much, but it just irked me that I couldn't so I downgraded. However, my computer did not SHIP with Leopard and PPC compatibility was sort of grudgingly included with Leopard. If you have a PPC machine you're just simply not going to remain 100% compatible if you replace versions that work fine, with newer software that doesn't.

Any way, I really think the MOTU bashing is counter-productive and the tone of your post doesn't add much to the forum.

[jimwunderlich]

He replied "In the next several (?) weeks we will be releasing a significant (he said it twice SIG-NI-FI-KANT) DP update that will be addressing a lot of the bugs, etc."

Sounds to me like June or something. So Motu enjoyed my money from the upgrade for almost a year before releasing a working copy of DP. I wish they had told me " Hey Groove, by the way, DP 6 with PPC and Leopard is a no-go for now, wait for 6.02 before shelling your credit card!"

I was at the dinner last night with a bunch of the MOTU guys, and although they have to keep their cards close to the vest, I think you're completely wrong about June. As I said, as much as I try, the MOTU guys never let secrets slip, but the impression I came away with was it will be pretty soon.

Also, the PPC and Leopard thing is only with some of the NI plugs when you use an OS that was not the original OS that came with the machine. I went back to Tiger for now and everything is working pretty good for me now.

Thanks, James for supporting my original post. I wasn't talking to some fake MOTU staff member, as some are trying to imply. The guy would probably not have said anything too leading if it wasn't going to happen soon. My post was somewhat a "for what it's worth" post. The original author asked about the future of 6.02, and I thought that it would be cool to share my conversation with all you that can't attend NAMM.

As far as being counter-productive, that's exactly what my work is with PPC & 6.01...counter-productive! Who has time to roll back an OS??

[taylor12k]

i, for one, am greatly looking forward to 6.02 (maybe).. as 6.01 for me is the buggiest version of DP in a long time. simply because of the fact that a couple times per hour it hangs up on me and i have to force quit and relaunch. that's the only problem i'm having at this point. but it's a big one.. because i'm constantly working in fear.. so i save every few seconds with every click of the mouse.

[billf]

Why is it that I can't shake the feeling that Motu considers DP something of an after thought?

I don't think it is an after thought. I think it is a critical component to their future, but MOTU is, as is the market itself, in a point of significant transition. We are moving to a world of pro apps and consumer apps, with some companies offering both (Logic/Garageband, Final Cut/iMovie) and others still trying to figure it out (Songsmith), but everything is moving towards the applications that ultimately support end productions for video, gaming, and the web.

MOTU is one of the last of the independents in the legacy sequencer space, and has managed to keep current through hardware and software expansion. But if the next realm of expansion is video (for the web, gaming, screen, and DVD), then the big question is how will DP fit into that strategy? Unless something changes, it appears they have decided to forgo the low end and concentrate on the mid to high end and tie into video production in a big way, and that probably means some surprise moves with regards to DP.

[willheim]

i saw 6.02 at namm - but didn't drive it much - i think it will be out in a couple of weeks and will be more robust. i think it wll address alot of our issues.

i just hope it is rock solid because i am tired of sd 2 files as the default

there was some new beat machine there they were demoing that was neat

proably wanna buy that but maybe not.

[Bill O'C]

i saw 6.02 at namm - but didn't drive it much - i think it will be out in a couple of weeks and will be more robust. i think it wll address alot of our issues.

Thank you, willheim. That is promising news.

[David Polich]

You saw 6.02? I don't think so - I didn't see any indication of a particular version
running. What you saw was a demo of the new products and a recap of DP6's
features.

If you are on a PPC, you get no advantage whatsoever by running Leopard, unless you
just have to have Time Machine and the other gimmicks. Tiger
(OSX 10.4.11) was the last update for PPC machines.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

If you are on a PPC, you get no advantage whatsoever by running Leopard, unless you
just have to have Time Machine and the other gimmicks. Tiger
(OSX 10.4.11) was the last update for PPC machines.

Not exactly...

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html

[David Polich]

If you are on a PPC, you get no advantage whatsoever by running Leopard, unless you
just have to have Time Machine and the other gimmicks. Tiger
(OSX 10.4.11) was the last update for PPC machines.

Not exactly...

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html

Yeah, but Leopard still runs slower on a PPC machine, it's not optimized
for PPC. Regardless of the 300+ new features, my point was that one doesn't gain any
performance advantage with Leopard running on a PPC Mac.