NAMM - DP8? Who's Going?

mikehalloran · Post by **mikehalloran** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:12 pm

> I'm no fan of Windows, but it's not as bad as people make it out to be.<

Oh yes it is. In my job, there are a number of us who refuse to use our company issued PCs in favor of our Macs.

Can I use Win? Yes - been doing it for 15 years. On purpose? Never if I can help it.

Michael Canavan · Post by **Michael Canavan** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:13 pm

kgdrum wrote:I find it ironic and almost puzzling that most of the negative posts are here! lol
I think it's almost like users are nervous that others are noticing their hot girlfriend.
I am sure it will take a couple of revisions and yes there will probably be some growing pains with an upgrade of this magnitude

The part in bold hits it on the mark. For me personally I had decided on my course of action, VE Pro on a dedicated PC slaved to a new macbook running DP8 with all these kewl new features! New themes, plug ins and 64 bit support are all givens these days and honestly not that big of a deal in terms of me as an end user, if all that's been improved beyond that is that they ported it to Windows then I won't have any reason to upgrade anytime soon considering my plan. Basically yes, it's great for MOTU, they get new users and a lot of PC people who have some sort of issue with Macs are happy as hell at places like KVR, but to a degree there's now two OS's to support, and unless MOTU hire new developers for DP it means less energy they can spend on new features and more on debugging etc.

So yeah, happy for them whoo hoo! go MOTU. For me, not as much. Until they reveal what other improvements DP8 has it's looking like an upgrade I might pass on. Seriously, it's not that 64 bit support isn't cool, it's just that they said publicly that was coming for 7, which obviously didn't emerge. So what beyond knowing that MOTU have been busy porting DP to Windows is there to be happy about? Again like my feelings about Apples lack luster support for my area of interest pro audio lately, I hope I'm wrong and MOTU brought about some other areas of DP to perfection!

cowtothesky · Post by **cowtothesky** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:22 pm

I can't believe that Apple would abandon the pro line. It is what Steve Jobs was all about. I suspect that an announcement will be coming soon about the mac pro line and we will be happy when it does.

I won't move back to a PC. I've had enough of dealing with registries, antivirus programs, and system failures. Moving to an Apple was like stepping into the future for me.

I just hope that MOTU continues to support the Mac line with the same intensity. I worry that until the Windows version gets stabilized, updates on the mac line may become less common than we are used to. I'm glad they decided to come out with a Windows version because I like the company and want them to do well, but I just hope they will continue full support on the mac line and not spread resources because of the windows version.

Great news on DP8. I'm excited!

FutureLegends · Post by **FutureLegends** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:32 pm

Michael Canavan wrote:Seriously, it's not that 64 bit support isn't cool, it's just that they said publicly that was coming for 7

No they didn't. All they said was that it was coming. I always figured that meant in DP8.

Eleventh Hour Sound · Post by **Eleventh Hour Sound** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:40 pm

Speaking of going to Namm, does anyone have an extra guest pass? You can PM me, or respond to this thread.

With regard to DP8 I'm glad for the Mac update, concerned about resources being siphoned off for Windows, but I agree it would seem that it will grow the user base. Now we can have platform wars here on the Nation. Yay!

toodamnhip · Post by **toodamnhip** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:43 pm

OK, 64 bit support, now what?
I mean, to me, 64 bit means nothing until every VI and plug in will run perfectly WITH DP, IN 64 bit.

Until then, I will not run 64 bit unless it is somehow automatic.

Id love someone here to explain how it might work to me.
I don;t even know if my 2 x 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon starts up in 32 or 64 bit.

I have read that certain key commands can force 32 or 64 bit, but have never messed with it..I’m so lost....lol

Eleventh Hour Sound · Post by **Eleventh Hour Sound** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:49 pm

The little bit I do know about 32/64 bit is from having to put Reason 6 in 32bit mode to be compatible with DP 7.24. I did a command I on Reason and selected 32 bit. Then it played nice with DP

toodamnhip wrote:OK, 64 bit support, now what?
I mean, to me, 64 bit means nothing until every VI and plug in will run perfectly WITH DP, IN 64 bit.

Until then, I will not run 64 bit unless it is somehow automatic.

Id love someone here to explain how it might work to me.
I don;t even know if my 2 x 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon starts up in 32 or 64 bit.

I have read that certain key commands can force 32 or 64 bit, but have never messed with it..I’m so lost....lol

Michael Canavan · Post by **Michael Canavan** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:53 pm

FutureLegends wrote:
Michael Canavan wrote:Seriously, it's not that 64 bit support isn't cool, it's just that they said publicly that was coming for 7
No they didn't. All they said was that it was coming. I always figured that meant in DP8.

OK I just figured that since they discussed it a year ago when DP7 was one year old, and the cycles seem to be every two years about, that it was being attempted for a DP7 update. Now that DP7 is two years old or more, I'm not upset, it's just like I said, not anything surprising, now Live is running behind DP in terms of 64 bit support.

@toodamnhip, I think your machine should work for 64 bit, not positive but most Intel Mac Pros are safe. Most plug ins I own are 64 bit at this time, it's been years now. My laptop was the last model to not run in 64 bit, lucky me, but it's IMO not as big of a deal on a laptop.

kgdrum · Post by **kgdrum** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:10 pm

RecordingArts wrote: Now we can have platform wars here on the Nation. Yay!

I am confident James will have some kind of policy in place, like we already have for politics & religion,after all isn't a discussion like this actually politics and religion combined dressed in OS clothing?

Eleventh Hour Sound · Post by **Eleventh Hour Sound** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:14 pm

Yep, Big Time! We know our platform rules!

kgdrum wrote:
RecordingArts wrote: Now we can have platform wars here on the Nation. Yay!

I am confident James will have some kind of policy in place, like we already have for politics & religion,after all isn't a discussion like this actually politics and religion combined dressed in OS clothing?

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:26 pm

Actually, Mac IS my religion,,,

danworks · Post by **danworks** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 10:47 pm

Hardware:
Apple is making money with phone and pad, and leaving the mac pro series in the dust could be just a possibility. PCI may disappear - so they say - and then what we'll do? Where do I stick my three interfaces with PCI 424?

Software:
I've installed Lion on a clean drive and worked with it for 15 days 24/7 and the verdict is that is one of the most struggling OS I've ever had the chance to put my hands on since 1987 for anyone that need to use it 4 music w third party softw and hardw. At the end I've removed Lion drive and put back the "old" SnowLeo which works great. Bye bye …

DP8 on Win?
If it works - if after 30 years of Mac only they did the jump, I'm sure it'll works - it's just another option for us to keep using our Motu app. About 64 bit, I use Bidule64 in rewire w DP and it's just amazing how many things I can load without put my machine on its knees, and eventually use all the 16 gig of RAM I've payed for.

I'm not afraid, just excited

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:23 pm

I've been using WIndows since it was in pre-beta back in the early 90's, as my main development platform at work, until a few months ago when I switched to the Mac as my main platform at work. There's no going back; productivity is over twice that on Windows due to better performance all around; even if the Windows box has over twice the memory of the Mac.

I would have to spend several days cloning a new Windows box to get my performance back on that OS; whereas on a Mac cloning a new system or resetting an existing system is trivial.

There are inherent flaws in Windows OS that are not really ones that can be worked around; namely the system registry (for one). But the performance problems with Windows vs. Macs are way more inherent when using a gazillion maxed-out apps, as I must do for my day job.

There is hardly an OS that I haven't used at some point in my 30 year career. Yet while it is possible to make almost any OS work for the job at hand, one has to evaluate the effort spent vs. the return on investment.

For normal consumer use, it's more a matter of which apps you need and which LAF you like the most. For professional use, it is decreasingly about which apps you need (even AutoCAD is once again available on the Mac; albeit in a somewhat crippled state).

Speaking strictly of DAW's, the main issue I am aware of is that mixing ADDA interfaces is way more challenging on Windows than on Macs. It can be done, but is brittle in that the interdependencies of drivers, software updates and the OS are so arcane that everyone I know is having almost constant struggles unless they stick to just a single ADDA.

If we get to a point where the Mac is an abandoned platform and my Mac can't carry forward, I will put time into Linux, which I've used for almost 15 years by now anyway as part of my day job. I hope it doesn't come to that.

danworks · Post by **danworks** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 12:50 am

I'm using Mac since 1986 and PC for music since 2007. I never ever hooked PC online, maybe for that reason it has been very stable for me. I keep using it and it does its job perfectly.

This is not anymore a debate between Mac & PC or other "religious" kinda of argument. Apple made its choice, slowly give up to the pro world cos the money are on consumers stuff.
Logic boxed version apparently became an EOL app: you can only get it via AppStore for a fraction of the original cost. Smells like the Gibson-Opcode nightmare …
Final Cut seems being dumped too; maybe it's only an impression but here in Italy a dearest friend of mine, my Mac dealer since the eighties, told me that 90% of its video customers, are now looking toward Adobe cos "… the latest FC sucks".
iOS seems the shining future for Apple, Lion made my MacPro look like an iPad but also made it the most unreliable machine since the OS9 -->OSX jump 10 years ago.

I just sit down and waiting for good news that make me keep working with DP, no matter which machine it'll run on it. Everything else about it, seems just an unreasonable fear.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 12:53 am

Well I'm supposed to be getting ready to hit the hay and drive up to Anaheim tomorrow morning. I'm going to be spending some time at Dean Guitars, but now this big Windows news is going to cause me to pay even MORE attention at the MOTU booth.

To be honest, I have an old Mac Pro 1,1 and as much as I love the Mac, the computer is a tool and if DP8 for Windows matched the Mac version feature for feature and ran well, I'd have no problem using a Windows box to run DP. I think it may be smart for MOTU and for all we know they had to do this just to survive with Apple competing with them and driving pricing down and bundling VIs with Logic. Plus the Mac segment is smaller.

I'm pretty sure I made a post here somewhere speculating that if DP *was* ported to Windows it could instantly be head and shoulders over many of the current Windows DAW offerings. And they could probably lower the price and make money on better volume due to more Windows users.

So honestly, I own my Mac to run Digital Performer first and foremost. Much as I love the Apple style and design, if I could slide a Windows box under my desk and pop my current 424 card in it and be off and running on DP8 for Windows it's not unthinkable. HOWEVER... as mentioned... my existing 3rd party plugs are a consideration.

Also... here's another consideration... what about backward compatibility with projects done on the Mac version of DP if one switched to the Windows version? Could you go back and reopen those Mac projects in the Windows version? Even if you could... plug ins would probably be lost because AU does not exist on Windows. These are question for the MOTU guys I imagine.

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