DP12 release date?

[James Steele]

IMO MOTU should have reverted back to Mark Of The Unicorn in recent years, or at least released the vintage unicorn shirt. That mythical creature seems really popular among Millennials and Gen Z.

Funny you mention that. I just now got to his post in the thread and I'd previously touched on the same thing before I saw your post. I mourn the unicorn. The corporate, rigid, block style letter "MOTU" says nothing to me. It seemed to throw off the previous brand building, but also the counter-culture vibe their complete name and logo evoked.

[stubbsonic]

I suppose it is a sign of my increased "wisdom", but "digital" doesn't bother me, especially as it is not that common.

To the mild annoyance of my spouse, I occasionally joke "It's all digital now." when referring to things that are decidedly not, like mowing lawns, yoga, dietary fiber, bugs in the compost, deodorant. Sometimes it gets a laugh, usually just a sympathetic expression.

I'm going to start referring to Pro Tools as Professional Tools. (My poor spouse).

[Michael Canavan]

IMO MOTU should have reverted back to Mark Of The Unicorn in recent years, or at least released the vintage unicorn shirt. That mythical creature seems really popular among Millennials and Gen Z.

Funny you mention that. I just now got to his post in the thread and I'd previously touched on the same thing before I saw your post. I mourn the unicorn. The corporate, rigid, block style letter "MOTU" says nothing to me. It seemed to throw off the previous brand building, but also the counter-culture vibe their complete name and logo evoked.

Exactly, this isn't IBM, unicorns in the 80's etc. might have been a slight turn towards 70's mythical velvet painting culture, but in the 2020's unicorn is used all the time to say something is unique, one of a kind etc. Plus 70's style is all the rage these days, the VHS color bars on clothing etc. IMO if I was in charge of marketing I would already have embraced the retro wave cultural shifts that have been happening, brought back the 80's unicorn MOTU shirt etc.

[James Steele]

I'm going to start referring to Pro Tools as Professional Tools. (My poor spouse).

You have to give then-Digidesign credit. Putting the word "Pro" right up front in their app was pretty brilliant. What used to crack me up is when they released the dumbed down M-Box versions.. and folks with M-Box Pro Tools back in the day would go about swaggering like they had full blown TDM systems. "Yeah man... I have Proooooo Tools."

That said... Pro Tools method for supporting outboard analog gear and how they do printing tracks kicks the crap out of the unicorn. Hate to say it.,

[Michael Canavan]

I would say, honestly, the flexibility of having that as an option is an advantage. But yes... by all means... MOTU should continue putting a metaphorical finger in the air to detect which way the wind is blowing (whether it's adding guitar stomp boxes and modelers like they did years ago, or trying to out-Ableton Ableton) and chase the rest of the pack. That's all well and good, but I hope it doesn't come at the expense of shoring up what is already great about the app.

IMO of course, but they're mostly doing the right things here. The Clips feature is great start towards allowing users to choose MIDI as objects or MIDI as free range like in the past. Not just the Ableton like Clips window etc. The integration into the DAW is still a bit lacking but one of the last webinars was with a user who does live shows with DP and uses Clips extensively. His point is valid, after using Ableton in the past for this type of thing he is really happy to be able to do all of the work in DP. As someone who has ported to various DAWs it's frustrating and just dry busy work, so I'm happy about that as well.
FWIW Matt LaPoint swears by the Diamond Drive as a saturator, I've seen him add it to tracks for subtle harmonics any number of times.

You're righteously pointing out that the HW FX plugin is busted, they don't even have a HW instrument plugin.

It's a real mess. Let me put this bluntly, without sounding too alarmist. I've spent thousands in the past year on quality outboard analog gear (not to mention my Avid S3). At some point, if MOTU doesn't fix those issues so I can have an enjoyable experience using the gear I want to use within DP, I will probably start doing more work in a different DAW in which the things that are important to ME... do work as they should. I keep hoping for MOTU to address these issues. Sadly... I *will* probably get ATMOS support first... (along with the period where they work out the issues)... and ATMOS means nothing to me personally.

Same, ATMOS and Apples version are interesting, but I'm not goign to be using them any time soon.

Yes, hardware integration still needs work, but I am curious about one thing, are Logic and Cubase more capable of using Eucon/Avid hardware? because I always assumed that like most DAW developed solutions it would work best with PT, and every other DAW would be OK at most.

Even on the Launchpad front, I went ahead and bought a Novation MKII because the Ableton Push 2 is tied to Live only, everyone else has to reverse engineer it to get the kind of support that Live has, but! Bitwig, Reaper, Reason all have done this and it's a brilliant control surface for those DAWs. Push 3 is out and it's a decent audio interface with 8in/out ADAT that could be used as a front end for your home studio. That's how I do it currently with the Babyface Pro FS and an old FF800. I could effectively replace three devices in my studio if MOTU developed support for the Push 3, but it's highly unlikely considering they're also an audio interface developer.

I know nothing about their timetable, but it is concerning to me that when most of the other players have come back to the NAMM show... MOTU has not. Maybe they will return in January and maybe that will be when we see a DP12 drop. Honestly, I'm a big exasperated given my desired workflow and how DP no longer accommodates it very well and I'd gladly settle for a DP11 in which the features that I need actually work properly!

NAMM doesn't concern me, but support for products they say they support, and stability does. I would gladly settle for DP11 that was a bit more stable for sure. One report did say that stability and bug fixing were current priorities for MOTU, so that's a thing. I'm OK with it coming in an upgrade to 12, but we all know that will also come with a few things breaking most likely, tis the nature of software.

To your point though, new features can seem like they get prioritized over bug fixing, but I try to keep in mind that some bugs are super hard to fix it seems, and I'm not a code guy, I have no clue what sort of spaghetti developers are dealing with to stop DP from crashing if you attempt to drag a REX file into it on Apple Silicon, or what it would take for full Avid control surface support.

[James Steele]

..but I am curious about one thing, are Logic and Cubase more capable of using Eucon/Avid hardware?

Yes.

[Michael Canavan]

..but I am curious about one thing, are Logic and Cubase more capable of using Eucon/Avid hardware?

Yes.

As a grumpy old and hilarious piano player would say, MOTU MUST FACE!
I guess one good thing is this is an area they recently worked on so it might be still on their radar.

[James Steele]

I guess one good thing is this is an area they recently worked on so it might be still on their radar.

I’m very aware of that as I was very much involved in providing feedback during that period. It is indeed much improved from where it was. One of the main reasons I ended up buying Logic, Cubase and PT was to be able to compare how well each platform supported Eucon. And if I was told something couldn’t be done, I was annoying and would say “Yeah, but they can do it in [Logic/Cubase/PT].”

[bayswater]

It must be a bit of a dilemma for MOTU.

Going head to head with other DAWs that serve the current bleeding edge of music is not likely to gain enough market share to justify the investment. Sticking with the traditional metaphor that DP is so good at might not be of interest to people young enough that they never worked that way.

I’m fine with the current approach — tweaks to the old stuff and slow and well thought out approaches to new features, but that’s probably not enough to keep MOTU investing in DP. I hope they find the right mix of improvements to their core features and introduction of all the new stuff I’m not likely to use.

[Michael Canavan]

I guess one good thing is this is an area they recently worked on so it might be still on their radar.

I’m very aware of that as I was very much involved in providing feedback during that period. It is indeed much improved from where it was. One of the main reasons I ended up buying Logic, Cubase and PT was to be able to compare how well each platform supported Eucon. And if I was told something couldn’t be done, I was annoying and would say “Yeah, but they can do it in [Logic/Cubase/PT].”

Hey guilty as charged as well here.

I really really want MOTU to think about a robust plugin sandboxing feature like Bitwig has. The only time Bitwig has ever "crashed" because of a plugin it was a hang on an open plugin window, not a crash per say. I mean that's literally the only time that Bitwig has crashed on me. You can host plugins in the host or sandboxed, and from what I can tell there's such a minimal CPU hit on Apple Silicon it's unnoticeable.

In my wishlist would be a dedicated individual like Moss for MOTU taking care of all their control surface support, so anything we buy is fully supported.

Fix the Hardware FX plugin and add in a hardware instrument plugin.

That and plugin automation being availible to V-Racked plugins, this happens and Chunks become super powerful, the Song Window becomes a complete arrangement tool again and I promise to ask for nothing for a while..

[greg328]

Assuming no new rumblings regarding an imminent DP 12 release? I am so ready!

Aren’t we wayyyy overdue for this- ?


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[Michael Canavan]

Assuming no new rumblings regarding an imminent DP 12 release? I am so ready!

Aren’t we wayyyy overdue for this- ?


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Matt did sort of hint at something in the works today, but hesitated to give a time frame.

Two releases were longer as of now:

4
4-2 2003

3 y 5 m

5
9 2006

2 y 2 m

6
11 2008

1 y

7
9-14 2009

3 y

8
9-26 2012

2 y 11 m

9
8-21 2015

3 y 6 m

10
2 2019

2 y 5 m

11
7-7 2021

So we're at 3 years 1 month. I would say it's almost a guarantee it comes out before Jan 2025, but winter NAMM is a favorite time for announcements.

[greg328]

Thank you MC--I'll remain patient--so far DP11.32 is running OK on my Mac Studio Ultra M1-although I keep getting these false crash warnings at app open, but DP remains open anyway. Also--I've got some weird meter level display weirdness in the Mixer view as I move the mixer to other monitors. Hoping for a fix to these issues, as well as the myriad others mentioned here!

Greg

[Michael Canavan]

Thank you MC--I'll remain patient--so far DP11.32 is running OK on my Mac Studio Ultra M1-although I keep getting these false crash warnings at app open, but DP remains open anyway. Also--I've got some weird meter level display weirdness in the Mixer view as I move the mixer to other monitors. Hoping for a fix to these issues, as well as the myriad others mentioned here!

Greg

Better off than me, I really love a few plugins that in their current versions aren't playing nice with DP, so I just put up with the crashes. I think in my case it's the plugin that's most of the issue though.

[greg328]

Hmm- which plugins are mis-behaving for you? Maybe you’ve mentioned them here already?


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