MOTU, Please give us some DP6 GUI options

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

MOTU,

I know you've worked really hard on DP6 and I know I'm gonna love all the under the hood stuff once I get it sorted out.

Please give us (or at least me) the option of a different GUI, especially for the mixer and control panel. Maybe GUI prefs, like skins?

The GUI MLC found in your current DP6 screen shots show a much more pleasing mixer GUI to my taste, although I prefer the darker green audio level indicators of DP5 rather than the lime green.

http://www.motu.com/products/software/d ... fullscreen

I much prefer this GUI over the shipping version where the mixer has dark blue/black audio display "background" and sky blue audio level in the mixer. Same with the the dark background in the audio monitor, and audio performance window.

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l34/m ... enGrab.jpg (Thanks to MattyMac1000 for this shot)

I would also prefer some options to resize/change the space around the meters in the Control Panel and layout of the Audio Performance window.

I've been looking at DP for 8-12 hours a day the last few months and would really be thankful for some options, at least the option to go back to the GUI in the above link, or the DP5 GUI.

Thanks,
-Vincent

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Count me in. The new GUI is a deal breaker and based on the posts here so far, I am seriously considering not opening the UPS package and returning the upgrade when it does arrive, or possibly simply refusing the delivery when it arrives.

Michael Mortilla - Moderator (Composing Section) of this forum.
DP user from version 2.7 to present; MachFive, MX4, Unysin.

[Mr. Quimper]

In case MOTU does read this,

please put some dividing lines between channels in the mixer window! They were present in your initial promo shot of the "new" GUI, and apparently we got instead the newer, new GUI that no one seems to like. The way it's set up now I find my eyes automatically moving horizontally in the mixer window along the "open" space for solo, etc. when they should clearly be moving up and down along clearly defined channel spaces.

Also, some contrast is good! A nearly entirely white scheme is just difficult on the eyes. I really don't think I could look at that for any significant length of time.

Hate to say it, but at least visually, Logic's looking better every day!

http://www.tweakheadz.com/images/Logic-studio.jpg

[grimepoch]

Personally I am trying to understand what we actually gained here. I think one thing is the information pane on the left is a nice place to collect things to see or have your snap settings, but most of the changes have just involved eating up MORE real estate on the screen. I am using a 30 inch display and I feel more cramped than before.

Things look less clear to me. Way less clear than before, in the sequence editor. Also, things like the solo button are so far away now on my transport, I don't understand where the benefit was in moving it to the transport.

And as I said in another thread, there should be a forth option to turn ALL waveforms black, as the current waveform selectors don't all work that great for all of Motu's default color choices in the track palettes. Like yellow on yellow, can't see anything. Same with cyan colors.

[SixStringGeek]

Personally I am trying to understand what we actually gained here. I think one thing is the information pane on the left is a nice place to collect things to see or have your snap settings, but most of the changes have just involved eating up MORE real estate on the screen. I am using a 30 inch display and I feel more cramped than before.

I opened up DP 6 and 5 side by side to compare.

The DP 6 mixer channels waste more vertical space - mostly due to the eye candy mute/solo buttons. I find that kind of annoying. The "tracking" multi-window only lets me see 3 tracks at once. I feel claustrophobic on a 30" screen!

I also noticed my pupils straining under the higher light output. Seriously, I could get a headache looking at that for too long. DP 5 was easier on the eyes.

Other minor polish issues - option clicking in circle controls does indeed bring up a config panel - but it gets placed in the upper left. On a 30" monitor, clicking on one near the right side of the screen means I have to move the mouse a LONG way to get there. Open the panel near the mouse please.

And my pet peeve - would it have killed you to call UpdateSystemActivity when MIDI input is detected? Having the thing go blank in the middle of tracking is annoying as heck. So Keyster remains an essential utility in my studio. Seriously, its a one line call in an easy to find bottleneck.

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

Speaking of GUI's this was an interesting link I found in the DP6 Namm thread:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajkandy/20 ... 349961924/

[filtertone]

Also, some contrast is good! A nearly entirely white scheme is just difficult on the eyes. I really don't think I could look at that for any significant length of time.

Hate to say it, but at least visually, Logic's looking better every day!

http://www.tweakheadz.com/images/Logic-studio.jpg

Logic 8 has plenty of visual contrast, light and darker areas, plenty to prevent eye fatigue. It's really a well thought out and unified design. The new GUI in DP6 has so many problematic issues I don't even know where to begin. Half 2D, half 3d (not consistent), no contrast to speak of really, way too much white (how could they have decided this was a good thing?), and an awful lot of wasted space everywhere. Then there's the pre-rendering scheme that's not happening for me the way it's implemented. I'm very disappointed to say the least...

[James Steele]

The GUI MLC found in your current DP6 screen shots show a much more pleasing mixer GUI to my taste.

http://www.motu.com/products/software/d ... fullscreen

I much prefer this GUI over the shipping version where the mixer has dark blue/black audio display "background" and sky blue audio level in the mixer. Same with the the dark background in the audio monitor, and audio performance window.

You're looking at the picture with the surround mixer right? Hmmm... guess it just goes to show you how subjective this all is. I like the newer version.

[James Steele]

Count me in. The new GUI is a deal breaker and based on the posts here so far, I am seriously considering not opening the UPS package and returning the upgrade when it does arrive, or possibly simply refusing the delivery when it arrives.

Michael Mortilla - Moderator (Composing Section) of this forum.
DP user from version 2.7 to present; MachFive, MX4, Unysin.

Refusing delivery? My things have gotten serious around here. I suppose you could try it yourself and see what you think. Whatever complaints you may have could be addressed by 6.01. Of course, hey... throw the baby out with the bathwater if you must.

[richardein]

I for one like the look of the new gui versus the old. Regarding all the white, I'm not sure how my eyes will react. The old one made me go all blurry pretty quickly. In this one, the info is seems more organized which means, possibly, less staring.

Moving the mini-menus and other features around is a bit annoying to get used to, but it's understandable.

There are a lot of very nice tweaks, it seems, all around the program. And like James, I prefer the new look of the mixer versus the screenshot linked to above.

[James Steele]

Richard... hold the presses! Did you ever think you'd see the day when you and I agreed on something?

[grimepoch]

Well I wont refuse delivery even if I could have with what I know because it's the best thing going for me at the moment for what I need it for.

Most of my gripes are not introduced by DP6, they are long standing work flow issues that I will be sending to Motu in a very detailed and thorough email/white paper discussing usability for high speed productivity. Which will mostly center around film work.

I've just spent the last 7 hours working in DP6. I cannot say that my eyes feel any different than working in DP5 honestly. A little more fatigued than working in logic for this long, but that I knew before.

The blue level meters are DEFINITELY harder to see in the sequence editor relative to the background there (black) and I also notice that some of the meters get stuck sometimes and are not updating. Very odd there.

I can say this, the pain I am feeling at the moment in DP is excruciating. The people who made the video I mastered among other things changed the frame rame from 24fps to 23.976. The problem is that my project was done at 24fps so not only are there last minute edits that are all over the place that I have to shift stuff around, nothing lines up and drifts over time. This problem is not DPs, but it means I am selecting and splitting LOTS of audio tracks moving both automation and regions. This is NOT very easy in DP as there are so many little places on a region to select that a slight movement of the mouse and you just dragged a clip instead.

Also, when you double click on a region of audio, it goes to black and white and looks horrible. Not sure what is up with that!

I think if you use a lot of key commands, this transition will probably be a lot easier. If you are used to clicking on certain things in certain locations, it can be painful as you retrain yourself.

And if someone has a better solution for what I am doing, by all means, teach this dog a new trick!

(What I want is an easy way to select all audio regions and automation points on all tracks from a particular point in time, like from the wiper till the end of the song.)

[tyronehowe]

I remember this exact same argument occurring when Cubase 4 was released. The main page background has lightened to give better contrast, but it was far too light and LOTS of users complained.

Eventually, Steinberg put in a preference where you could set the brightness of the background to your own taste; and everyone was happy. It was a complete oversight on Steinberg’s part not to put the customisability in there at the beginning.

So … can the brightness/lightness be changed in DP6 via preferences?

(I don’t have DP6 yet, called my UK distributor yesterday, and they have no idea when DP6 will arrive )

[andrewwilde]

(I don’t have DP6 yet, called my UK distributor yesterday, and they have no idea when DP6 will arrive )

If it's Musictrack, who I think are main MOTU distributors for UK, they told me yesterday: "any day now ...".

[Spikey Horse]

"any day now ...".

"..... I shall be released"

- Bob Dylan



Yes come on Musictrack we're all waiting patiently ...

"Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice.
oh, Mama, ... "

Etc