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Hello MOTU-Nation!
This is my first post and unfortunately it is regarding a few questions that I have had little luck finding answers to. Maybe one day I will have all the answers, but for now I can only crawl towards the light.
I have been using DP for a little over a year now and have a very dim idea about how to use songs and chunks to supplement live performances. More specifically, I would like to have arrangements of some jazz standards. I would also like to navigate through these arrangements remotely.

Is it possible to have a "SONG" with 4 or 5 sequences - "CHUNKS", (intro, A-A-B-A1, A-A-B-A2/ for solos and A-A-B-A with tags and endings) and assign navigation of these chunks to a mid foot controller? ( I have a "MIDI buddy").
I have read the manual many times. I am either overlooking some simple detail that will make me feel like a dufus once I realize what it is, or this type of operation is outside the capabilities of DP. I seriously doubt the latter....! I have asked both of the people that I know who also use DP and they are not able to advise me based on their knowledge or experience at this time. I have struggled with this for weeks, (several weeks), and I have been checking this forum for about six months. So far, I haven't found any discussions or information directly addressing this topic or these techniques.
Is there anyone who would be willing to point me in the right direction or shed some light on this topic for me? I have tried several approaches and had no success. I will be glad to go into more detail about my experiences so far, but I do not want to splatter my ramblings all about while asking for help and making first impressions....

Also.... Why does DP seem like such a kept secret compared to Pro Tools and Reason and Logic? I use all of these and favor DP over anything else I have seen or used. There just seems to be a modest market presence and almost no open community feedback and interaction between DP users, (in comparison), on the web....? This Forum is about the only resource I have found... And I am very glad that MOTUNation is here!!

Thanks in advance for any attention given to this matter!!

Raiden

I was the keyboard rig programmer for the Michael Jackson "This Is It"show.
We used DP pretty much in the manner you describe - except that I programmed DP so that pressing a Mac keyboard key called up an associated chunk.

We were running DP 5.13 on Macbook Pros, connected to MOTU MIDI Express 128's and MOTU 828 MK 3's. Each song in the set had its own chunk, there were 21 chunks in the DP project. To call up "Thriller", for example, the keyboardists would press the "T" key on their laptops. Each chunk sent MIDI program changes to the connected MIDI receiving devices (keyboards or rack modules) in each player's rig. Switching to a new chunk would switch all the receiving units to the right programs. This way, the players didn't have to manually switch programs themselves, or remember which ones went with each song. I put a sticky note on their screens with the song list and each song's associated Mac key.

To set chunks to be called up by pressing a Mac key, you need to go into the "Commands" window and locate the section called "Chunks". You can see a blank field next to the name of each chunk in your project. Just press the Mac key of your choice to enter it in the field. If you get a message that the key is already in use for another command, you can go ahead and use it anyway, if you don't think you'll be using that command in your live show.
For instance, it's highly unlikely you'll be using the scissors tool during your live performance, or stretching a soundbite or doing any recording at all.

I investigated calling up chunks with MIDI program changes (cc's) but did not find a way to do it. I don't believe it is possible. The method I described above works very well and I've used it on a couple of tours since the MJ gig ended.

David, did you have MIDI notes playing on your machine, or were you calling any MIDI sequence files on other machines? I find that full sequences (notes, no instruments) have a slight delay between them. Wouldn't that be a deal-killer for someone so rhythmically precise as MJ? Or maybe the delay only happens during chunk-chaining, and calling them up directly with a keyboard command makes them instantaneous. Is that it? I've wondered if there was a way to eliminate that tiny delay.

On the other hand, if you set your sequence end for exactly the right place (like the next sixteenth after a note is played, and you don't have any hanging notes, then maybe that delay isn't there.

I've used the same method for calling light cues between numbers, but there the delay doesn't matter, and further, there was no music, so I made the chunks just long enough to contain the cue, and however long that cue needed to pan out before the next one. Maybe there was literally no delay between them.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if that "delay" was of my own creation.

Shooshie

Sweet!! Thanks Dave, I have some backing tracks ready to use for the first time. your command key tip will be really useful.

PL

There are several ways to accomplish your ends... You can check the screen shots that you'll find here: http://public.me.com/daddyrob" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Screen shot 1 is what we do here at Northland to join two songs ( which used to be individual chunks) if we need to have variable control over how they will crossfade between one another. By inserting a tempo change in bar 115 we slide the next tune forward or backward in time incrementally. When dragging information into an established chunk you must include some null data (volume or pan for example) if there is no existing control data in the aux tracks, it can be erased after you drag the chunk's tracks to the Tracks Overview window.

Screen shot 2 is from the Load command in the File menu. This is how to get a new chunk into your chunks window. Screen shot 3 is the result.

Screen shot 4 is found in the Setup window under the Commands. Be careful in this window! In the Chunk Selection window you can see that we don't use automated Chunk numbers. I haven't found a way to pick which chunks are included or not included in this window and we went through lots of trial and error (mostly error) trying to make this work for us.

Screen shot 5 you'll notice is DP 5.13 which we use on the main computer in the sanctuary. We use it because we are still using PPC G5's in there and because that particular version of DP simply will not crash during live performance. It runs the lighting console, triggers video, provides 1 mono and 2 stereo feeds to the sanctuary and a stereo feed to the web broadcast and Pro Tools booth. We also don't need to use time code because everything is triggered via MIDI notes. We do not, however, use any MIDI instruments in real time because they were prone to crashing and glitching. Everything is recorded to an audio track(s) and we use a high buffer setting to ease the load on the G5.

Screen shots 5 & 6 show some of the simplified settings we use for chunk selection. Everything works from a standard numeric keypad. You can assign these settings to suit yourself. Chunk selection for us is simply a forward slash followed by the number of the chunk in the list in the Chunks window. I have removed most of the commands in this window that we don't use just for safety's sake... you can find yourself in a scary place if you hit a wrong key combination.

Make a copy of your DP preferences before you try anything especially if you are inexperienced. I hope this isn't info overload for you and my apologies if any info seems redundant. This is just an example of what I am sure are a myriad of ways (some surely more ingenious than this) to use DP live.

RobA