7/24/2023 0 Comments Digital performer interface![]() ![]() In fact most Digital Performer users I know tend to keep clear of song structures and work instead within one Sequence, creating additional Sequences to handle alternative versions of the material they're working on, as 'staging posts' in the development of material, or even as storage areas for MIDI System Exclusive dumps. This sort of file management is sensible as it makes projects easy to back up, and no problems arise when an entire project is dragged or copied to another location.ĭP3 Projects can contain any number of Sequences (or 'Chunks') these can be chained to produce songs, which themselves can be chained inside other Sequences, but - thank goodness - you don't have to work like this. On the Mac's hard drive a project appears as a folder containing a Digital Performer 3.0 document and, when necessary, additional folders containing, for example, audio files. To start working in DP3 you begin by creating a Digital Performer Project. The MIDI Drum Editor allows multiple drum parts on separate MIDI tracks to be edited together, with independent quantise settings if necessary. It's always difficult to give meaningful indications of performance and efficiency on various different Mac configurations, but suffice to say that on my G3 (with a G4 ZIF upgrade) a DP3 project playing back 24 audio tracks (44.1kHz/16‑bit) and eight MIDI tracks, with 10 two‑band EQ plug‑ins, four compressors, a high‑quality software reverb and Native Instruments' Pro 52 soft synth sends processor use to between 30 and 40 percent. Digital Performer has long supported TDM‑based Pro Tools interfaces via DAE (Digidesign Audio Engine), but MAS and DAE can't co‑exist in DP3, so you can't, for example, run TDM and MAS plug‑in effects simultaneously. The venerable Korg 1212 can also be used, as can Digidesign's Audiomedia 3 and Digi 001 interfaces, and there's support for ASIO‑compliant hardware too. MOTU's own audio hardware can of course be used, either via the PCI324 card driver, or, in the case of the Firewire‑based 828 interface, with its own dedicated driver. MAS supports the use of a variety of audio hardware, including the Mac's built‑in audio under Sound Manager. Clearly this is an absolute minimum, and in my own experience anything at all ambitious will require at least a 300MHz G3 with 256Mb RAM. One of the most important new features in DP3 is the Sequence Editor, where detailed audio and MIDI editing can be carried out while retaining an overview of the sequence.ĭP3 will run as a MIDI‑only application on quite lowly Macs, but you'll need a 120MHz 604e running System 8.5.1 (or better) to record and play audio under the MOTU Audio System. It looked like Digital Performer was at last destined for the big league - so now that DP3 is finally here, how well does the reality stand up to the hype? Mac Requirements It was clearly due for a revamp, and not before time MOTU showed a pre‑beta DP3 at the NAMM show earlier this year with most remaining operational quirks ironed out and sporting a handsome new OS X‑inspired look, a new Sequence Editor which allowed audio and MIDI data editing in a single window, state‑of‑the‑art surround mixing capabilities, and support for multi‑processor Macs. Although versatile and very stable, this still looked a bit odd, had no dedicated surround‑sound support, and retained small but annoying inconsistencies, particularly relating to some editing and zooming actions. Until recently the most up‑to‑date manifestation of Digital Performer was version 2.72. Unsurprisingly, too, MOTU's widely used multi‑channel audio interfaces have always worked swimmingly with Digital Performer. Certainly the MOTU Audio System (MAS), which lies at the heart of Digital Performer's audio capabilities, has always sounded great, and 'MIDI Time Stamping' (MTS) technology was introduced in DP2.6 to provide sub‑millisecond MIDI timing precision when used with MOTU's range of USB MIDI interfaces. In the last couple of years, however, MOTU have added a steady stream of features and refinements to Digital Performer, many of which have been very classy indeed. This probably wasn't helped by the fact that various updates to Digital Performer version 2 were saddled with a few inconsistencies, and the program also had a very non‑standard user interface which took some getting used to. The latest and greatest incarnation of MOTU's flagship Mac sequencer adds full surround mixing support among many other new features.ĭespite very positive reviews in Sound On Sound and elsewhere, Mark Of The Unicorn's Mac‑only Digital Performer sequencer hasn't quite taken off in the UK market in the way that Logic and Cubase have. ![]()
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