Subject: I can't beleive no on has said ANYTHING about DP!

Look garage band is great, it's a nice entry level app, great propaganda to induct logic users but it's not a whole package solution, and logic isn't a mac only app, it's a dual paltform lap that's suffered a labotomy! DP is the best thing on the mac since studio vision! Use it! (That said can anyone tell me why audio units sound like garbage and have nothing for controls??? this whole audio on "os x" thing is killing me.)

um.. in case you hadn't noticed, this IS a MAC music makers site... and it's apple garageband. macs are simply better equipped for this kind of thing than the average personal PC. :P

Yes but Garage band is only mac only because apple slashed logic's ba##$ and called it an app. DP is Mac only because a company is staking it's futur on the Mac. Optimising for each ridiculously intriactly new version of OS X, striving to get passed the fact that uness you're appledirect hardware access is nearly impossible in X. The reason Apple bought logic and not DP is because DP wasn't in danger being a PC app because it was already 'faithful' they bought logic to kill a threat to music on the Mac. Alienating DP is like telling you're best freind to get lost after 10 years because you paid a girl to go to prom, and don't want him to tell.Now that said. I wanted to get Garage band but even though i bought ILife's pre garage band incarnation at an Apple store 30 days after Garage Band was announced, since they didn't ahve the new one yet, there was no way for me to upgrade to it without paying the full fee. Now, as a dot mac member, I have 3 free sound packs for an app not worth buying considering as I already paid the extorition fee for the pre garage band ilife out f major need to burn a dvd. No when i have a choice between a buck fifty to upgrade DP or about 100 to get garage band working with like 1/100th the features you won't see me looking at the circumsized version of Logic.

You paid a girl to go to the prom?

Well, this post is written with some embarresment but what the hell!
;)
What is DP?
I have used Acid, an early version of Cubase on the pc, I have seen what Pro Tools can do, and now I have my GB which I love. Maybe I'm gonna buy logic someday but...
I want to know what's this fuss about DP?

I think COBOL raises a very fair point: is Digital Performer getting a fair shake in the markeplace, or are less adept programs more popular because of the almighty marketing dollar?

I would have to say that Digital Performer is one of the few sequencers that I have never used in any version, at any time. Like many here, I know almost nothing about it. I do, however, know that some of our faithfuls like Tobin are actively using the program in many of the compositions they share here. As such, I trust there is some true value to it.

What I would like to see is more DP users sharing information about the product and why it's better/different than Logic Express, Logic Pro, etc.

This reminds me of something I saw when GarageBand came out. There was an interview with a programmer who was complaining that GarageBand had gotten such a huge introduction in the media because a product called Live has been doing "loop based" recording for several years and nobody paid any attention to them. This made me wonder if there was really some weight to this argument, or whether the most important thing was what Apple injected in to an already existing "field": simplicity and elegance.

DP fans remind me of Mac fans (as a group) because they love DP, they think DP is the best thing since sliced bread, they wonder why DP isn't used by everyone, and DP has a small market share.

I have never used DP either. I went from Cubase on OS 9 (slightly buggy but easy to use) to Cubase SL on OS X (slightly buggy but easy to use.) I wasn't satisfied with the performance I got with Cubase SL, I wasn't satisfied with Steiberg and how long it took them to fix patches. Or them as a company, for that matter. The legal copy of Cubase SL I bought came with no serial number in the box, and the problems didn't stop there. So when I went to upgrade to something better, I had a choice between Logic and DP. Both apps have fans. Both were powerful. Logic had a rep of being harder to learn, but it also had more users and was owned by Apple. DP has some high profile celebs who use it... but so does Logic, including one of my personal heroes, Peter Gabriel.

I chose Logic for several reasons:
1. Being owned by Apple, I was pretty confident that Logic would easily keep up with CPU changes, audio units, and all that good stuff.
2. Word of mouth - I knew quite a few Cubase users (online) who switched to Logic and never looked back.
3. Stability. Apple made a big commitment to audio recording by buying eMagic. Much like when they created Safari, it was like they were saying "Hey, we will take CARE of things in audio recording. We went out and bought Logic and we're gonna make sure you Mac users always have top line music software. Doesn't matter if, down the road, the other tools leave the Mac... you'll still have Logic, and we'll strive to make Logic world class."

So in my case it wasn't advertising and marketing, but it WAS probably due to the fact that Apple owned Logic. If Apple did not own Logic, I may have bought DP. If Apple had bought DP, I would have bought DP.

I assume DP is great. I KNOW Logic Pro is great because I own it. It IS hard to learn. But it is extremely powerful and I have had zero issues with it. However, I like to "prototype" songs in GB because it's so damn easy to use. I have started projects in GB and then moved them to Logic before... but sometimes I'll just leave a track in GB and call it "done."

That's my 2 cents.

alanfraser, no I went alone actually, I was making an analogy.

ilkers: DP is Digital Performer. (It originally was an app called performer which is still available dirt chep for old macs if i recall correctly). Even on OS X though it still has its own built in audio system which at least in my tests seems to have a lot less random noise, and better control over levels than Audio Units, although i've spent all of 6 hours playing with Audio Units (looking to spend more once I get SampleTank 2 XL) After Studio Vision (Opcode) was bought and killed ruthlessly by Yamaha (they didn't even sell it off they just axed the whole company!) DP and Logic were the defacto alteratives for displaced Vision users. This nicest thing with DP is it works great with Motu's excellent and affordable hardware (I use the MOTU 828, version one. If I had even a modest portable powersupply i could carry th tibok, motu 828 and a mic anywhere in the world and record like it was a studio. FireWire audio devices rock!) Anyway the newest version of DP supports audio units, and the best interface I've used in a pro music app yet (I think garage band looks pretty good as far as entry level apps go but as I mentioned, do to Apple's Nazi like upgrade policies I'm not about to pay 100$ to get access to just garage band, they should really have had an upgrade program or a discount for .mac members).

Admin: I think DP gets a decent shake, it holds it's own as the best app to use with MOTU's hardware, which is a great value product. Logic will outmarket it any day of the week now though since you can walk into an Apple Retail store and ask a genius questions about Logic. If you buy DP (Or Cubase, or any of the other high end audio apps.) at retail you're lucky to find someone who's even USED it, let alone actual tech support for it. Strategically it was really smart for Apple to buy logic. The PC's already wonky market of low end products marketed as high end solutions, and array of yet-another-dj-loop-sampler products suffered a huge blow with Apple buying logic and with the 3 levels (Logic Pro, logic Express, and Garage band) it is a great way to bring folks to the Mac Music platform. A market Apple has kept high double digit marketshare in without making any real moves to support UNTIL it bought logic, which is pretty amazing considering the way Apple treated developers for many years. I think it's awesome that Apple is supporting its Music production marketshare, and they took a big player in the PC music market away from the PC. But when you have programs like logic, that have been Mac only by choice for years, were THE FIRST for OS X, and optimized to take advantage of dual CPUs, they really dererve a bit more attention than they get when Apple can shout Logic Pro from the tops of their elite citidel in cupertino and suddenly every entry level user is convinced Apple invented the midi-digital audio sequencer. I just don't want to see DP go the way of Adobe premeire (a product that dereved its death on the Mac), because Apple has such an in with Garage band. Garage band users are most likely to upgrade to Logic Express or Logic Pro, and frankly with the difficulty of learning a different approach to Sequencers its smart to stick with one product famlily (which is what really irittated Studio Vision users, who were courted by DP AND Logic with special interface refinements after Vidion's premature demise) Now the big questio is why with the affordability of solutions from Apple, or MOTU with regard to hardware & software for music production, why are people still paying tarrifs to an intel owned company who overcharges imensly for its products: Protools. (Intel owns Avid/Digidesign, and if you compare the price between a studio with Final Cut & Logic Pro, even buying an external sound interface like a Motu 828 to the cost of buying Avid/Digidesigns 100,000 dollar package 'workstations' you find yourself in unctrollably twitchy laughter for days on end. Yet I know for a fact our local cable advertising company still buys these dinosaurs because she's a moron and hasn't looked at new solutions for Pro Video or Audio in 15 years.) It amazes me that with solutions like Logic & DP Protools isn't dead.

rmaclema: both are hard to learn (DP & Logic), Combined Sequencing, Digital Audio Mastering, and MIDI are a quirky thing to get into one package and doing it all so that it looks unified is something where different approaches differ a lot in how they can be used, and thus going from a world where one company made the sequencer, one made the digital audio app, and another made the midi system (Keep in mind when opcode died OMS which practically EVERYONE used died, FreeMIDI was DP's answer it I found it worked pretty similar. It's awesome Appl is finally making a built in MIDI system, its like 12 years over due. But it needs work too. The QT midi abilities would be excellent if they were easier to access too, and they've been in there for 12 years or more. So today's apps are hard to use because they were built in a world where they were all combining previously seperate components, hardware was going from 68k to power pc, the PC was alegedly an emrging market, and key players who previously happily handling keeping interapplication midi available for everyone were being bought and ruthlessly killed for no reason what soever. A big boon with Garage Band is its a ground up app for midi and digial audio, and u just need to get a mac with audio in, and a midi controller and go nuts. (Although with the lack of levels controls and weird amounts of noise I was getting under Apple's audio system i'm not convinced you get studio quality sound without some work using Apple's system. Which sucks. I don't like manufactuerer solutions like MOTU's audio system, I think a system wide audio system is critical but it needs to work better that I've seen it working. That said if DP fans are cult-like, Logic fans used to be as well, and at leeast some of that has to be the hordes of displaced Vision users who moved to DP or Logic after Vision was murdered in it's prime by Yamaha.

Um, hate to be a stickler for detais but Gibson bought Opcode and murdered Vision. That said, it deserved to die. That said, It was engineered by the same whackjobs who make VCRs so difficult to program, put fifty buttons on a remote control, etc., etc. That said, it was a more powerful program than Performer and it was backed by substantially better hardware.

So, going forward proactively toward a multi-platform, high-density, high-output infrastructure, it's important to engage the necessary resources and ensure sufficient bandwidth to accomodate the plethora of....aiiiiyyyeeee...organizational cryospeak....aiiiyyyeeeee

I have been using Performer since perhaps 1990, back when it was the best MIDI tool but before digital recording had become a consumer option. As each new function and tool was added, I was able to learn them one at a time, so my learning curve was moderate and manageable. I think DP is a fantastic product, and they have great customer service and helpful employees. They continue to expand the app, incorporating cutting edge ideas and make the product a complete, one-stop program for digital recording, MIDI editing, plugin support, rewired cross-platform usage, sample and loop editing. Everything that works on a Mac works inside DP.

From what I can see (and I don't have a copy of Logic but would love to review it!), the main thing Logic can do that DP can't is access GB sounds. DP accesses all software instruments in AU format, but GB sounds are locked out, altho they do rewire with each other (but GB becomes the dominant tempo control app, sadly). Logic 7's integration with GB is its appeal for the GB community.

DP is a flawless MIDI editing program with nearly infinite MIDI editing precision. You edit MIDI as MIDI events, notes on a staff, scroll view, and in any way that works for you; can set infinite tempo and time signature changes; can sync to everything out there you would need to. DP integrates with Peak to edit digital samples, has waveform and graphic control of parameters, and since I also have Waves plugins and other effects plugins that work so perfectly inside DP, I have no desire to move over to Logic. DP 4.5 can time-stretch samples to match MIDI tempos, find the tempo and beats within a sample automatically, and handles samples in a CPU effective way, altho not in real time. However, it is not as easy to use as Live 4 which is made for that sort of thing and does work in real time.

I also use MOTU interfaces (the 2408 for audio input and the 128 for MIDI input. I also have stacked MIDI Timepieces that I used when scoring film and syncing to SMPTE.) When I am running 9 external modules, 2 software instruments, and 12 tracks of digital at once, DP works flawlessly. MOTU is a great company. What can I say?

alanfraser: Vision was easier to use, and OMS was central to mac midi at the time. No sequencer i installed in that era was incompatible with OMS. If you bought a MIDI product it mentioned either installing OMS from an included CD or downloading the most current version. The death of OMS was the biggest opurtunity the PC ever had in the Mac music market and if you look at marketshare and number of available products that was when the PC began to take off. And Gibson, Yamaha whichever fact of the matter is it was murdered by a company that shouldn't have bought it in the first place. Plus MAX was an interesting technology killed in that process as well. And how many YEARS was it after the death of OMS enduring home rolled solutions by everyone in the marketplace beore Apple stepped up to the plate with a system wide MIDI system? Seriously system wide MIDI should have become part of QuickTime like that month 9and could have easily been done really).

TobinMueller: It must have been nice to learn DP's parts one at a time. :) going from Vision to DP I was reguraly cursing as to why something so integral to the processes was in such an obscure place. (I'm stil confused why multi record is an option you need to enable and isn't auto-enabled. -_-, similarly I spent about 40 minutes trying to figure out how to monitor audio in 4.5 coming from DP 3 on OS 9, which is still all I'm using for recording) The interface on OS X seems tighter and more intuitive though, the tabs are increibly useful.

As far as GB sounds I suspect that sooner or latter the defacto samplers will take GB format sounds. I'm waiting for SampleTank to arrive but I'll miss Battery and Absynth until I can afford to upgrade those as well. (And someday I suppose i'll have to buy reason and find out what all the hubaloo is about that.). It'd be way handy though if Apple would give away a free sampler-bank/sound module type app just to pay back the garabge band sounds. It'd probably be a huge boon to their popularity as well, not that the number of free ones isn't an appeal itself.

Does anyone know performance wise how Logic compares to DP? I know DP is super compatil with dual cpus, and has been touting performance on the G4 DP for a while now. I've never heard much about Logic's performance (I've always been told it was easier to use and slightly more Vision-like. Having come from Vision which was what my sound engineer was using along side protools when i recorded my first songs when i was like 17-18, I really wanted something that worked like Vision but at the same time I was in the midst of buying the 828, and at the time vision was still working alebit it out of date and long since end of lifed. I went with DP because of the cheap upgrade from DP's super basic sequencer included with the 828. I really wanna try Mach Five and MX 4 however. I'll probably go that way before I go with Reason, which seems to have the advantage of being no less complicated to use that studio racks full of quipment and a mess of wires. -_-

Ahem. Software doesn't die. At least my copy never stopped working.

I use midi a hundred times as much as I use audio. I have a love-hate relationship with midi in Logic. If it weren't for all the plugs you get with Logic, I'd check out DP. Or can I rewire it to Logic?

V.

Cubase, Logic, DP etc were marketed toward "muscians" however you wish to interpret that word. And GB was marketed to the public at large like you said to get more Logic users. The program you use is only as good as the operator. Some may have more features than others. They all lack the "create hit song button".

and speaking of DP one macjammer even wrote a song about it
here

OMS stopped working if you have a fully up to date copy of os 9 least mine did. its also not available on os x. I had to delete OMS to get free midi to work on 9 when all was said and done. FreeMIDI and MOTU Audio work great on os 9 but I loath that they have to use a seperate home solled audio system to accomplish it.

I like Garageband because it is simple to use. I dont want to have to learn anything about midi. Open the program and in 1 hour I can write a song. DP? Start your own web site. . . .