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Now here...MOTU DP11

So how are the DP fans finding DP11? Not many videos on YouTube on it and MOTU has given up making the previous webinars available on their site it seems. Certainly seems like DP has some compelling benefits over something like Cubase (that delay option per articulation!), but I didn’t have the patience when I tried the demo a while ago and now I can’t trial it again. Very different workflow and behavior compared to all the other DAWs so harder to just jump into.
The latest update to DP 11.04 is excellent, and as most reports have been, it's really 'snappy'.

A couple months ago I edited tracks for a CD release of mine, and did all the audio editing and track leveling myself before going back to get it mastered and finished.

I saved a ton of money doing it myself of course, and was able to do a great job using the built in Zynaptic audio processing where need in order to 'tighten' a few things up in the tracks that we didn't have time to re-record and fix while using studio time.

The original recording engineer loved what I was able to do, and he's a ProTools expert with great ears (happens to also be a real musician who plays real instruments and is pretty fussy).

MOTU gets better and better, and what I love is that it all flies on my 2009 MacPro 5,1 running OSX High Sierra. No need for the 'latest/greatest' computer.
 
So how are the DP fans finding DP11? Not many videos on YouTube on it and MOTU has given up making the previous webinars available on their site it seems.

unfortunately.

Best source of info are the Groove3 tutorials. Whatever webinars that are currently posted on MOTU's website are worth a view in general secondarily to the Groove3 tutorials IMHO. Some off those webinars which I saw live and never were posted after the fact, were long winded and probably not really good enough to remain posted, I don't fault MOTU entirely for holding some of them back. The webinars come across more like a loose and casual conversation between DP fans...and some interesting stuff comes up, but they are not prepared or produced well enough to be sitting on a page forever. MOTU would like to edit them down I think, but who has time?


Certainly seems like DP has some compelling benefits over something like Cubase (that delay option per articulation!),

delay per articulation is definitely a cool add, glad they listened on that one. Maybe Steinberg will pay attention, but I think they are too busy trying to push VST3 through.

Another very compelling feature are "chunks". Look into that.

If you do film work, the DP's hit point calculator is great.

Anyway, all these DAW's have pros and cons, no matter what you find some cool features in each one and some annoyances and you just have to decide what is important to you. I am going with DP now because of various reasons:

1. It will support VST2 and AU in the future, and with any luck CLAP

2. Chunks (one of the biggest reasons I switched over)

3. Articulation maps with delay setting

4. Hit point tempo map calculator

5. Runs on older MacOS

Very different workflow and behavior compared to all the other DAWs so harder to just jump into.

It doesn't have to be that different. I mean cubase has midi tracks and instrument tracks. DP can run the same way. Cubase has an instrument rack, just like DP V-Rack if you want to use that. V-Racks are arguably more flexible since you can have more than one of them as needed. Cubase instrument tracks support automation better though I think. etc.

what is really so different about it? Now if you want to get into using Chunks a lot more...that can be a bit different and as MW said already, MOTU is still on their own tune a little bit with midi clips. Though one of the webinars that covers the clip arranger actually brought some some really interesting work flows I hadn't thought of...so more to explore there..

but anyway the point is, DP is not so radically different that shouldn't enable you to get going with it pretty quickly doing whatever the same stuff you've been doing. later on you can dive into chunks and other DP-exclusive workflows as you get more into it.
 
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Best source of info are the Groove3 tutorials
+1 on the Groove3 tutorials. Even though it's a few versions behind, most of the info is still relevant and hasn't changed drastically.

My only minor complaint about DP versioning is that I wish MOTU would update the default skin to a more modern look with dark background. I find it odd it still defaults to the 1990's ProTools look.

But aside from that, V11 has been pretty solid for me so far.
 
I don't disagree about the skin, but make sure to check out that one custom skin somebody on the motunation forum made and shared.

Nice! I'll check those out. I'm pretty happy with the Carbon Fiber theme, but just surprised it's not the default and you have to dig to find it. If I was a first-time user I might be turned off by the out-dated appearance.
 

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I've been keeping an eye on this thread the past few days, and watched about an hour's worth of videos last night checking out DP's workflow.

Here's what stands out about DP to me so far:

  • Chunks looks really useful for prototyping ideas. I can see how it's powerful for film work as well.
  • The Spotlight style search looks amazing.
  • Pre-gen looks really interesting. Even if I switch over to an M1 soon I still like the idea of having more CPU headroom.
  • The content/media bay looks really useful. (And potentially powerful compared to Logic's simplified browser)
  • Unlimited "Screen sets" (Pardon the logic terminology...)


There are little things that do seem quirky though...

  • Two tracks per instrument seems clunky. Definitely in terms of real estate, but I could also see this making large templates tricky to manage. I understand this is just part of DP's DNA, but it seems like they could simplify this.
  • V-Racks look like a way around that, but I've never been a fan of working with multitimbral instances. It's a bit tedious to set up, and I personally have never gelled with scrolling through a list of multis, setting up/deciphering routing if you need to trouble shoot, etc. (Trouble shooting especially so...)
  • Not wild about having to use a key modifier to name tracks.
  • Better/more streamlined Support for MIDI FX would be nice. Hardly a dealbreaker, but nice to have...

I haven't demoed it yet. I'm in the middle of a project ATM so it wouldn't be wise to demo for the next couple weeks, but I plan to shortly...

A couple questions:

Any caveats to having pre-gen on by default? Any caveats in general?

Can "renaming tracks" be assigned to a single shortcut that enters you into the text field without clicking? (Logic for example does this... I also get carpal tunnel so the less clicking the better)...

Can the content browser be used to search for samples in bookmarked folders? And is there any kind of tagging system?

How are the bundled plugins? Knowing MOTU I'd imagine they're pretty good...

And... how extensive are the shortcuts, and can most things be done with shortcuts to minimize clicking?
 
Caveats…where to begin. Actually I won’t, I made my thoughts clear at the beginning of this thread. My advice would be to search through the Motunation forum for issues around stability with DP11.
 
  • Chunks looks really useful for prototyping ideas. I can see how it's powerful for film work as well.

Elfman stated in his master class it was one of the main reasons he uses DP. He can use each chunk to scratch pad out different ideas and bring them back together easily as needed. But also for film work its great you can have all your cues in one project file and switch between them very quickly, etc.

  • Pre-gen looks really interesting. Even if I switch over to an M1 soon I still like the idea of having more CPU headroom.

FYI, there are quite a lot of plugins that don't work in Pregen mode, including VePro. But yes its a nice idea.


There are little things that do seem quirky though...

  • Two tracks per instrument seems clunky. Definitely in terms of real estate, but I could also see this making large templates tricky to manage. I understand this is just part of DP's DNA, but it seems like they could simplify this.

This comes up a lot and I agree and disagree at the same time. I wish MOTU would add midi regions to instrument tracks, just like other DAW's offer, just to shut everyone up on this topic, and I would use those kinds of tracks for simple projects, but the reality is that having midi tracks seperate from instrument tracks is still very advantageous and probably how you will use it anyway, particularly when using VePro and V-Racks. Cubase has midi tracks and provides seperation. By the way, so does LogicPro, they just call it something different, in logic the tracks are seperate from "channels". Channels are where instruments are hosted in LogicPro...tracks are where you put your midi data in regions. You can have one or more midi tracks in LogicPro that are all connected to a single instrument "channel"...etc.. is it really so different? DP undeniably offers more flexibility.

but it is true that if you are just doing something simple or farting around and want to quickly create an instrument track to start playing on it, in DP you have to create two "tracks", though they do offer a dialog box that will let you create those two things in one operation...its marginally more work then LogicPro. Honestly I'd like to see them add that too, but its simply not a deal breaker, when you really start breaking down your workflow and building up templates; you have a LOT more power and flexibility with DP and you will not mind midi tracks separated. In fact you will prefer it if using VePro and really will have the same workflow as other DAW's

also DP has excellent track management, searching for tracks, nested folders, deciding which tracks to display in which window, etc... LogicPro fails miserably in this department.

  • V-Racks look like a way around that, but I've never been a fan of working with multitimbral instances. It's a bit tedious to set up, and I personally have never gelled with scrolling through a list of multis, setting up/deciphering routing if you need to trouble shoot, etc. (Trouble shooting especially so...)

V-Racks are absolutely no different in concept whatsoever then LogicPro's mixer. In LogicPro you have the arranger area with "tracks"...those tracks point to instruments in the mixer. The LogicPro mixer is like using a V-Rack in DP. Except in DP you can use as many V-rack mixers as you want. But you don't have to.

Additionally in DP you can choose to have the instrument hosted directly in the sequence if you want instead of using a V-Rack...on yes...its own instrument track.

Nothing about Vracks implies multi-timbral, but you can do that too of course if you want,.

Better/more streamlined Support for MIDI FX would be nice. Hardly a dealbreaker, but nice to have...

no argument there. LogicPro is the only DAW that does this right now.

I haven't demoed it yet. I'm in the middle of a project ATM so it wouldn't be wise to demo for the next couple weeks, but I plan to shortly...

Awesome

A couple questions:

Any caveats to having pre-gen on by default? Any caveats in general?

Pre-Gen is good. Use it. Some plugins don't support it. Simple as that. There might be some situations where you don't want it on, even for some plugin that supports it, but I'm not aware of any myself.

How are the bundled plugins? Knowing MOTU I'd imagine they're pretty good...

Like all daws they range from adequate to awesome. But I will say their "instrument" plugins are just meh. actually pretty weak compared to logicPro which is simply awesome and Steinberg offers way better instruments too. its just kind of ok in that area, but their audio plugins are quite good and that is MOTU's forte anyway.

And... how extensive are the shortcuts, and can most things be done with shortcuts to minimize clicking?

That will simply depend on you. Some people always find a way that they have to use Keyboard Maestro to get around something the program doesn't provide. But MOTU has been on top of this for a long time with a very good keyboard shortcut manager, etc.. It also has very extensive OSC support in case you want to get crazy with a touchpad.

Like all things, NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT YOU DO...you can try any DAW out there and love some of what it does and be annoyed that they can't seem to get some other things right. That is no different with DP. It has some really compelling features, already mentioned..that's why I'm using it. There is not a single DAW out there that doesn't have glaring annoyances that bother me....but at some point you just choose what is working best for you and live with the annoyances. None of them will be perfect. Period.

LogicPro is still a cool program, but I agree with you about Apple and how they are handling things, plus kind of a lot of serious bugs related to automation, PDC and other things, I just had to move on once MOTU finally added articulation management and bigger fonts.
 
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Elfman stated in his master class it was one of the main reasons he uses DP. He can use each chunk to scratch pad out different ideas and bring them back together easily as needed. But also for film work its great you can have all your cues in one project file and switch between them very quickly, etc.



FYI, there are quite a lot of plugins that don't work in Pregen mode, including VePro. But yes its a nice idea.




This comes up a lot and I agree and disagree at the same time. I wish MOTU would add midi regions to instrument tracks, just like other DAW's offer, just to shut everyone up on this topic, and I would use those kinds of tracks for simple projects, but the reality is that having midi tracks seperate from instrument tracks is still very advantageous and probably how you will use it anyway, particularly when using VePro and V-Racks. Cubase has midi tracks and provides seperation. By the way, so does LogicPro, they just call it something different, in logic the tracks are seperate from "channels". Channels are where instruments are hosted in LogicPro...tracks are where you put your midi data in regions. You can have one more more midi tracks in LogicPro that are all connected to a single instrument "channel"...etc.. is it really so different? DP undeniably offers more flexibility.

but it is true that if you are just doing something simple or farting around and want to quickly create an instrument track to start playing on it, in DP you have to create two "tracks", though they do offer a dialog box that will let you create those two things in one operation...its marginally more work then LogicPro. Honestly I'd like to see them add that too, but its simply not a deal breaker, when you really start breaking down your workflow and building up templates you have a LOT more power and flexibility with DP and you will not mind midi tracks separated. In fact you will prefer it if using VePro and really will have the same workflow as other DAW's

also DP has excellent track management, searching for tracks, deciding which tracks to display in which window, etc... LogicPro fails miserably in this department.



V-Racks are absolutely no different in concept whatsoever then LogicPro's mixer. In LogicPro you have the arranger area with "tracks"...those tracks point to instruments in the mixer. The LogicPro mixer is like using a V-Rack in DP. Except in DP you can use as many V-rack mixers as you want. But you don't have to.

Additionally in DP you can choose to have the instrument hosted directly in the sequence if you want instead of using a V-Rack...on yes...its own instrument track.

Nothing about Vracks implies multi-timbral, but you can do that do off course if you want,.



no argument there. LogicPro is the only DAW that does this right now.



Awesome



Pre-Gen is good. Use it. Some plugins don't support it. Simple as that. There might be some situations where you don't want it on, even for some plugin that supports it, but I'm not aware of any myself.



Like all daws they range from adequate to awesome. But I will say their "instrument" plugins are just meh. actually pretty weak compared to logicPro which is simply awesome and Steinberg offers way better instruments too. its just kind of ok in that area, but their audio plugins are quite good and that is MOTU's forte anyway.



That will simply depend on you. Some people always find a way that they have to use Keyboard Maestro to get around something the program doesn't provide. But MOTU has been on top of this for a long time with a very good keyboard shortcut manager, etc.. It also has very extensive OSC support in case you want to get crazy with a touchpad.

Like all things, NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT YOU DO...you can try any DAW out there and love some of what it does and be annoyed that they can't seem to get some other things right. That is no different with DP. It has some really compelling features, already mentioned..that's why I'm using it. There is not a single DAW out there that doesn't have glaring annoyances that bother me....but at some point you just choose what is working best for you and live with the annoyances. None of them will be perfect. Period.

LogicPro is still a cool program, but I agree with you about Apple and how they are handling things, plus kind of a lot of serious bugs related to automation, PDC and other things, I just had to move on once MOTU finally added articulation management and bigger fonts.
Thanks dewdman. I understand that Logic is technically doing things the same way, there's still an upside to a single consolidated view where the MIDI and instrument visually appear as one entity. And not to get too TMI but... I have dyslexia... Too many things to sift through and I get visual overload, which translates to finding myself lost even if something's staring me right in the face...

Yeah, I'm used to having to work with multichannel instances. It's actually one of the main reasons I don't use VEP anymore... It's fine for people who prefer it, I just like the direct approach of being able to discretely process anything uniquely if/when needed all in the same place. No need to tab back and forth for the occasional tweak, no need to set up automation rules in two different places if the need arises.

Maybe I'm missing something, but from what I watched yesterday using the "Instrument with options" feature, it seems that in the area where you see all of your 'track headers', you see two tracks for every discrete instrument. One MIDI track which correlates to one hosted instrument track... Multichannel solves this, however in my case 'one off' instruments are fairly common... I do a lot of trailer work these days and processing sounds so they have a unique fingerprint is a high priority, a priority specified in pretty much every brief. I often have to do some sound design at some point, which inevitably means I'm going to be working with some resampled custom instruments. Depending on the cue there might be a bunch of them..

So in my case one off instruments are just part of the workflow. For orchestral instruments I'm fine working with a fixed set or 'racked' instruments if I have to... But a good 30-40% of a given cue needs to have some kind of sound design, samples that fit a specific parameter but aren't part of a standard template, etc.

This is where single instruments, (or at least instruments that behave as a consolidated single entity are really useful). On the orchestral/acoustic side I'm working with at least few hundred instruments, add another 100-200 unique sounds I curate for a multi-cue project and I'm easily working with discrete 400-600 track templates... When it comes to those 'one-off' sounds it seems like finding these in a 'track header' area that had two representations of these could get a little confusing... But I have yet to demo, and I know things can be put in folders so we'll see...




One of the videos I watched last night showed a workflow that looked like you can move the instrument portions to a v-rack after the fact which seems like it would solve the issue. I.e. You can set up a bunch of 'one-off' patches 1st, then move the VIs to a V-rack. But the video was short and I don't have the DAW in front of me yet so it's hard to know if I understood that correctly.




It's interesting you mention keyboard maestro. this is one of the things that's really starting to irritate me with Logic. (A lot more than that actually..) Every time they change the GUI they *#$! up my KM macros. Something that took a !lot! of time to set up... In the past 18 months alone they've made multiple GUI changes that broke various macros that relied on image recognition.




All DAWs have quirks, that's for sure... in the case of Logic the quirks are starting to become a real liability. I'm also worn down by Logic updates deprecating prior OS's. Apple's a big enough headache on their own, I don't need my DAW adding another one to the pile.
 
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Maybe I'm missing something, but from what I watched yesterday using the "Instrument with options" feature, it seems that in the area where you see all of your 'track headers', you see two tracks for every discrete instrument. One MIDI track which correlates to one hosted instrument track...

You can put the Instruments in a V-Rack then you don't have to look at them, it will seem just like LogicPro where your sequence has only a midi track.. the instrument will be in the V-Rack...just like in LogicPro...the instrument is in the mixer.

You can also hide and show various kinds of tracks fairly easily, move things inside folders or whatever you want so that your main sequence view will show one row per instrument track.... I think you want to use V-Racks honestly, that is most like LogicPro.

once you create an instrument with options, getting two tracks, there is a command you can use to move the instrument track to a V-rack...and it just keeps working with all the connections intact and your main mixer and sequence view will just be showing you the midi track.

the only time you would want to see both midi track and instrument track in the main sequence...is when you will need to do automation on the instrument track.

Like I said, you can also organize tracks into folders so that you don't have to look at twin tracks every where you go. There are even some key commands to quickly show only midi tracks, etc.,.


Multichannel solves this, however in my case 'one off' instruments are fairly common...

doesn't matter if its multi channel. Just put the instrument in a vrack. That is the same work flow as LogicPro. granted, a few steps to set up the track compared to one step in LogicPro.

So in my case one off instruments are just part of the workflow. For orchestral instruments I'm fine working with a fixed set or 'racked' instruments if I have to... But a good 30-40% of a given cue needs to have some kind of sound design, samples that fit a specific parameter but aren't part of a standard template, etc.

LogicPro is using a racked instrument also. Its racked in the mixer.

This is where single instruments, (or at least instruments that behave as a consolidated single entity are really useful). On the orchestral/acoustic side I'm working with at least few hundred instruments, add another 100-200 unique sounds I curate for a multi-cue project and I'm easily working with discrete 400-600 track templates... When it comes to those 'one-off' sounds it seems like finding these in a 'track header' area that had two representations of these could get a little confusing... But I have yet to demo, and I know things can be put in folders so we'll see...

yes demo. Only you can decide if it will be too confusing for you, but all I can say is that MOTU provides quite a lot of options for organizing your tracks and you can use V-Racks and that should solve your concern about having to look at two tracks. Hey...I don't like looking at two tracks either.

If you don't want to use V-Rack even though I think you should, then just make a folder and put all the instrument tracks inside that folder. Problem solved.


One of the videos I watched last night showed a workflow that looked like you can move the instrument portions to a v-rack after the fact which seems like it would solve the issue. I.e. You can set up a bunch of 'one-off' patches 1st, then move the VIs to a V-rack. But the video was short and I don't have the DAW in front of me yet so it's hard to know if I understood that correctly.

yes. There is a command that takes any instrument track in a sequence and simply moves it to a V-Rack while maintaining all the right connections you setup with midi tracks.

It's interesting you mention keyboard maestro. this is one of the things that's really starting to irritate me with Logic. (A lot actually!) Every time they change the GUI they *#$! up my KM macros. Something that took a !lot! of time to set up... In the past 18 months alone they've made multiple GUI changes that broke various macros that relied on image recognition.

I hear ya. Any of the daw's could potentially do that. In some cases you may get less of that with DP since you can use the command line tool to enter any command and have KM ddrive that sometimes. Sometimes though, it simply has to look at GUI widgets in order to get things done.
 
If you use a V-Rack to host the instrument, can you still control the volume when you're working with the MIDI track? I notice DP has Console 1 support, but the plugin will be on the instrument track - wondering if it'll follow the track selection from the MIDI track though.
 
Some other stuff you should look into is something called "Clippings" which might help you setup one-off instrument patches....similar as LogicPro patches...actually it can do quite a bit more then LogicPro Patches...but LogicPro patches might be more elegant for what they do..I leave that up to you.

And it sounds like you will want to get familiar with SoundBites
 
If you use a V-Rack to host the instrument, can you still control the volume when you're working with the MIDI track? I notice DP has Console 1 support, but the plugin will be on the instrument track - wondering if it'll follow the track selection from the MIDI track though.
if you need to automate anything that is not-midi, it can't be done in a V-Rack. But you can bus the audio from the V-Rack to an audio channel in the sequence and automate that, etc.

This is one area I keep begging MOTU to improve, maybe4 they will some day. would like to be able to automate plugins and the actual V-Rack mixer, but for now...you can't.

The V-Rack itself does not have a timeline... and...only midi is sent from sequence-->V-Rack at this time.
 
if you need to automate anything that is not-midi, it can't be done in a V-Rack. But you can bus the audio from the V-Rack to an audio channel in the sequence and automate that, etc.

This is one area I keep begging MOTU to improve, maybe4 they will some day. would like to be able to automate plugins and the actual V-Rack mixer, but for now...you can't.

The V-Rack itself does not have a timeline... and...only midi is sent from sequence-->V-Rack at this time.
Does that mean V-Racks don't show up in the mixer until you bus the audio out? Or you can't put any plugins on the V-Rack track until you bus it?
 
if you need to automate anything that is not-midi, it can't be done in a V-Rack. But you can bus the audio from the V-Rack to an audio channel in the sequence and automate that, etc.

This is one area I keep begging MOTU to improve, maybe4 they will some day. would like to be able to automate plugins and the actual V-Rack mixer, but for now...you can't.

The V-Rack itself does not have a timeline... and...only midi is sent from sequence-->V-Rack at this time.

I see that as problematic, as in once you start automating some chunks you have to make sure the next chunk starts in the right automation mode for you VI. But it would be great if the could do it.

I'd just be happy with them making the consolidated window work better, so you click on a midi track in the seq window and only that track opens when you click on the midi tab or mixer tab.

That and being able to actually change patches reliably in VI's.
 
I see that as problematic, as in once you start automating some chunks you have to make sure the next chunk starts in the right automation mode for you VI. But it would be great if the could do it.
That part IMO is not that big of a deal. Snapshots already have DP creating automation between radically different settings, so this should be the case with consolidated Chunks. Plus you already have this with Chunks in the Song window.
I'd just be happy with them making the consolidated window work better, so you click on a midi track in the seq window and only that track opens when you click on the midi tab or mixer tab.
In the MIDI tab I agree, in the Mixer tab that's the default behavior with the Track window, and I hate it. If a MIDI or audio track is selected in the Tracks window because you were working on it and you hit command M to go to the Mixer only that track is selected, and I work mainly in the Track window.
That and being able to actually change patches reliably in VI's.
It's funny I've never tried that, I thought about it, just haven't done it, is it random or do some VI's not work with DP's patch changes?
 
All DAWs have quirks, that's for sure... in the case of Logic the quirks are starting to become a real liability. I'm also worn down by Logic updates deprecating prior OS's. Apple's a big enough headache on their own, I don't need my DAW adding another one to the pile.
That's one reason why I stick with DP. It just works through various OSX changes, and still supports High Sierra with DP11. Runs better than ever!

Other reasons for sticking with DP are such as Dewman42 has gone over so well.

The latest version 11.04 is handling VI's better than ever with more 'breathing' room for the CPU.
 
That part IMO is not that big of a deal. Snapshots already have DP creating automation between radically different settings, so this should be the case with consolidated Chunks. Plus you already have this with Chunks in the Song window.

It's funny I've never tried that, I thought about it, just haven't done it, is it random or do some VI's not work with DP's patch changes?
Snapshots could do that, I assume. But at present you can't snapshot a v-rack.

There's been a patch change column in DP's track window since I started on 2.54. I used to use it with my really crappy outboard modules and it was handy. I've tried in the past to use it with Omnisphere, which says you can store patches with midi patch change numbers but it never reliably worked. Would have been useful on my previous intel laptops. Now with the M1 I have the power to just have way more softsynths open.
 
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