Pro Audio, Music & Mac Blog

The debate rages on, timeless. Someone posts something about one platform being “professional” and the other being “outdated”. It even spawns the Mac versus PC demon sometimes. Well, guess what happened again recently… Somebody wanted to know more about switching to a Mac / DP rig and all hell breaks loose – AGAIN.

Like most of these arguments, this one is stupid for a couple of reasons but primarily because no one gets to be “RIGHT” about this. Everything depends on the particular user involved.

The case for linear hard disk recorders:

They are ultimately the modern replacement for the analog multitrack tape machine. Signal directly to “tape”. Rock solid, no head alignment or bias bullshit. No “erasing” the contacts on the cards in the old MCI machine with a pencil eraser. (Am I dating myself as a 2″ kinda guy?).

If you have lots of good outboard gear, you can mix right from a console “old-new school style”. If you want to edit or mix in a DAW, you’ll need to move that audio into the computer.

That takes extra steps and time but is by no means a “problem”. You’d have to fly tracks into ProTools from 2″ too. You can record tracks into the computer digitally in real time or you can import files much faster using a swappable drive system or some of the onboard networking capabilities of the current crop of recorders. Some even have firewire/USB2 for this purpose.

I don’t think this approach is necessarily yesterday’s technology as much as it is a modern equivalent of time-tested professional workflow paradigms. For example, Radar24 is a popular pro-tools haters compromise in LA because its analog section sounds good and it works just like a tape machine, only
no waiting for the transport.

When you’re on the clock spending someone else’s money, or doing live remotes where you can’t do a 2nd take, or when you just want to have a capture/archive collection method for the source audio, a linear HDR makes a lot of sense.

Now, have you noticed something? Most of the primary benefits and functionality of this type of rig is geared towards the needs and wants of the professional ENGINEER, PRODUCER, or STUDIO. From the perspective of any of these, an HDR is a clear advantage for a variety of reasons, namely rock-solid reliability and compatibility with established methodology.

The case for the computer-based DAW:

For the COMPOSER, PERFORMER, or ARTIST, there is much to be gained from using a computer based DAW as both a creative tool as well as an audio recording platform. In fact, the line blurs tremendously when incorporating virtual instruments, plug-ins and the powerful editing/mixing functionalities that simply don’t exist in a real-time, linear playback system. Many artists and engineers become spoiled (so do many records) by the ease of correcting performance problems, tuning a vocal, time-corrections, looping parts, replacing sounds, replacing parts, comping multiple takes, etc.

Then there are the utilitarian benefits for the chronically right-brain “artiste” who is frequently bad at left brain project and file management stuff. The DAW keeps everything together in one place that’s easy to back up to DVD and export out pieces and files.

Then there are the mixing benefits which are still mind-blowing to a kid that thought the installation of Dolby SR was the greatest achievement in audio history in 85 or 86. To have an infinitely expandable, wholly automated console that you make look the way you want and every possible type of audio plug in one click away definitely beats no hiss…

The old saw of this argument is reliability and what I would call “instant response”. There’s a good reason for that argument. Computers are really only in the last few years fast enough to deal with the large amount of number crunching involved in large track count audio. The advantage of a TDM based ProTools rig is that all of the audio processing is done of their own dedicated DSP cards – hence the home equity line price tag.

BUT… We really have reached the age where native, or host-computer only, DAW programs can and do kick reliable ass. I find it FUD like to say that you can’t “trust” a computer daw for reliable tracking. You can’t rely on a FUCKED UP COMPUTER DAW for reliable tracking.

I can rely on mine and anyone who cares to can as well. 9 times out of 10, problems with computer
recording are the result of individual, personal and subjective issues. Your computer with your particular interface with this set of circumstances doesn’t work = DAWs are unreliable. Bullshit.

Now it sucks for YOU if your computer DAW doesn’t work well but I can tell you that my formula is not
complex or difficult to duplicate.

A MOTU 828 with a modern Mac and DP5 works really fucking well.

Maybe a derivation from that formula will also work well, I don’t know and I don’t really give a shit because mine works. CAVEAT: OF COURSE there are bugs in DP and things occasionally do weird stuff. But even then, you can decide on what version of a program you want to run. With each version comes
new features and new issues. You pick and choose your battles. There is always a well documented sort of “status” of issues and new features. The idiotic audio drop out during bounce to disk bug that MOTU fixed in their last update to DP for example.

When something ISN’T working right, it can almost ALWAYS be attributable to lack of enough ram or horsepower. Something that I COULD do something about by buying more ram or a faster computer if I’m bumping the wall on track counts or available plug ins.

Remember, you haven’t bought a $20k ProTools rig, you spent a couple grand on a Mac and the Motu shit. More fast or more stuff equals faster computer with more memory. Do that and everything will work very happily for you in Mac/DP land.

ISDâ„¢ – Intelligent Signal Display

ISD is a cool new waveform display tool that analyzes the frequency range of the source material and overlays into the waveform display a colored representation of low frequency to high frequency information contained in the source audio.

I’m not entirely onboard as far as how this tool saves time, per se, but it’s just flat out cool to have PERIOD. On their site they promote it’s appeal as:

A more detailed interface saves time for Sound Editors by reducing the need to zoom in and zoom out repetitively.

Which, to be clear, I’m not disagreeing with, apparently I just don’t do the kind of editing and zooming that they do to make this is aspect of the technology’s appeal self-evident, and I suspect that there’s lots of us out there that might find this thing to super cool for other reasons!

Check out the interactive preview of the tool below:

SoundEvolution’s ISDâ„¢ – Intelligent Signal Display

PreSonus has announced improved Digital Performer support for their FaderPort USB Automation and Transport Controller.

The FaderPort’s single fader writes automation for single and group channel volume, pan and mute. FaderPort’s 100mm long throw fader features 1024-step resolution.

Available since November this year the FaderPort is currently compatible with Pro Tools, Cubase, Nuendo, Logic Pro, Sonar and now Digital Performer.

The Digital Performer support download for the FaderPort is available now at the PreSonus downloads page.

Here’s the rundown on the FaderPort’s features:

MOTU has just released their version 5.1.1 update to Digital Performer. Much touted are the hundreds of new presets for the Virtual Instruments that come with DP5. This is good, as the ones that shipped originally were sort of “eh…”

However, the question of the day (month, season, year…) is: Does the DP 5.1.1 update fix the infamous and “bad, bad, very bad” bug in DP5 that introduced intermittent and random audio dropouts while performing a bounce to disc operation?

I have maintained all along that MOTU had to be working diligently on such a serious workflow fuck up in their software, and the first reports back on MOTU-MAC seem to indicate that if not solved completely (which all reports indicate so far), the problem has definitely been addressed by the update. Time will tell, as they say…

There have been some reports about ensuing wackiness with the Tools menu and/or strange behavior during editing processes after the update. However, trashing of the DP prefs file seems to have cured that problem for the users mentioning it and it sounds like a personal configuration problem more than a new bug.

Having reviewed the Read Me file that came with the update, you are definitely going to find a bunch of niggling bug fixes, a bunch of new VI presets, and – presumably – the ability to bounce to disc with confidence again! But there’s also some excellent workflow/process/gui niceties that are very welcome.

For example, speaking of VI’s, there’s a very nice improvement on the somewhat klunky Virtual Instrument and corresponding MIDI track implementation in DP:

There is a new option in the Project > Add Instrument Tracks menu for adding multiple instruments. You can then choose how many of the selected instrument to add, how many MIDI Tracks to add that will be assigned to the selected instrument, and whether or not the new Instrument and MIDI Tracks get added to a new Track Folder.

Sweet…

But, here’s the kicker for me and for anyone who bounces around with their projects from rig to rig:

There are two new options in the Bundles Window->Mini-Menu named Import Bundles… and Export Bundles….

YES! Seemingly no biggie but in actuality, this is a HUGE pain in my ass, OFTEN!

Export Bundles allows you to export all audio bundles for use in any Digital Performer project.
Import Bundles allows you to import saved bundles for use in any Digital Performer project.

Here’s the Minimum System Requirements for Digital Performer 5.11 : Requires OS 10.4 (Tiger) or later to install and run. MOTU recommends OS 10.4.4 or higher.

Download DP 5.1.1 Update from MOTU.com

The new PreSonus Fader Port control surface / fader / transport device looks to be perfect for me as someone who isn’t particularly afraid of mixing with a mouse anyway. That said, being able to automate fader moves one at a time, or in groups, and having the transport controls at my finger tip in such a small footprint gadget makes a lot of sense.

My questions are:

1) PreSonus has been pretty vague about support for Digital Performer. Things are weird enough with Universal Binary evolution going on to start throwing new hardware device issues into my life. Does the Fader Port support DP? Natively, through CoreMIDI or with a driver?

2) How noisy is the fader when it’s sliding around?

3) How high is the resolution on the fader automation? Much is said about the differences in resolution between the various control surfaces. How does the Fader Port compare?

4) Not really a question, but more of a entirely subjective, principled superstition: the Fader Port is a brand new, first generation product for PreSonus. I usually only buy brand new, first gen products that I really, really friggin’ want. In such case, I’m willing to live with bugs or features no one realized were important yet.

Gearwire has a PreSonus Fader Port demo video from Summer NAMM 2006

In the NAMM video above, as well as on the PreSonus site, there’s no mention of whether or not the PreSonus Fader Port is compatible with Digital Performer or not, and IF NOT yet, WHEN they expect it to be. Hopefully, we’ll learn more soon and we’ll report back when we do!

If you’ve been putting off upgrading your Mac until the Universal Binary drivers for your MOTU PCIe 424 card arrive, wait no more..

MOTU has just announced that they are shipping the Intel ready UB drivers for their PCI-424 card based systems, including the 2408mk3, HD192, and 24io core systems.

Now you have no more excuses about buying that bad-ass new Intel-Xeon Quad Core Mac Pro Tower!.

Download the PCI-424 Universal Binary (Intel Mac) Drivers from MOTU.com

Here’s what you need to know about running the new Universal Binary version of Digital Performer – DP 5.1, on IntelMacs and PowerPC Macs, straight from MOTU:

Using Plug-ins in Digital Performer 5.1

Digital Performer 5.1 is a universal binary application, meaning that it runs natively on either PowerPC or Intel Macs. Per OSX’s design all applications & any plug-ins they use must run entirely natively or non-natively. This means that with DP 5.1 you must use plug-ins that are also universal binaries or that are specific to the type of Mac you have (i.e., PowerPC plug-ins on a PowerPC Mac).

If you’re running DP 5.1 on a PowerPC Mac, you can use universal binary and PowerPC-only plug-ins. You cannot use Intel-only plug-ins.

If you’re running DP 5.1 on an Intel Mac, you can use universal binary and Intel-only plug-ins. You cannot use PowerPC-only plug-ins.

All of the plug-ins included with Digital Performer 5.1 are universal binaries.

Altiverb, VST Wrapper, and other Audio Ease products require updates for DP 5.1 compatibility

For both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs running Digital Performer 5.1, be sure to download and install the very latest versions of VST Wrapper, Altiverb and any other Audio Ease software products before you attempt to run them with Digital Performer 5.1. Audio Ease has recently updated these products to ensure compatibility with Digital Performer 5.1. Visit the Audio Ease website to download updates.

MachFive users require an update for DP 5.1 compatibility

MachFive users should make sure to update to MachFive 1.2.3 before using Digital Performer 5.1. This update is necessary for DP 5.1 compatibility. Click here for the MachFive 1.2.3 update.

Digital Performer 5.1 and Symphonic Instrument, Ethno Instrument, & MX4

Forthcoming updates will provide MAS universal binary plug-ins for these instruments

The current versions of the Symphonic Instrument and Ethno Instrument (1.1.2 and 1.0, respectively) are universal binaries in the AU, RTAS, VST, and standalone formats. Updates which provide universal binary MAS plug-ins for Symphonic Instrument, Ethno Instrument, and MX4 are expected shortly, as well as AU and RTAS universal binary updates for MX4

Also, we’ve been watching threads closely on MOTU-MAC and Unicornation following user experiences with other third-party plug-ins and DP 5.1 Universal Binary compatibility:

Antares Autotune Compatibility Problems With Digital Performer Universal Binary

There have been many reports of immediate crashes with Antares Autotune and DP 5.1. Click here to visit Antare’s website for updates and the latest information.

PSP Audioware – VintageWarmer and others not Intel-Ready yet

WaveArts plug-ins, PowerSuite, TrackPlug, MasterVerb, and others ARE Intel-Ready!

Visit WaveArts download page for the latest updates. Naturally, WaveArts seem to be one of the first companies to be on the ball with this issue. They rock.

MOTU has just released their much anticipated Universal Binary version of Digital Performer, DP 5.1, with support for Intel Macs.

Reports from MOTU-MAC indicate that there may be some problems with third party plugs, especially “wrappers”. So be aware you may need to update some plugs in order to run DP 5.1, even on PowerPC machines.

Here’s MOTU’s page where you can grab the updater.

MOTU DP 5.1 Universal Binary (Intel Mac) Update Now Shipping

And supposedly new Intel towers coming next week too? The whole Intel thing is looking up in a big way… I’m gonna watch and report back here with more soon…

Widely acclaimed for their best-selling instructional videos for Digital Performer (DP3 & DP4), MacAudioLab has released their follow-up for MOTU’s DP5 – The Ultimate DP5 Learning Series instruction video DVD.

Featuring over 14 hours of high-resolution video and narration, along with easy-to-follow linear chapters and a searchable PDF on one DVD, The Ultimate DP5 Learning Series covers the following software and topics:

MOTU Digital Performer 5.0 | Mach V Virtual Sampler | MOTU MX4 Virtual Synthesizer | MOTU CueMix Console | Bias Peak | TC PowerCore Plug-Ins | Configuring your audio system | MOTU 828 MKII setup | Audio Bundles routing | Window Sets | Unique shortcuts | External editors | Professional project management practices | Consolidated Window | Pitch Automation | Control Panel | Clippings | Tracks Window | Recording Audio/MIDI | Sequence Editor | Mixing Board | Beat Detection Engine | SoundBites Window | Audio File concepts | Creating & Customizing projects | Integration with Propellorheads Reason | Undo History | Backup and archival techniques | Processing | Virtual Instruments | In-depth editing techniques | Conductor Track | Arranging | Markers | Chunks & Songs | Mixing and Automation | Audio time-scaling techniques | Working with DV/Quicktime | Multichannel & Surround 5.1 | Bounce To Disc | and much, much more…

They’ve also provided two sample videos: an excerpt from Chapter 6: Polysynth & Midi Keys and and excerpt from Chapter 35: Virtual Instruments

Read more and order at the MacAudioLab website…