Looks like it’s time to move away from DP - wondering if others are doing the same

[Michael Canavan]

On the other hand seeing stuff like this is depressing. Go to 27:11 in this video:

https://youtu.be/xYBC1wU09MA?si=7QSFOkJ51-rJx_LC&t=1631

(Updated link to take you directly to 27:11)

DP was never that popular in the UK, and the idea that film composers are using FL now is bonkers. Dude met two Gen Z composers and thinks there's an epidemic.

Plus and this one is big to me, is there some bonus to using the most popular DAW? I spent a lot of time thinking that it was a good idea to use the same DAW that someone I collaborate with uses, but unless you have exactly the same plugins the amount of time saving isn't worth it. Print audio end to end and any DAW will do.

[bayswater]

On the other hand seeing stuff like this is depressing. Go to 27:11 in this video:

Maybe different in other places, but around here, it’s all PT. I’ve only ever come across two people in 20 years who have even heard of DP. Both are on this forum. When you mention DP you get blank stares. MOTU had ads on the back of printed magazine then, but now they don’t seem to communicate anywhere that would reach someone who is not already a long term user.

Yet it has survived and managed 7 new versions in that time.

[HCMarkus]

Print audio end to end and any DAW will do.

This.

I have to work in Logic with a client who uses it. Simply put: painful.

I find things here and there I like, but the overall workflow is maddening and my pace tortoise-like compared to when working in DP.

[bayswater]

Plus and this one is big to me, is there some bonus to using the most popular DAW?

There are a couple. No one is likely to issue an AU plugin not tested with Logic. They aren't always so careful with DP. Also, finding instructional videos is a lot easier. E.g., whenever a Logic update happens there are loads of ebooks and videos covering it. The last third party tutorials for DP I can remember were done by Eli K for DP 8. He said from the sales results, he was not likely to do it again. It's a mixed bag though. You need the videos to deal with some of Logic's unintuitive aspects, and the manual is pretty much useless.

[James Steele]

Yeah... even in the video I linked to, they go on to say that learning a new DAW can be a monumental task and take a year or two to become as proficient as you are in the one you're currently using. I hope MOTU has a prosperous future ahead and that Digital Performer will continue on and be well-maintained. I've seen progress in the area of the Hardware Insert plugin *finally* getting fixed in 11.34 as well as improvements in EUCON support (the latter perhaps not as important).

The question that has always nagged at me is considering all MOTU's competition have very deep pockets, can they keep up? The big fear is we wake up one morning and DP is unsupported. I've been a big fanboi over the years... just look at UnicorNation/MOTUnation... but I have to say it's upsetting to have watched the decline in popularity in DP when once upon a time it had a tremendous head start.

I've always been the type of person to swim against the current... root for the underdog.... bought a Suzuki, not a Harley... LOL... but it does get exhausting after a while. And really, when what is keeping anybody on a particular DAW are legacy projects and the daunting task of learning a new one... well, it no longer feels like a "choice"... it feels like a "trap." Like a marriage gone bad but you're staying together for the kids.

Just talking off the top of my head here.... please don't take too seriously. I have high hopes for DP12 which my gut tells me is probably coming soon.

[Michael Canavan]

As some whose jumped around a lot, (DP+Reason rewired-> Logic, Logic + Live -> DP + Live ->Bitwig, Reaper, ->back to DP plus Live... plus The Akai MPC soft and hardware, Reason back in the day and now as a plugin), I just don't have much a penchant for it any more. I'm one of those weirdos that doesn't find it that hard to jump between DAWs, they all do the same things, the main issue is muscle memory and what they name the dammed feature.

I don't mind Logic, it's mostly the odd way that Apple is treating it that kinda irks me, it's a solid DAW, but the workflow has been axed a few times. Apple, the UX kings have killed a few ways to quickly navigate to tools, mixing etc. They only recently added in Multi MIDI inputs by port, before it was only differentiated by channel. I found that off putting, I like to have multiple controllers and keyboards etc. armed and ready to facilitate writing, plus the MPC doesn't like "All" or "Any" input settings it want's a port and channel.

The biggest thing is all this is old news, Logic became the de facto Mac DAW™ decades ago at this point, DP took a hit from Logic back in the early 2000's when it had no Windows version like Cubase did to keep it relevant. It did not die though, and the numbers it takes to keep a DAW going sales wise are pretty small. I'm willing to bet Bitwig and DP have similar numbers. The elephant in the room is Bitwig has an annual semi subscription model they sell for $139 ($169 if you don't buy on their constant long sales runs). They roll out new features every 4-6 months, and if your "update plan" is active you receive them. Whatever version you have when your plan runs out will run forever. This encourages people to upgrade on a yearly basis, or wait 2-3 year etc.

I know some would decry this, but I wouldn't mind if DP did something similar. I recognize a couple years ago they rolled out what would be a paid upgrade to 11, I think 3 years and 8 months is too long though, they need to have enough income to develop DP and refine it etc. Cubase looks to get roughly $150 from users every year and a half etc. Live is in it's own category with it's MASSIVE user base, but upgrades are 2 1/3- 3 years apart and around $300.

I would be fine with every two years. Get the horse some oats.

[James Steele]

I know some would decry this, but I wouldn't mind if DP did something similar. I recognize a couple years ago they rolled out what would be a paid upgrade to 11, I think 3 years and 8 months is too long though, they need to have enough income to develop DP and refine it etc. Cubase looks to get roughly $150 from users every year and a half etc. Live is in it's own category with it's MASSIVE user base, but upgrades are 2 1/3- 3 years apart and around $300.

I would be fine with every two years. Get the horse some oats.

I’ve said the very same thing on this forum. I would have no problem kicking a few more bucks MOTU’s way if it gave them the capital needed to stay on top of things: fixing bugs, adding new features incrementally, etc.

I own Cubase Pro. I think I got v12 on sale and I’ve paid for two upgrades already for a DAW I don’t really use. Clearly Steinberg is doing something smart.

[BKK-OZ]

I have read everyone’s comments with great interest.

The issue of having to learn a new DAW is real - that’s been the main thing keeping me plugging away with DP, even though it doesn’t have the spatial audio capabilities I want for my current projects.

I agree with everyone saying MOTU ought to find a way to get more funding for DP so that development could be faster and more responsive.

At the moment, I am pretty sure that I am off DP in ~30 days. That’s when the demo of PreSonus’ Studio One runs out. I have been playing with it for a couple of days now, as well as watching a bunch of their videos/tutorials.

Long story short, Studio One appears (so far) to be a few generations ahead of DP.
I haven’t found anything that DP can do that Studio One can’t, and there’s a lot that Studio One can do (easily) that DP can’t.

Studio One‘s implementation of ATMOS is very well thought out, and it’s tightly integrated throughout. I haven’t stressed tested it properly, but it seems *much* snappier than DP. There’s a ton of training/tips video/tutorials. I didn’t need any of the training stuff to get going within a few minutes, but there is a ton of depth here, so it’s good to have that backup. Studio One comes packaged with a bunch of useful stuff, and everything I have looked at so far makes MOTU’s stock plugins look like they are your grandpa’s hand-me-downs.

PreSonus have made a commitment to a periodic update/upgrade pathway, with major releases coming roughly annually, and incremental updates a few times per year. They have posted a video explaining their approach. (This is, of course, in stark contrast to MOTU’s notoriously bad customer communications.) Version 7 came out in October, and 7.1 (with some new features) came out in January.

The price isn’t bad either, especially considering that the ATMOS renderer comes integrated.
The cross grade is $149 (USD).

[EMRR]

What other DAW has multiple sequences? What has mix versioning? Those two efficiencies are the show stoppers in PT, for example.

I’m a couple casual years into PT, 18 into DP. I’m at the point I have an equal number of gripes with each. I want them both to have all the same good parts and they’re nowhere close to it.

[Michael Canavan]

I have read everyone’s comments with great interest.

The issue of having to learn a new DAW is real - that’s been the main thing keeping me plugging away with DP, even though it doesn’t have the spatial audio capabilities I want for my current projects.

I agree with everyone saying MOTU ought to find a way to get more funding for DP so that development could be faster and more responsive.

At the moment, I am pretty sure that I am off DP in ~30 days. That’s when the demo of PreSonus’ Studio One runs out. I have been playing with it for a couple of days now, as well as watching a bunch of their videos/tutorials.

Long story short, Studio One appears (so far) to be a few generations ahead of DP.
I haven’t found anything that DP can do that Studio One can’t, and there’s a lot that Studio One can do (easily) that DP can’t.

Just an FYI, DP11 is officially the oldest version of DP since version 4. The likelihood that DP12 is announced in the next couple months with Atmos and other significant improvements is IMO at somewhere around 80-90%. Looking at MOTU's release dates for version upgrades there's a near zero pattern, they've released versions as quickly as one year and now at over 3 years 9 months.

I did a similar thing around the introduction of MPE to other DAWs, I started learning Logic again, and Reaper in order to maybe move over to one of those DAWs. I put a solid year into really learning Reaper then DP11 dropped with MPE support. Articulation mapping in Reaper and in Logic is not that great, whereas DP11 did it right. Long story short I jumped ship, then realized I didn't have to.

[Michael Canavan]

The price isn’t bad either, especially considering that the ATMOS renderer comes integrated.
The cross grade is $149 (USD).

It says $251.99 here for the competitive upgrade, on sale at 30% off.
https://www.steinberg.net/cubase/

[BKK-OZ]

…Just an FYI, DP11 is officially the oldest version of DP since version 4. The likelihood that DP12 is announced in the next couple months with Atmos and other significant improvements is IMO at somewhere around 80-90%. Looking at MOTU's release dates for version upgrades there's a near zero pattern, they've released versions as quickly as one year and now at over 3 years 9 months…

I know what you’re saying and I don’t really disagree.
I reckon DP 12 comes out within days of me buying Studio One.
But as far as I am concerned, I have been waiting too long already.
The Studio One demo runs out in a month, if MOTU haven’t released DP 12 by then…

MOTU’s lack of communication (and therefore an apparent lack of interest) is one of my problems with this DAW.
PreSonus have a refreshing approach to managing releases.

Having said that, I would be absolutely amazed (and delighted) if MOTU caught up with Studio One with version 12. I haven’t extensively demoed other DAWs, so I don’t know what the current state of the art is, but Studio One is definitely a few generations ahead of DP 11.

[HCMarkus]

Studio One is definitely a few generations ahead of DP 11.

I actually played with Studio One a while ago, with another client who wanted to use it. Not the latest version, admittedly, but I wasn't knocked out. Basically, it is the same story as with any DAW, no matter how "advanced": You have to learn how to use it to use it... and I'd rather be working at my highest level of productively at this point in my career. If I was getting requests for Atmos mixes, I'd probably be more interested, but that isn't the case at present, so I find nothing lacking in DP for my workflow. And I can easily move a project to Logic for Atmos final leveling and panning if I get that request.

MOTU are more opaque than PreSonus apparently, but I'm using DP11.34 and see six versions of DP11 in my Applications folder reaching back only as far as DP11.23, so there have definitely been at least a few other updates since 11 was released. Doesn't seem like they have been ignoring DP. Of course, we each make our own call based on personal priorities and preferences. At least at this point, although I've never smoked, I guess I'm in the Tareyton crowd...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_Tareyt ... han_switch!

[Killahurts]

They could even be betting on the platform not surviving, like the surround of old...

I hope it doesn't. Or perhaps remains relevant only to mixing for theatrical release. That's just my curmudgeon opinion.

This may surprise you, but I agree. I wish I didn't have to mix stuff in Atmos. Fans of our music are not calling for it, most don't even know or care what it is. The gear and speakers to do it were expensive, and it took quite some time to learn the ins and outs of how to mix music in this very esoteric, rule-ridden format, born out of Dolby's cinema technologies. 99.9% will listen to it in headphones, which is 30% of the listening experience on speakers.

So why would I do it? Because our digital distributor pretty much requires it, especially if we can do it ourselves.. but why?

Some in the Atmos world, and also in the world of Atmos haters, say it was a giant marketing plan created by Apple, Dolby Labs, Avid, PMC and others, to rekindle music production industries. Whether it was intended or not, I don't know, but the effect on the music industry is that it split what had become a level playing field into two tiers again- the labels and the big money that can afford luxuries like Atmos, and the independents and smaller acts that don't have the wherewithal. As for Avid, PMC, you see what these guys get out of it, of course. So why don't we tell Apple et al, to take a hike? Because Apple and Tidal, who champion the format, pay way higher per stream than all the others in general, and even more for streams of Atmos. In some devices, Atmos is on by default if it is available, so..

I would like to think that it will fade out again, like surround did 20 years ago- but I think it's unlikely, due to its scalability to headphones, and firm entrenchment in Apple, Tidal, Amazon, etc.. For professional releases, it is becoming a ""right of passage," if nothing else.

[James Steele]

...it split what had become a level playing field into two tiers again- the labels and the big money that can afford luxuries like Atmos, and the independents and smaller acts that don't have the wherewithal.

This. It was driven from the top down. No real consumer demand. But it will re-establish the gatekeepers.