I've just bought the new mp few weeks ago and finally upgraded my DP from 8 to 10, however things has been really frustrating for me cause while all the import export loading stuff are speedy, my DP seems to have problem loading anything outside the consolidated window. The spinning wheel of rainbow appears quite frequently whenever i try to open the transpose or quantize window, or even just as simple as opening the event list. is there something i'm doing wrong?

i updated from 8 to 10 as well.. after not using 8 for a long time. so far i'm making little tasks in it to get to know it better/relearn some of it. just basic stuff. one or two plug ins.. lot's of programming and automation.

it's been a great pain in the ass. setting up templates and routing virtual instruments via aux channels.. experiments with chunks and V-racks.

i've had some crashes and glitchiness when using the drum editor. it freezes and i get the beachball forever.

i'm still optimistic and i like some things about it. i hope i can sort out a good template or two or three for doing certain things.

i used DP long ago and dabbled in it here and there. mostly use logic and Live and things like renoise and five12 numerology so i'm used to switching up environments for better or worse.. when i want a different approach or whatever.

but DP is still different than everything else and until i get it set up in a comfortable repeatable way i think i'll be miserable w/it.. especially considering logic's recent update which is just so user friendly and has a gob of new features.

sorry for long winded way of saying "no, you're not the only one annoyed w/DP 10.

I too upgraded to DP10 after buying 9 and then waiting for a quite a while to upgrade because of Motu’s expensive upgrades.

When I loaded up and I started using DP10 it was obvious that the program has so many extras put into it that my 2017 MacBook couldn’t do anything with it. I needed a lot more than the hardwired 16 Gigs of Ram I am stuck with (I really got burnt buying this MacBook, can’t update the RAM or the internal HD!)

So while using DP10 could be a cool experience I simply am not going to do anything about it till I get a faster computer with a lot more RAM.

The biggest thing about the update is exactly what Logic is rolling out now with the drag and drop loops (ala Ableton).

I guess I am going to have to wait. A shame because I know DP very well and I like their stock plug ins quite a lot.

Anyone have a good recommendation on which Mac I could switch to that would be able to run these big programs and not become outdated anytime soon?

Any advise would be appreciated!

Pat

I’m also very annoyed at 10. But apparently the biggest bug I was having was something screwy on my system on Mojave. When i got a new Mac Pro and jumped to Catalina the problems went away. It used to not save the mixer and Tracks Overview windows. Any windows would just revert back to wherever it was before I popped out of consolidated windows and sized it. DROVE ME NUTS. I complained but no one wise saw it. Lol. Because no one else had it.

I think there must be something else going on with your rig, because DP10 purrs along just fine on my 2012 MacBook Pro. I have to adjust my workflow a bit when doing VI-heavy production work (bouncing sooner / more frequently to offload the CPU), but on my typical projects (12 to 48 tracks would be "typical"), I don't run into problems until I put Ozone on the master fader. :

You might want to create a new account on your laptop dedicated only to audio production. That might help clear out some of the hidden vampires that suck processing cycles away.

Regarding the original post, I'm very happy with 10. I'd have a hard time going back to 9, and definitely don't think I'd be able to go farther back than that. As I've said on the Facebook DP group, I do think that MOTU is starting to do some serious under-the-hood refactoring, so there are some hiccups (e.g., I've had some crash-on-bounce bugs show up every now and then), but by and large, the ability to multi-bounce more than makes up for it. Add in VCAs and a few other "finally!" features, and it's been my favorite version in awhile.

Modular8, you no longer need to route VIs through Aux channels (and I agree, that was a massive pain). You can either route the output directly to an audio track via a bus, or just leave it as an Instrument track and then bounce that to disk when you're ready to commit the performance.

Henry, your issue sounds like a corrupt preferences thing to me, but I'm glad upgrading to Catalina solved the issue. I'm sticking on High Sierra for the time being, but may move to Mojave later this year. I think that will be the end of the road for my Mac Pro 5,1, though, and I'll freeze it in that state.

Yes there was something wrong with my settings. I did a laundry list of corrections, dropped my sampling rate and upped my buffer (I have a Apollo Twin and do not have latency issues)

Anyway, that fixed everything and I am fired up again. I am going to go back to DP and give it a shot again.

I used to make a living using DP in the early 2000’s and I was super fast on it and it worked almost flawlessly. I got out when Mac went to OSX but I am glad to be back.

Pat

I have found 10 frustratingly crash-prone, to the point where I am developing my Logic and Reaper skills as an escape hatch in case I decide I've had enough (though Logic is not exactly bug-free either). But I like everything else about it. I'm not noticing performance issues.

I'm officially breaking with DP. I've had many frustrations and after careful looking over the span of some months I've finally come to the conclusion that DP is the primary culprit. I look at the activity monitor while DP10 is running or recording with only TWO plugins and the CPU is between 95-107%. When it spikes over into the red I get an overload error. This is audible on playback, but it also often hangs DP, causing it to crash when I get it to start up again. I've looked at Apple and blamed them for my NEW MAC PRO 7,1 16 core 160 gb ram machine. I've blamed Metric Halo for their fantastic ULN-8 interfaces. But they both worked with me exhaustively to solve this. I'm setting up templates for both Logic X and Pro Tools. Unfortunately all of my older projects are still on DP. Been with DP since 2.7. That's 2000. And before that Performer 1.22. That's 1985. I had a session yesterday that crashed and burned repeatedly. So no. I've had it. I think the blame can go around. I'm on the cutting edge I guess. Since the newMP IS Apple and Logic X is designed by Apple I should just go with Logic. But PT is still the industry standard, I guess.

But I'm done with DP. I've been a fervent defender. Unless they come up with some good answer from my latest techlink - - I'm out.

Henry, I remember interacting with you over the years and know you must be at the end of your rope. I'm still on a cheese-grater Mac Pro and while I've experienced an increase in crashes with 10.11 over 9.52 (almost exclusively with bouncing operations), I've definitely not had any of the CPU saturation issues you're experiencing.

I know that doesn't help with your troubleshooting other than to provide an anecdotal negative, but if there's anything you'd like me to try to see if I can replicate your issue, I'd be happy to.

As for what DAW I'd go to if I had to drop DP, that's a tough one. My first choice would be Cubase, except that they require a dongle which I refuse to support. ProTools would also be on the short list, but I also refuse to support subscription models for software. I'd have to be landing 5-figure jobs (or a lot of 4-figure ones) for me to go with either of those.

Logic would be my probable target, but I've been unhappy with Apple's direction over the last few years. Since you've already got a 7,1, you may be future-proofed for a good chunk of time, so Logic would be a good choice. I'm still debating whether or not I'm moving to a Windows system for my next build, so I'd be hesitant to go with anything that isn't cross platform.

I've tried lots of different DAWs over the years, but every time I've gone back to DP. The muscle-memory alone made transitioning difficult, but even when I committed to using a new program for 6-12 weeks to get past that, I found things that I far preferred in DP, warts and all.

Is downgrading back to 9.52 not an option? Is there something new in 10 that you can't live without? I'd at least do that while learning whatever new platform you decide on.

More instability this morning, including a very bizarre bug where I tried to hit play after a comping edit and got a beach ball that lasted about 30 seconds. When it finally stopped, I saved and tried to close the file, only to find that it wouldn't close. I was puzzled until I noticed that the play button was lit up, even though the wiper was stationary and no sound was being made. And of course you can't close or quit during playback. Even imaginary playback.

Oh yeah, possibly related bug I noticed working on the same project last night: the transport counter and the wiper position don't line up. Like, I was watching the wiper and it was correctly reaching downbeats at the same time the sound coming out of the speakers reached downbeats -- but the counter in the transport pane was somewhere else entirely.

This is a reasonably simple project. About 20 tracks, no VIs, just one sequence, a fair bunch of plugins but the CPU seems happy (2018 Mac Mini i7, 64 GB RAM). Created in 10.1, not a legacy project.

I'm pretty close to where Henry is (and I've also been with DP since the previous century). I have to finish this project -- if DP will let me -- and then I may be done. This is just a joke.

As mentioned in my response to Henry, I can only say that I've never experienced either of the behaviors you mention in v10.11, and I'm on much older hardware (2012 12-core Mac Pro, 64GB ram, High Sierra).

My first thought is that your project file is corrupt. Have you tried loading into a new project? I haven't had to do that in a long time (maybe like v6 or v7?), but that technique saved more than one project for me.

Also, as I offered to Henry, if I can help you troubleshoot, I'll be happy to. Not sure if I'll have the same plugs, but if you'd like me to try and open that project on my rig and stress test it, just let me know.

Did you have these problems in 9.52? If not, have you considered going back to that until the next major update? When was the last time you did a fresh OS install?

Please note that I'm not criticizing anyone's reactions here - I've certainly been at the point of "that's it, I'm done!" with more than one piece of software over the years. But, at least with DAWs, I always found it far worse to switch to another environment (and I tried that at least 3 times) than to just roll back to the last version that I found stable.

Again, let me know if I can help.

Well, first of all, thank you very very much for your generous offer. This is a group project that we're unveiling as a surprise for an upcoming event, so I'm a little cautious about sharing it outside the group, but I may PM you about that over the weekend.

As for 9.52 -- no, I had basically no problems with it at all, or with any iteration of 9.x. But I thought it was impossible to open a DP project in a major version earlier than the one it was created in. Has that changed? I'm assuming that in order to open in 9.52, I'd have to create the project from scratch and re-import all the audio into it -- which I could do, of course, but I'd lose a *lot* of edit and pre-mix work that way.

I haven't done a fresh OS install at all yet, since I've only owned the computer since December. I wouldn't ordinarily think of that as something I'd need to do less than six months in. (If it makes any difference, I'm running Mojave -- 10.14.6 to be exact.)

Just let me know how I can help!

While you can't directly open a DP10 project file in DP9, you can do a Save As in the DP 10 project and choose "Digital Performer 7-9" as the format in the drop down at the bottom of that dialog.

To be extra safe, I'd recommend doing a "Save a Copy As..." to a different location instead of just Save As..., and make sure that the "Duplicate audio and copy shared samples to project" box is checked. Then quit DP10 and move over to DP9.

Unless you've used something very specific and unique in DP10 (like the new Clips function), it should open just fine. I don't think I have 9.52 around anymore, but if I do I'll test and verify that I haven't steered you wrong.

Yeah, I wouldn't expect to need a fresh install in that time unless you've been doing a lot of installing/uninstalling or are running something that's generating a lot of cruft. My studio machine pretty much does only audio and video production work (e.g., I don't game on it or anything else beyond using Safari every now and then).

If you aren't experiencing any other systemic hiccups, the issue is probably within the MOTU sphere, at which point I'd say try going through the whole delete preferences, delete caches, or maybe completely uninstall/reinstall DP (making sure to scrub all of the cache/pref stuff in the process). Or just move back to DP9 and wait for 10.5 to come out.

If you are having systemic issues or weirdness in other programs, then an OS reinstall might make more sense.

Again, if I can help, just let me know.

This sounds so familiar. The same kind of activity. BTW I STILL haven't heard back from MOTU tech support!

Thanks for the offer of help, but it's not really needed. Several times in the past I loaded chunk into a new project. But to my surprise the files were not corrupted. That's not my problem.

Today I had a small session with my pianist and dragged in the audio for the failed session Wednesday. I was using Logic Pro. Even though I don't know the problem too well, I had no hitches. Not my favorite program but I think it's optimized for Mac Pro. There are a couple of essential things I haven't figured out, but I can record the band Monday, even as is.

Here's a specific crash behavior that I'm encountering in DP 10 and don't recall running into before. Here's the chain of circumstances that leads to the crash:

1. Working in legacy project (haven't experienced it in projects native to DP 10).
2. Editing single audio track for timing correction, splitting track into soundbites using opt-Y with track selected, then moving/edge-editing/stretching as needed.
3. Periodically, without warning, and without any action on my part, all tracks will become selected.
4. If I notice this before making the next split, and click back on the single track I want to edit, everything is fine.
5. If, however, I make the next split before noticing that all tracks are selected, I'm screwed, because
6. Undoing the multi-track split invariably crashes DP.

This has got me saving after literally every edit action. Has anybody else experienced it?

DP10 has been rock solid for me so far, I actually feel it runs much smoother than DP9 on my mac pro 5,1 and I love the new features and how it responds. I'm running it at 96Khz, but not working on huge projects. Sad to hear about your bad experience with it Henry.

It's not optimized. You're likely experiencing some sort of conflict with DP that isn't showing up in other DAWs, becuase in tests I've done pitting Live, DP, Logic, Reaper, and Bitwig against each other, only Reaper beats DP, and that's because it has a truly variable buffer setting IMO. This happened to me where only one DAW had issues with a driver (Logitech mouse driver to name and shame), Ableton Lives Beat Clock sync was completely crippled by it.

Your issue isn't showing up on my system, so that makes me think it's plug in or driver issues.

My issues is a corner case. A lot of people have missed it by Metric Halo found it. They wrote a workaround band-aide but let me know this is a DP problem and DP needs to address it. The other possibility is that Apple fixes something in a major OS upgrade. Maybe the new one does?

After a period of relative stability I'm now encountering daily crashes and hiccups with DP 10.1 again. Just got this alert when I tried to save a file I was working on:

The document [name of file] has been changed by another application. Do you want to save a copy, or overwrite the existing file? To revert to the version on disk, press Cancel, then select "Revert to Saved" from the File menu.

Changed by another application?!? Say whaaaat? (The only things I have done with this file are to open it in DP, do stuff to it in DP, save it, and close it. I haven't moved it or copied it or done anything else to it.)

It's just getting ridiculous. I've never seen a DP version this unstable--and I go back to 1.7.

Mine purrs along as well on my 2012 Mac book pro.
Big small lots of plugs just fine on my rig. Roll back the buffer if it’s a lot maybe but it’s typically fine even at low settings,

Maybe DP prefers Mac...... sort of a legacy bias.

If so, I must have the wrong Mac.

If you’re complaining about digital performer I’d hate to see what you’d say about ProTools

Fortunately for me I guess, I can't afford Pro Tools.

The only DAW I've used that I've yet to encounter serious bugginess in is Reaper. I wish I didn't find it such an unpleasant app to work in. Can somebody please invent a DAW that's powerful, feature-rich, user-friendly, and stable on a Mac?

I've found PT a lot more stable. I often get crashes with DP. Not once YET with PT. Although admittedly I've used it a lot less.

Logic seems very stable. Apple to Apple.

I’ve crashed them all. It’s always a matter of personal computer configuration. Certain VST3’s crash Reaper and DP, Logic is more stable on a brand new mac, to no ones surprise.

Currently on Mojave, RME FF, modded Mac Pro with 24ram 3.33 12 cores etc. none of them are unstable. Something is up with your systems, I’m not 100% crash free, but pretty close, and DP isn’t really that much worse than the others.

I’ve encountered bugginess in Logic too, though not as much as in DP10.

Possibly it’s something about my system, although that would be depressing given that it’s only half a year old and hasn’t had any other issues. Maybe there’s a rogue plugin somewhere in the mix (as it were)?

Maybe I’m just too demanding. For me, one crash is one too many. And I’ve had long, long periods without any in the past. (I’m talking years.)