Just ordered a MOTU M4 yesterday. Read that it comes with Performer Lite. Thought maybe I should check it out. I never tried DP before.

I've mainly been using Bitwig since I switched to it from Ableton Live back when Bitwig was v1.0 (or was it v1.1, maybe). Before that I used Logic for PC 4.x or something, before Apple bought it. And I used CuBase and Reason and also some Traction. But main experience have been Ableton Live and Bitwig. (I'm just a hobby musician/computer nerd, and no professional.)

Reading up on DP and watching some videos, it seems it's really powerful, but also that one should set aside some time to read and learn it properly.

So, what I'm asking here, is if you would care to share some thoughts on what kind of benefits I could have/experience by moving to PF/Peformer Lite or DP from Bitwig?

Also, if there's some common pitfalls, frustrations or mistakes I should avoid/be aware of, I'm all ears.

(I tried searching here, but couldn't find too much on this, feel free to link to threads I should have discovered.)

Warning: I use just DP and never used other DAWs seriously. To me, DP excels in linear composition. I think old school composers/songwriters would like it. The mixer layout is nice. Automation is excellent. The instrument tracks might seem complicated compared to others, I'm not sure, but I'm used to it: you have an instrument on its own track where you draw any inst. automation there, and you have any number of MIDI tracks pointing out to that instrument track, and you draw MIDI automation in those MIDI tracks. Aux/bus is very straightforward. Surround mixing is straightforward—I did my first surround mixing ever on it without having to read a manual because it's quite logical.

What it lacks, or it may have but I haven't found it, is such thing like modern niceties: I also did a "synthpop" concert when my main Mac acted up and had to use my wife's machine (Garageband!!!) I learned about the terrific Drummer tracks. Garageband drove me crazy of course, but there's something tailored for "modern" musicians there. I'd guess working with loop would be a hassle in DP, coming from Bitwig, although the new Clips window moves DP to this direction a bit more.

So, I think you lose the modern convenience in DP: the tailored-made presets/template/automatic addition for those new styles of music. But you gain control of every detail—It's the DAW that you have to do your own work, but you can do a really detailed work if you want to. It doesn't have any serious problems (like plugin delay compensation that I just read about Logic), and you always know where signals are routed to where. No surprise extra "eq", "compressor" on the track/master bus popping up if you didn't add them there like Garageband!

Having said that, the new Sampler/Quick Sampler in Logic intrigue me very much I might decide to use the academic discount to try it!

You should wait for some comments from those pros who really know Bitwig & DP thoroughly though.

Are the DP/Performer Lite plugins possible to use (as VST/AU) in other programs, or are they tied thightly to the program itself?

I think it's MAS and works only inside DP unfortunately. I just trial Logic now and I don't see any DP plugin there.