That means you'll still have two tracks for every virtual plug-in you use. Digital Performer treats an instrument track as a different kind of audio track, instead of treating it as a combination of a MIDI track and an audio track with a plug-in instrument as an insert. All sequencers had this problem years ago, but Digital Performer is the lone hold-out of the big name DAWs. One odd limitation is that instrument tracks remain separate from MIDI tracks. The app gave me instantaneous, reliable control of the transport, take management, and even mixing board faders, which freed me up to sit in front of actual instruments instead of the computer while recording. One of my favourite features is DP's free companion iPhone app, which I tested on an iPhone 5. It always ensures you don't lose the front or tail of a good take, because the feature is constantly capturing extra time before and after your punch points. New themes give you an additional 15 options for the look of the program, but it's not just about colour – the look of the sliders, pan pots, and meters also changes with each theme.įor recording audio, a new Punch Guard mode is one of those forehead-slapping obvious features that should have been there from the beginning. I could fit a ton of data on-screen, including 24 track lanes, a score or piano roll editor, and eight mixer channels off to the right. The UI works particularly well on lower resolution MacBooks and MacBook Pros. I found that I liked working with the Tracks view to the top left, audio or MIDI editing in the bottom left, and the mixing board to the right, but you can create just about any setup using the horizontal and vertical drawbars in each window. The consolidated interface lets you display multiple views simultaneously. If you've used Digital Performer before, you'll find the main user interface environment instantly familiar.
But I personally have no problem with software activations as long as they work reliably and are easy to perform.
Apple Logic Pro and the PC-based Cakewalk SONAR still lead the field in this respect, because they don't require copy protection at all. This is far preferable to Steinberg's copy protection scheme for Cubase 7, which uses a proprietary eLicenser dongle, or Avid's for Pro Tools 10, which relies on the more common but still frustrating iLok key – both of which take up one of the two precious USB ports on all Mac laptops.
Install and activate DP8 on a third machine, and it doesn't fight you it just deactivates the first one.
On the software side, MOTU gives you two activations, so you can use the program on, say, a desktop and a laptop. Fortunately, there's no hardware-based copy protection.