Digital Performer on a PC, bad idea?

[waveheavy]

MOTU developed Digital Performer to work on a PC a few years ago, so I recently bought Digital Performer 9. I have had nothing but terrible experiences with it.

Initially, with the DP 9.1 version I couldn't even record my guitar into an Audio track. It had me chasing my audio hardware configs, etc. I had to revert back to DP version 9.0 just to get my guitar to record into an Audio track. MOTU Support wasn't very friendly when I mentioned this problem to them. Said it was my system (no, it was not my system). My PC has an Intel i7 quad core, 4.0 GHz board speed, 32 GB RAM, and my audio card latency set to 512 or 1024 in trials. Only when I reverted back to an earlier version of DP to get my guitar to record, proving the problem was on their end, did they admit they had done some major updates with their sound engine between the 9.0 and 9.1 versions.

So I got DP 9.0 working on my PC, built a couple of templates, using Kontakt 5.6.6 a lot, and assigned outputs from Kontakt to separate Audio tracks in Digital Performer. When I wanted to print MIDI to the Audio tracks it was easy to hit the Record button and do a playback pass and have all the MIDI tracks printed to Audio.

I then did a recent Kontakt 5.6.6 update and it will not work in Digital Performer 9 anymore. I can't even get more than ONE playback channel for MIDI in the Kontakt player, DP is so goofy!

So I bought Presonus Studio One 3, and it appears to be working well with Kontakt 5.6.6. Explain that one!!!

MOTU can keep their Digital Performer JUNK! On a PC anyway. It apparently works fine on a Mac. A Kontakt update should not adversely affect so much in a DAW. And since my Kontakt 5 player must be downloaded and installed from NI Service Center, there's no way to revert back to a previous version of Kontakt 5!

[andygabrys]

Bummer.

You might consider having a dedicated backup that you use for your system drive and leave it on the shelf. That way every time you actually having a working configuration you can back up.

And if things go south, you can reinstall the backup.

You might have that already. I would try going back in time.

[waveheavy]

Thanks for the advice, but I tried that already. None of my Windows storepoints finish processing so they default to doing nothing, which I don't know why. I bought Kontakt 5 (full version) after Native Instruments went to their Service Center for downloads (meaning you can't access earlier downloads of Kontakt 5). I need the full version because some of the libraries I have require it. I sent Support an email about all this.

I wanted Digital Performer because it's supposed to be setup especially for doing Film work. I know the Bundles feature is something I wanted, which allows you to create multiple cues within the same Project, something done often when doing film scoring. But like I said, the Mac version apparently works fine. They've got a ways to go on a PC platform though, which I wish I had known beforehand.

But..., it could be blessing. I worked all weekend on a master template in Presonus Studio One 3; I loaded up and patched pretty much everything that I would use, from full traditional and modern orchestra, to Rock, Country, Jazz, EDM, ambient, Hip-Hop, etc. But I disabled each one after loading it. Just for grins, I began enabling them one by one while watching my CPU meter. After 90% loaded my meter read 5%. That's better than Pro Tools 11, better than Digital Performer ever was.

I don't want to sound like I'm pushing a product, but Studio One 3 is surprising me as to what it can do. They said they tried to take the best features from all the major DAWs and incorporate them into Studio One. I'm beginning to believe it. Drag an instrument straight into the main waveform/track area and it automatically creates a combined Instrument/MIDI track already patched. And my FX plugins operate on the track without having to print to audio! I don't know how, but maybe behind the scenes the MIDI data is temporarily rendered to audio, and then the effect plugin is applied. Don't know how it works but man, what a time-saver!

Bummer.

You might consider having a dedicated backup that you use for your system drive and leave it on the shelf. That way every time you actually having a working configuration you can back up.

And if things go south, you can reinstall the backup.

You might have that already. I would try going back in time.

[waveheavy]

Update on the Kontakt 5.6.6 problem in Digital Performer 9.0.

Native Instruments contacted me with a link to their legacy downloads of the full Kontakt 5 player earlier versions. So you can download the previous versions of the player from their website.

Because there's been no issues using Presonus Studio One 3 with Kontakt 5.6.6, I'm thinking I'll stick with it instead of Digital Performer (PC version). I've had other issues with Digital Performer 9 on my PC, so it's not just the Kontakt issue. For those wanting to try Digital Performer 9 on PC, I strongly suggest you give the demo version a good workout with everything first prior to considering buying it.