It's a very flexible system, but one that can be daunting to the uninitiated. This is all primarily aimed at film and game composers, it should be said, and the average musician may never actually come into contact with any of it. You can also use V-Racks (which are also considered to be Chunks) to create a central set of instruments and effects plugins (a mastering suite, for example) to be tapped by the various other Chunks in play. Thus, you can work on different versions of the same project at the same time, swapping, reordering and rearranging them, or arrange songs into an album. Digital Performer allows you to use multiple Sequences in the same project, and any number of Sequences and Songs (called Chunks in this context) can be arranged in the Song window. 'Newcomers will be shocked by just how different DP8 can be to the competition' You can access timestretching, beat-matching and an excellent in-line Melodyne-style pitch correction 'layer'.

Additional views include Waveform, the superb Mixing Board, MIDI, Score and Meter Bridge to name but a few. The Tracks view is akin to the project overview that sits above the arrangement view in some other DAWs - except that, in this case, you can copy, paste and move things around directly within it. However, much of this can also be handled in the less cluttered Tracks view, which you can have open at the same time. Chunky styleĪt its simplest, Digital Performer can be configured to resemble the likes of Cubase or Logic, with most audio, recording, automation and macro editing taking place in a single view called Sequence.

That's a clear indication of the diligence and UI design craft employed by the developers. We prefer the latter approach - DP8's consolidated window is surprisingly uncluttered, even with eight panes active on a laptop screen. In many areas, though, it follows the standards adhered to by most other DAWs, sporting multiple simultaneous and customisable views that can be floated or used in a consolidated window. DP unashamedly goes its own way, and some of MOTU's nomenclature can be baffling at first. However, those moving over from the competition might well be in for a bit of head scratching. If you've used previous versions of Digital Performer, DP8's interface will hold few surprises.

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