The biggest weakness of the Digital Performer remains its instrument bundle. Version 11 adds multi-channel MIDI tracks, and the program’s retrospective recording feature now monitors audio as well as MIDI, so you’ll never lose a good idea because the record wasn’t playing. Notation View now supports slang and text articulation, and you can assign attributes to them with articulation maps. Trax has non-destructive quantization and transposition like in Logic Pro, so you can test groove and key signatures on the fly without extensive editing. In recent years, Motu has added many features that fans of the program have long sought, such as MIDI event muting, automatic grid resizing, and lane-based track automation. MIDI editing remains strong as ever, with lots of detailed adjustments and tools available. There were some minor advantages to doing this, and you can still separate them if you want, but now Digital Performer works the same way as every other major DAW when recording with virtual instruments. , You no longer need a separate MIDI track for each instrument. When recording audio, the Punch Guard mode makes sure you don’t lose the front or tail of a good take, as the feature is continuously capturing extra time before and after your punch point.įinally-with the latest version 11.1-instrument tracks can now hold MIDI data, removing the last stubborn barrier that MOTU has stoked hard and fast since the early days of the “digital” performer, when it The ability to record audio tracks was added for the first time. Improved audio beat detection and extensive audio stretching features were added in the last few versions as well. I used Digital Performer for some serious manual pitch correction work on several takes of the lead vocals, and the results were completely transparent. Pitch correction for vocal tracks is handled very well – to the point where you may want to use a digital performer only to its core capabilities, providing melody-like levels of quality and ease of use. One main Bugaboo is the smaller size of text and labels, though you can eventually address that with built-in scaling features these days.įor detailed editing tasks, the integrated interface lets you bring in sample-level waveform editing of recorded or imported audio clips while keeping the arrangement and mixing board visible. Additional themes give you lots of options for the overall look of the program, but it’s not just about the color – the sliders, pan pots, and meters also change with each theme. I found that in addition to editing specific clips or MIDI notes I love working with the track view at the top and the mixer at the bottom, but you can create almost any setup using the horizontal and vertical drawbars in each window. The integrated interface lets you display multiple scenes at once, including arrangements, mixing boards, and notation, if you wish. If you’ve used Digital Performer even 20 years ago – you’ll find the core user interface environment immediately familiar. Since 1982, PCMag has tested and evaluated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. Digital Performer installs very quickly, because It only takes up 1.7GB of hard disk space. For this review, I tested Digital Performer 11.1 on a MacBook Pro 16-inch (Late 2021, M1 Pro) running macOS Monterey 12.3.1. Motu recommends at least 8GB of RAM, which is a DAW these days. Motu says the program is “visible” To be compatible with Windows 11, although final compatibility testing is still ongoing” as of last October, but it hasn’t been fully certified yet. Motu sells Digital Performer for a single $499 version that works on any system running macOS (version 10.13 and up) or Windows 10. How much does Motu Digital Performer cost? Working with this latest version is a true pleasure-that is, as long as you’re not expecting too much in the way of bundled virtual devices. I’ve been using Digital Performer for over 30 years and my first experience with MIDI-only Performer is in the College Music Lab on a Mac IIsi. In the 11th iteration of the digital audio-enabled version, Motu’s flagship DAW remains a premier tool for MIDI composition and film scoring, and contains enough audio-editing equipment to serve as a solid all-around multitrack recorder. If there’s a single digital audio workstation package that’s more closely associated with a Mac than any other, it’s Motu’s Digital Performer.
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