If you saw last month's NAMM round-up in Sound On Sound, or you follow any of the DP-based online discussion forums, you can't fail to have noticed the news about DP6, the latest version of Digital Performer. MOTU had given nothing away prior to the NAMM show, and certainly nothing to suggest the scale of the update that DP6 appears to represent.

According to a January press release from MOTU, these are the main features of DP6:

A heavily revised user interface, including vertically resizable tracks in the Tracks Overview window.

Track comping that sounds as though it will trounce Logic 8's abilities in this area, including a new Take Tool, a multiple take view, and a flexible architecture whereby takes actually have the same status and facilities as full-blown tracks.

Pre-rendering of virtual instrument tracks, with the promise that software instrument processing is done ahead of time, allowing any Mac to support many more notes of polyphony than it could achieve if the instruments were run in real time. This also means that instruments can be included in a Bounce To Disk with no need to record or freeze their outputs to an audio track.

The option to work with Broadcast WAV or AIFF as a native audio format, rather than the increasingly antiquated Sound Designer II (though support for this continues, as you'd expect). Additionally, DP6 isn't fussed about whether multi-channel files are interleaved or not.

CD burning (and disc image creation) built into the Bounce To Disk function, with Markers representing track IDs.

ProVerb, a new convolution reverb that allows real-time tweaking and automation of parameters, drag-and-drop impulse response importing, and a dynamic mix feature that ducks wet level as the level of the audio input increases — intriguing!

MasterWorks Leveler, a MAS emulation of a Teletronix LA-2A limiter — or, actually, four switchable LA2As of different vintages and specs.

A plug-in management system,...