Digital Performer Notes

DP3.1's new user-friendly Soundbites window, here showing a list of soundbites sorted by their Source Type, or how they were created.

For anyone used to working with traditional tape-based recorders (or even some other sequencers...) Digital Performer's audio file-handling is extremely flexible. The key to this is the Soundbite — MOTU's term for the 'waveform windows' that appear in the Sequence Editor, and which are so easily trimmed, split, moved, duplicated and erased. Soundbites are just handy visual-based references or 'pointers' to the actual Sound Designer II (or AIFF) files on your hard drive that contain the audio, so it's possible to have, for instance, just one sound file but dozens of soundbites that reference different parts of it. In fact, it's not uncommon to end up with hundreds of soundbites in a large project. So to some extent DP's flexibility in handling audio is not without a trade-off in terms of organisational challenges, and anyone's who's opened the Soundbites window to be met with a list of a thousand soundbites all called something like 'Audio-4-6.12' will know all about this! Having an organised Soundbites window (see above) can make working with audio much quicker and more pleasurable, so it makes sense to learn a few techniques to keep on top of things.

As is so often the case, the simplest approach can be the best. In the heat of a session, naming soundbites might be the last thing on your mind, but it's well worth it. Just hold down the Alt/Option key and click on a soundbite's 'title bar' (even if its current name isn't visible) to rename it. You can use up to 31 characters, so you can be as descriptive as you like. Call a soundbite something like '2nd vocal phrase, fall off' and you'll have far less trouble knowing what it is when it comes to later editing or comping. Get into the habit, too, of naming audio tracks before you record anything into them, and make sure 'Base File Names on Track Names' is selected in the mini-menu in the Audio Monitor window. That way, your soundbites will automatically take the name 'Lead Vocal-1' (or whatever) instead of 'Audio-1-1'.

DP's new automatic conversions feature makes importing files with different sample rates and bit depth less of a hassle.

Even with unused soundbites hidden or deleted, though, the Soundbites window can still contain many hundreds of entries, so the new organisational features introduced in DP v3.1 can be tremendously useful. Basically, the soundbite list can now be sorted according to a number of criteria, some obvious, and some less so. Setting the window's pop-up menu to 'Name' just lists the soundbites alphabetically, but there are more sophisticated options, such as 'Soundfile', which lists soundbites under 'parent' file headings, allowing you to quickly find out which audio file individual bites 'belong' to. This kind of organisation has 'disclosure triangles' to help keep the window tidy and concise. 'Source' is another useful sort criterion, making use of a new information type associated with each soundbite, and allowing you to quickly see how soundbites came into being — by recording, editing, merging and so on. 'Duration', 'Time Created' and 'Channel Format' (mono, stereo, or surround) are also handy sort criteria, and may make locating a crucial soundbite that bit easier.

One criterion, 'Folders', is a special case. This shows hierarchical relationships between soundbites, so if you edge-edit one, resulting in a new soundbite, this is shown below and to the right of the original bite. These hierarchies can continue indefinitely, and they are a superb way of tracking heavily edited or modified soundbites back to their roots. You can also group soundbites together in folders, independent of any of their attributes — so you could have a folder for backing vocal soundbites, percussion soundbites and so on. A 'Create New Folder' command lives in the Soundbite window's mini-menu, and folders can be renamed in the normal way, by holding down the Alt/Option key and clicking on them. You can then place soundbites inside them by dragging them in with their move handles. Although somewhat labour-intensive, this kind of soundbite organisation could be invaluable when transferring a project so it can be worked on by another person, or for archiving purposes.

Deleting unused soundbites used to be best way to prepare a DP project for archiving, but since version 3.1 was released, there's quite a bit more to it. First of all, Undo histories and their related files can add hugely to the size of a Project folder, and even if you can get into the habit of flushing a Project's history, there's still a separate history associated with each sound file — we'll be looking at this in a forthcoming Performer Notes column. There's also the consideration that the greater part of each file in the Audio Files folder may not actually be used in the sequence, needlessly adding to the size of the Project as a whole. So to simplify transport and archiving, MOTU have given us the Compact Project command, an integrated and automated way of carrying out all types of Undo flushing, deleting unused soundbites, and erasing audio in sound files that isn't used in an active soundbite (compacting).

With all the options enabled in its dialogue box (which is accessed via the File menu), Compact Project will pare down your project to the bare essentials, but if this seems a bit too aggressive, you can choose not to take advantage of individual compacting methods. It all comes down to whether there's any chance you'll need to work on the project again, and in my experience there's something about compacting soundbites that can too often come back to haunt you, even for projects you think are really done and dusted. On the other hand, flushing the Fades folder and deleting analysis files is usually safe, because DP can create new ones when necessary. And in most cases, deleting Undo histories is less dramatic than it sounds, particularly if you've structured the development of your sequences in some of the ways discussed in last month's Performer Notes.

Whilst we're on the subject of the Soundbites window, DP now also has a much more unified way of dealing with imported or converted audio files, courtesy of the Audio File Locations preferences, located in the mini-menu under the Soundbites window.

The Audio File Locations preferences window. It helps to make working with imported audio a lot safer...

In the Audio File Locations Preferences (see above), setting 'Copy Audio To Project Folder' to the first option, 'Always Copy...' has any imported audio added to the Audio Files folder, which strikes me as a great idea. 'Only When Format Is Not...' causes DP to make copies of only non-native formats, such as WAVs or MP3s, ready for automatic conversion. 'Never' keeps things as they were before the release of DP v3.1.

Converted or processed files (such as SDII dual mono files produced from a stereo WAV import) can also be stored where you choose, 'In Project Folder' or 'With Original File'. By selecting 'Ask For Location' at the bottom of the window DP will (as it always used to) bug you about where to save converted files until you want to throw your Mac across the room!

Probably the most useful settings for these preferences are 'Always Copy...' and 'In Project Folder', although you may wish to modify this if, for example, you're a track-count demon, splitting your audio files across several disks to attain the use of the maximum possible number of tracks, or if you're just getting DP to, say, perform some sample-rate conversions for you, to be saved elsewhere ready for use in another application.

Sharp-eyed DP users will have noticed the little 'Flash' button that appeared in the Sequence Editor and Soundbites window title bars with the release of DP v3.1. This is a shortcut for turning on or off Automatic Audio Conversion, a convenience feature that simplifies importing and working with audio in a range of file formats and at different sample rates and bit depths. It also facilitates importing soundbites with tempo information into projects which have a different tempo.

Automatic Audio Conversion is configured in a Preferences window (shown above), which is accessed from the Soundbites window mini-menu, or by holding down the Alt/Option key and clicking on the title bar flash button. Sample rate, sample format (bit depth) and audio tempo can all be converted automatically, and for each there are basically three options. Selecting 'On Import' (or, for audio tempo, 'When Bite is Added To A Track') causes any required conversion to take place only when a file is somehow imported into or added to a sequence, and for most users this will be the most useful setting. The second option, 'Whenever File Doesn't Match...' will cause conversions to be made when files are imported, and at any subsequent point in the project's development when they don't match the prevailing global sample rate, bit depth or tempo settings. Whilst this offers the highest degree of convenience, it could lead to huge amounts of background processing if you inadvertently change, say, the sequence tempo. The final option, 'Never' prevents the automatic conversion from taking place at all, and could be a good choice when importing lots of soundbites at different tempos on occasions when you deliberately want to use them at the 'wrong' tempo.

Current Version     MOTU Digital Performer: v3.1.