Digital Performer

We take a look at a variety of audio-related techniques, from the staples of soundbite editing to DP5's new Soundbite Volume feature.

The subject of clicks might not seem terribly interesting — but it's surprising how much difference a well-chosen timing reference can make to the recording of your musical performances.

MOTU have released DP 5.1, a Universal Binary version of Digital Performer that allows owners of Intel Macs to finally make the most of the application on their new machines. But while this is a crucial piece of the jigsaw in enabling DP's use on the Intel platform, it's going to be a while before you can recreate a fully loaded G4 or G5 setup. Here's the low-down...

DP5's new virtual instruments have all the facilities you need for creating large and well-organised libraries of patches and samples, easily accessible and portable between projects and computers - as long as you know where to look.

Last month, we passed briefly over the flashier additions to the latest version of DP, in favour of some less obvious but rather useful new features. Now it's time to return for a closer look at those shiny new bundled instruments...

After being extensively trailed at this year's NAMM show, DP5 is finally here. But besides its shiny new additions, such as the six bundled MAS instruments, there are some unexpected and intriguing new features that might just prove to be more useful to some...

Your next project might be a four-track demo or a 100-track surround mix for cinema. Either way, at some stage you're going to have to mix it — but with DP on your side, that doesn't need to be a headache.

When it comes to controlling sequence tempo and imposing a meaningful beat structure on freely-recorded MIDI and audio, DP has plenty of tricks up its sleeve — including Live-like 'liquid audio' powers.

If you favour the feel of music that results from real people playing real instruments, the strict-tempo approach of a sequencer can feel like a straitjacket. But DP offers many ways of breaking out, and this month we explore them, as well as bringing news of the major update that is Digital Performer v5.

Quantising is all about turning your sloppy playing into rigid, computerised perfection, right? Well, no — at least, it doesn't have to be. We check out the finer points of quantising in DP and look at what it can do for your music.

Many of today's most interesting and popular audio-processing techniques are achieved with plug-ins. This month, we look at how you'd go about recreating some of them in Digital Performer, and continue our coverage of more unusual plug-in features.

Can you honestly say you use all the features of DP's plug-ins? If not, prepare to be intrigued, as we dig deeper into Dynamics, Multimode Filter, Sonic Modulator and more, in search of the facilities you didn't know were there.