Digital Performer 4.0 Ships with New "Freeze Tracks" Feature

Apr 15, 2003

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MOTU, Inc. is now shipping Digital Performer 4.0 (DP4) for Mac OS X. DP4 includes a previously unannounced Freeze Tracks feature that allows users to temporarily "print" audio tracks and virtual instrument tracks to disk to free up additional computer processing resources.

"Initial DP4 orders shipped to the retail channel on our announced target date of April 2nd, 2003," said Jim Cooper, MOTU Marketing Director. "Since then, manufacturing has steadily ramped up to fulfill thousands of upgrade orders. On behalf of the entire Digital Performer development team, I'd like to thank our dedicated users for their patience."

As a "Mach-O" app, DP4 takes full advantage of Mac OS X's modern architecture and built-in MIDI and audio services, delivering never-before-seen features such as CoreMIDI XML MIDI instrument patch lists. DP4 carries forward hundreds of patch lists from previous versions and publishes them for any Mac OS X application that supports this new Mac OS X standard.

DP4 ships with a previously unannounced surprise feature: Freeze Tracks. Users can select an audio track or virtual instrument aux track and "freeze" it. Doing so temporarily relinquishes any computer processing resources the track required. The resulting frozen track plays back exactly like the original. Users can "unfreeze" the original track at any time to make changes and refreeze it as needed. The Freeze Tracks feature gives users nearly unlimited computer processing bandwidth for plug-ins and virtual instruments.

• Support for CoreAudio - Digital Performer 4.0 takes full advantage of Mac OS X's audio services, providing universal compatibility and interoperability with Mac OS X and all CoreAudio-compatible software and hardware.

• Support for multiple CoreAudio drivers -- users can operate multiple audio hardware products simultaneously with Digital Performer. For example, a MOTU 828 FireWire audio interface can be used together with a MOTU 2408mk3 PCI audio interface - or any combination of CoreAudio-compatible interfaces.

• Support for CoreMIDI - Digital Performer 4.0 takes full advantage of Mac OS X's MIDI services, providing universal compatibility and interoperability with OS X and all CoreMIDI-compatible software and hardware.

• Support for Mac OS X's Audio MIDI Setup utility -- This standard utility provides universal MIDI system management. Digital Performer 4.0 shares a common studio setup with all Mac OS X MIDI applications.

• Easy device remapping from FreeMIDI to CoreMIDI - When users open a project created in an earlier version of Digital Performer, they can easily remap their old FreeMIDI devices to the new devices in their Audio MIDI Setup configuration.

• Support for Mac OS X's MIDI device patch lists and drum note names -- uses can view the sounds in their MIDI synthesizers by name in Digital Performer's patch lists. Drum kits can be built with instrument names like "808 kick" and "sizzling hat" rather than "C#1" and "D-0". All of FreeMIDI's hundreds of patch lists have been ported to Mac OS X, where they can by used by any CoreMIDI-compatible software.

• Support for interapplication MIDI - Digital Performer can publish an unlimited number of MIDI inputs and outputs, allowing it to transmit and receive a virtually unlimited number of MIDI data streams to and from other CoreMIDI-compatible software.

• Support for Mac OS X's MIDI Time Stamping -- DP4 achieves a 12th of a millisecond MIDI timing accuracy on input and a 3rd of a millisecond on output with Mac OS X's MIDI Time Stamping features and a MOTU rack-mount MIDI interface (or any CoreMIDI-compatible interface that supports time stamping).

• Enhanced menu organization -- DP4 users enjoy greater ease of use and faster operation. For example, all project-related commands, such as adding tracks, are now consolidated into the Project menu.

• ReWire 2.0 support -- DP4 provides 100% compatibility and interoperability with Propellerhead Reason 2.0, Rebirth and all other Rewire applications. Includes direct MIDI I/O support, which allows users to sequence MIDI tracks in Digital Performer and use Reason (or other ReWire instruments) as virtual sound modules.

• Enhanced QuickScribe notation transcription engine - displays and prints unquantized MIDI tracks as beautifully engraved music scores, instrument parts and lead sheets.

• QuickScribe Arrangement palette - provides repeat barlines, endings, codas, del segno and many other symbols that are used to create a consolidated score or lead sheet. The new "Hide" command consolidates repeated sections between repeat barlines. The playback cursor follows repeats, jumps to endings and codas, and generally follows the flow of a condensed score.

• 'Display-only' and 'playback-only' notes -- allows users fine-tune the appearance of their score for printing, without affecting how it plays back. Or they can change the way a score plays back without affecting the notation transcription.

DP4 features that are on the way - to be supplied as a free update soon:

• Support for Audio Units plug-ins - A future free update of DP 4 will support Audio Units (AU) plug-ins. Users will be able to run any AU-compatible plug-in or virtual instrument in their DP4 projects.

• Support for Pro Tools|HD and TDM - A future free update of DP4 will provide support for Pro Tools hardware running under the Digidesign Audio Engine (DAE), allowing DP4 to serve as the software front end for a Pro Tools HD or MIX TDM system of any size.

Users who currently own Digital Performer can order the DP4 upgrade online. A competitive crossgrade is also available.

For more information, visit their web site at www.motu.com.