Digital Performer
Digital Performer 4.61 running on Mac OS X
Developer:	MOTU
Latest release:	5.13 / 2007-11-19
OS:	Mac OS X
Genre:	MIDI sequencer + Digital Audio Workstation
Website:	http://www.motu.com/products/software/dp/

Digital Performer is a full-featured Digital Audio Workstation/Sequencer software package published by Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) of Cambridge, Massachusetts for the Apple Macintosh platform. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1024x768, 197 KB) A screenshot of MOTU Digital Performer 4. ... “Software development” redirects here. ... Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) is a music-related computer software and hardware supplier. ... Code complete redirects here. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 323rd day of the year (324th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. ... Mac OS X (pronounced ) is a line of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... Computer software can be organized into categories based on common function, type, or field of use. ... In the field of electronic music, a sequencer was originally any device that recorded and played back a sequence of control information for an electronic musical instrument. ... A digital audio workstation (DAW) is a system designed to record, edit and play back digital audio. ... A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN. A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML... A digital audio workstation (DAW) is a system designed to record, edit and play back digital audio. ... In the field of electronic music, a sequencer was traditionally a device or piece of software that allows the user to record, play back and edit musical patterns. ... Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) is a music-related computer software and hardware supplier. ... Location in Middlesex County in Massachusetts Coordinates: , Country State County Middlesex Settled 1630 Incorporated 1636 Government  - Type Mayor-City Council  - Mayor Kenneth Reeves (D) Area  - Total 7. ... The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, upgraded to a 512K Fat Mac. The Macintosh or Mac, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, manufactured, and marketed by Apple Computer. ...

Digital Performer's ancestry

Mark of the Unicorn released Professional Composer in 1984. It was one of the first application programs for the Macintosh. The program used the Macintosh's high-resolution graphics and printing to allow the user to publish scores that appeared professionally engraved. This article is about the year. ...

In 1985, the company released a music sequencer which they named Performer. Performer took advantage of the Macintosh's crisp graphic interface for arranging and performing with various synthesizers and other devices which recognized the relatively new MIDI standard. Sending a series of numerical values, such a sequencer could direct many instruments, commanding which notes to play, at what loudness, and for how long to sustain them. There are many deep features in the MIDI protocol; MOTU developed extended capabilities in Digital Performer for handling these controllers and other actions (including remote operation of the software itself) through user-customizable graphical consoles, allowing the operator direct access to deeper features of instruments, stage lighting and various types of machines, all via MIDI interfaces and custom graphic buttons and sliders. This article is about the year. ... Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is a system designed to transmit information between electronic musical instruments. ... In the field of electronic music, a sequencer was traditionally a device or piece of software that allows the user to record, play back and edit musical patterns. ...

The competition

Another top-notch Macintosh sequencer, Opcode's Vision, challenged MOTU's Performer in what was for years a neck-and-neck race for more sophisticated features. The most important of those features was the introduction of the Graphic Editor window, which MOTU added to Performer in late 1991, some months after it appeared in Vision. This editor displayed music graphically on what resembled a horizontally scrolling "piano roll", with lines or bars representing notes. One could drag the bars around on the page and change their pitch, their timing, and their length. Arrangements or edits could be made very quickly, since it was no longer necessary to type the coordinates of each note manually. Year 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the 1991 Gregorian calendar). ... It has been suggested that Music roll be merged into this article or section. ...

While Vision's interface catered more toward the songwriter's working technique, Performer was more aligned with the ethics and methods of composers of larger works, and is often found in use by composers of film scores, and other professional composers and arrangers. Both were very popular, but Vision's parent company, Opcode, was bought by the Gibson company, and unfortunately development on Vision ceased. Orphaned Vision users changed to other popular sequencers, including Performer, Cakewalk, Cubase, and Emagic's Logic, which would eventually become a property of Apple Computer. ÊCakewalk is a company based in Boston, Massachusetts that develops music [[interchange of projects between SONAR and other competing recording/editing software (e. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Emagic Logic is a music sequencing application produced by the German Hamburg-based firm Emagic since 1992. ...

The native Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) arrives

In 1990, MOTU added the ability to synchronise audio (digital audio) to Performer and released it as "Digital Performer," months after Opcode added this capability to Vision. Digital Performer was originally designed as a front-end to Digidesign's Audiomedia hard disk recording system, which later became Pro Tools. Digital Performer's specific appeal was its MIDI environment, which was fitted into the same transport system as the audio environment. This enabled users to record their MIDI instruments and mix the results with other live audio recorded in the studio (or vice versa). Personal computers of this time were too slow to handle high quality recording via their own CPU, so the addition of DSP co-processor cards was necessary to create a functioning audio recording studio. As the Mac's CPU became powerful enough to record the digitized audio directly to hard disk, the DSP cards were gradually rendered unnecessary. Foreseeing this, MOTU created its own Motu Audio System (MAS) which helped Digital Performer to tap the Macintosh's native power to record music directly to its own hard drive without the need for external co-processing and dedicated drives. By 2000, Digital Performer allowed users to record, mix, and master audio for commercial releases. Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar). ... Digital audio comprises audio signals stored in a digital format. ... Digidesign is an American digital audio technology company. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This page includes English translations of several Latin phrases and abbreviations such as . ... Digital signal processing (DSP) is the study of signals in a digital representation and the processing methods of these signals. ... A co-processor is a secondary processor in a computer that handles tasks that the general-purpose CPU either cannot implement, or does not implement for efficiency reasons. ... Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full 2000 Gregorian calendar). ... Methods and media for sound recording are varied and have undergone significant changes between the first time sound was actually recorded for later playback until now. ... Audio mixing is used in sound recording, audio editing and sound systems to balance the relative volume and frequency content of a number of sound sources. ... Mastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master); the source from which all copies will be produced (via methods such as pressing, duplication or replication). ...

Digital Performer in Mac OS X – present day and the future

Version 3 of Digital Performer was the last to run on OS 9, the Classic Macintosh operating system. After a complete rewrite, MOTU released Digital Performer 4.0 in May of 2003, which ran exclusively on Mac OS X. Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Mac OS X (pronounced ) is a line of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ...

Beginning with version 4.5, MOTU introduced a number of important new features to Digital Performer. The two most important of these are built in pitch correction capability, and a Masterworks EQ plugin that rivals high end 3rd party EQ plugins in terms of quality. Beginning with version 5.0, MOTU also introduced a set of virtual instruments.

Updated to version 5.13 on 19th November 2007 to provide compatibility with Mac_OS_X_v10.5, and available in Universal Binary, Digital Performer is one of the best-selling audio workstations on the Macintosh^{[citation needed]}. Faster Apple CPUs continue to increase its capacity and performance to the highest professional standards. Chief among its competition on the Macintosh platform are Pro Tools and Apple's Logic. Mac OS X version 10. ... Universal Binary Logo A Universal binary is — in Apple Computers parlance — an application bundle that runs natively on both PowerPC- and x86 (Intel)-based Macintosh computers. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Logic Pro is a MIDI sequencer and Digital Audio Workstation software application that runs on the Mac OS X platform. ...

Notable users

Some notable users include the film composers Danny Elfman ^[1], Michael Giacchino, Elliot Goldenthal^[2],David Bryan^[3],David Lawrence ^[4], Dream Theater, Joe Solo (Producer/Composer/Writer), Don Davis ^[5] and Matmos ^[6]. Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953 in Los Angeles, California) is an American musician who led the rock band Oingo Boingo as singer / songwriter from 1976 until its breakup in 1995, and has composed film scores extensively since 1985s Pee-wees Big Adventure. ... Michael Giacchino Michael Giacchino (pronounced juh-kee-no) (born in Riverside, New Jersey) is an American soundtrack composer who has composed several multi-award winning scores for many popular movies, television series and video games. ... Elliot Goldenthal, born on May 2, 1954, in Brooklyn, New York City, is an American composer of contemporary music and has written works for concert hall, theater, dance and film. ... David Bryan Rashbaum, better known as David Bryan (born 7 February 1962) is a musician and plays keyboards for Bon Jovi. ... David Lawrence can refer to many different People: David L. Lawrence is the former Pennsylvania governer. ... Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band comprising James LaBrie, John Petrucci, Jordan Rudess, John Myung, and Mike Portnoy. ... Donald Romain Davis (born February 4, 1957) is an American film score composer, conductor, and orchestrator. ... Matmos (left to right): Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt Matmos is an experimental electronica duo from San Francisco on the Matador Records label. ...

References

1. ^ Danny Elfman: Building Music for the Movies. Apple. Retrieved on 2007-05-19.
2. ^ DPUser Update: Elliot Goldenthal. Digital Performer Users. Retrieved on 2007-05-19.
3. ^ DPUser Update: David Bryan. Digital Performer Users. Retrieved on 2007-05-19.
4. ^ DPUser Update: David Lawrence. Digital Performer Users. Retrieved on 2007-05-19.
5. ^ Digital Performer for Film Scoring. MOTU. Retrieved on 2007-05-19.
6. ^ Matmos. Sound on Sound. Retrieved on 2007-11-30.

http://www.motu.com/products/software/dp/studio.html This article is about the fruit. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 139th day of the year (140th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 139th day of the year (140th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 139th day of the year (140th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 139th day of the year (140th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) is a music-related computer software and hardware supplier. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 139th day of the year (140th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... SOS, May 2006 Sound on Sound is a monthly music technology magazine published by SOS Publications Group, based in Cambridge, UK. The magazine was launched in 1985 on the UK Channel 4 television programme, The Tube. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 334th day of the year (335th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Digital Performer website
• The Largest Online Community of Digital Performer Users
• Big Blue Lounge DP Forum
• MOTU Digital Performer Lab Results by Mitch Gallagher