Week One - 06/05/2002
Digital Performer's Tracks Window Freeze.
I'm pretty sure this has happened to you before, whenever you are working in DP3 and you don't see the tracks window responding, you cannot close it or move it or do anything with it, but the transport control (playback control) still running and you still can hear sound coming out of the computer. This is a bug in the program and it doesn't mean the computer crashed (hopefully) it is just the window, and it's easy to fix. Just click on the frozen window (Tracks Window) then press Command+W (means while holding down Command press W) and then Shift+T to open the window again that will do the trick. The Command key is also known as the little apple in your keyboard.
Victor Gonzalez

Week Two - 06/19/2002
Digital Performer's Tracks Window Freeze, Continuation.
Since this problem have been driving people nuts, another solution have been reported.
Even though it might sound odd, a lot of users have noticed that if you keep the track overview window open in the way so it doesn't cover all width of your monitor, the window never freeze. 2/3 of your monitor width is a good starting point.
I hope these two solutions will keep us away of troubles until the next DP update.
Daniel Birczynski

Week Three - 06/24/2002
Setting up your movie start time in Digital Performer.
If you ever have worked with movies, you have noticed that the SMPTE start time of the movie is usually set to 1:00:00:00 (the first number in SMPTE address, which is an hour, represents the reel number). When you try to lock the movie to your sequence in DP the movie will start to play at one hour (somewhere around the 1600th to 1800th measure depending on the tempo). What we really want is to set the beginning of the sequence to match the beginning of the movie. This is how you do it.

1. Set you movie start time to 1:00:00:00 in the movie window menu. If the movie does not begin at 1:00:00:00 set it accordingly.

2. Open the counter from the windows menu (SHIFT+J).

3. In the Counter menu set the chunk start time to 1:00:00:00.

That's all. Now when you play your sequence the movie will start at measure one.

Victor Gonzalez

Week Four - 07/04/2002
Holiday tip.
Call me lazy but because of the 4th of July I'm not going to write my own tip.
Instead, I would like to present a very interesting web site where you will find enough tips for the whole summer so I don't have to do anything. Just kidding. Next week I'll get you a tip of my own.
Here is the link.
Daniel Birczynski

Week Five - 07/08/2002
Setting up countoff.
This is a very basic and simple tip. During recording, the countoff is very useful but you don't want to wait two measures just for playback. You could turn off the countoff when playing back and then, turn it on when recording but that's too much clicking. There is an option in the Click & Countoff Options window; countoff only when recording. Just enable it and - voila! You can keep the countoff on all the time and it will only work when needed, meaning, when recording.
Daniel Birczynski

Week Six - 07/11/2002
DP & Reason. Tweaking Reason in Rewire mode.
During the last DP Club session the question was raised: how to set up DP and Reason so we can tweak Reason's modules when it's slaved to DP in ReWire mode.
Here is the setup using OMS Emulator. In FreeMidi preferences check the FreeMidi applications only (DP will play in the background), and Inter-application MIDI. In Reason's midi preferences set the Sequencer Port to DP but External Control to your midi controller.
This will allow you to play the sequence in sync with Reason and you'll be able to go to Reason and tweak any parameter while playing the module in real time from your midi controller. Once you get the right settings you should switch the External Control back to DP so when you sequence the track on DP it will play it back.
I just tested it and it's working but if for some reason it doesn't for you, send me and e-mail.

Daniel Birczynski

Week Seven - 07/23/2002
Moving stuff from one project to another - Clippings.
Since DP allows us to have only one project open at the time we can't just drag and drop stuff from one session to another. We have to use Clippings.
There are two kinds of Clippings. Project Clipping and Digital Performer Clipping. They are folders in which we can put anything (midi track, whole sequence, audio, effect settings, or a text document) that we think we will need later. Project Clipping belongs to the project but Digital Performer Clipping can be access from any project.
For example, if we want to use a groove from one sequence in another project we simple create a new Digital Performer Clipping (under Windows menu), select the groove in the Track Overview Window, and drag it into to the clipping window. Then in the new project we open this clipping and drag the groove onto a track.

Daniel Birczynski

Week Eight - 08/10/2002
DP&Reason. Mixing Reason tracks in Reason versus in DP.
This is just an idea that you might take into consideration.
The way audio is usually routed in Reason when you add modules is that so each module goes to the mixer. From the mixer stereo out, the mixed signal goes to the Reason Hardware Interface audio outputs 1 & 2. Reason offers 64 audio outputs and if it's set to the ReWire mode you can see the list of these outputs as the input selection in DP.
If you simply want to hear the signal from Reason through DP you would assign one aux track to Reason outputs 1 & 2 (main L&R). In this scenario you can take advantage of Reason's mixer and effects. But what if you want to take advantage of the DP mixing environment. Here is what you do. In Reason, instead of going through the mixer, you route each module to the separate outputs on the hardware interface. Then in DP you assign aux tracks to Reason's outputs 1&2, 3&4, 5&6, and etc.
This configuration allows for each of your Reason modules to come up on the separate aux track in DP so you can mix everything entirely in one software.

Daniel Birczynski

Week Nine - 08/16/2002
Allocating RAM, buffers in DP.
I've been thinking about presenting this topic here for a while but it was the Rob Shrock's article in the September'02 issue of the Electronic Musician magazine that cleared it all for me. So here it comes.
In DP, there are two types of buffer settings. The voice allocation buffer (Studio Configuration) and the Samples Per Buffer (Configure Hardware Driver). The first one deals with read/write buffers for each audio track, which determines HD performance and how fast the program will react to play command. According to Rob Shrock, this buffer is not using the RAM allocated to DP but the left over RAM that's available. So it is important to give DP enough RAM so it runs smoothly but don't give out the whole available RAM (leave something for this buffer).
The second type of buffers (Samples Per Buffer) determines how many samples are buffered for each channel. The size of this buffer influences the latency between live input and prerecorded audio. Higher number gives more latency but takes hit off of the CPU, lower number is better for tracking (due to lower latency) but is harder on CPU.
The right settings will vary depending on your system. To determine the DP RAM allocation open Performance window and while working make sure that the CPU meter doesn't max out. But if it shows that youčre using only small percentage of allocated RAM, decrease the number in the memory settings for DP. For the Samples Per Buffer, 512 samples is usually a good starting point and if the computer chokes increase the number.
I strongly recommend you read the whole article in the EM, thank you Rob Shrock.

Daniel Birczynski

Week Ten - 09/06/2002
Screen Sets
If you are like myself, one of those people who don't have a 22-inch display, you might find it difficult to work with different windows on a small monitor. Tracks, sequence editor, audio editor, chunks, markers, soundbites can give you a headache if you have to switch between them and resize them. Screen sets will help you work faster, period.
If you go to the Window menu and then Window Sets you will see default sets that you can call up. But what makes it really easier is you own sets. Arrange you windows in your favorite three or four sets, then Capture Window Set from the same menu for each of the set. Name them and then go to Edit Window Sets and assign the key commands. This will allow you to go from one set to another very quickly so you can concentrate more on music. One more little thing, if you move from one computer to another you can take your window sets with you. Just copy the Window Sets file from Digital Performer preferences folder.

Daniel Birczynski