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STRATEGY FOR THE DAY: Change horses in midstream.

What's all this I hear about reptile dysfunction???

I've been tryiing to upgrade my music software after a few years of just enjoying the status quo. I am in software HELL! Here's the skinny... Digital Performer, my preferred digital audio sequencer, has gone through several versions since I installed it about 4 years ago. Everyone knows that one month of human time is equal to approximately 10 years in the world of computer software and they've been BUSY every minute of it!

Consequently my version of Digital Performer - DP3 - was several versions old by now. Gee, they've gone through DP 4, 4.5, 4.6, 5.0, 5.01! Not to mention Mac OS's. DP3 was the last version to work with OS 9. I have both OS 9 and OS X (Tiger) running on my Mac G4. They are on separate volumes so I can boot from either one. I was booting from OS 9 to work with my familiar, easy-to-use, dependable, let's-all-join-hands-and-work-together-now music programs, like Reason and Digital Performer. They created a beautiful blend. The great sound and mixing capability of DP with the rock-solid rhythm anchor of Reason running behind it. What a combo! I was happy, so why not upgrade? I'm not quite sure I follow my own logic there. DP 5 has some nice new bells and whistles (a Beat Detection engine, a pitch correction tool, and some virtual instruments which turned out to sound really awful).

As soon as I upgraded to DP5 I started to have problems. Latency issues with audio recording (Had to buy a new audio card - $300), ugly little spurts of notes coming from Reason when I tried to sync it with DP5. Nothing is working well enough for me to use this set-up. Having installed the new audio card I am unable to go back to DP 3. Hmmmmmm.

I have found that I am not alone. At a DP users forum, I discovered others just like me. I am getting a very bad feeling about this.

I have written to Tech Support. This is not a good sign.

To be continued... I hope.

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Read A Brief History Of Love Songs by Robin Frederick at the Sound Experience Music web site.

Copyright 2006 Robin Frederick. All rights reserved.