DP 4.5 First Look: Sound On Sound Magazine

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In the January 2005 issue of SOS Magazine, now available at your local newsstand, regular DP columnist Robin Bigwood delivers some of his first impressions of the new features in DP 4.5.

"Digital Performer 4.5 is being hailed as the most important upgrade in the application's history, and genuinely offers a huge step up over version 4.12."

On upgrading to 4.5 from OS9

"DP 4.5 might well be the catalyst that will persuade the majority of OS9 die-hards to commit to an all-OS X system. There would certainly seem to be no better time to switch, if you haven't already. As long as you have a fairly recent Mac you should find life in ‘X’ a thoroughly pleasant experience."

On the new bussing and aux channel enhancements

"This is one of the less obvious benefits of DP 4.5, but it's a very important enhancement...the ability to have stereo aux sends marks a great leap forward in convenience for DP users."

On Latency Compensation

"One of the greatest new features of DP 4.5 is plug-in latency compensation, which eradicates the timing problems caused by plug-ins (such as Altiverb, or various Waves processors) that impose a delay on the audio they treat. In DP 4.5, tracks which use these plug-ins have audio delivered to them ahead of time, so that they eventually line up with other tracks. As far as the user is concerned, everything plays in time and no thought is required!"

On the Consolidated Window

"As far as workflow goes, this is the crowning glory of DP 4.5....Basically, it's one big window with up to three columns - a central main body plus a left and right sidebar - and potentially unlimited ‘rows’ within each column. The resulting ‘cells’ can contain DP's most important windows. It's all highly configurable, and as you pass through the stages of development in a Project the Consolidated Window can offer you almost as much flexibility as individual windows, but a far greater degree of organisation and accessibility. I can't foresee a situation, except perhaps when using a multi-monitor setup, when I wouldn't use it exclusively from now on."

On the upgrade in general

"DP 4.5 delivers new features that promise to fundamentally change the way users work, as well as offering smaller but crucial enhancements to existing features."