Ready for Anything?
Whatever program you use, it’s a real time saver to develop a customized default template. That way, when you start a new project, all of your track routings, groups, favorite instruments, efx, etc., are there waiting for you. No fuss. No muss.
I have customized templates for Reason, LIVE, Logic and DP. What I want to do is share information on a couple of my templates and the “why” behind some of the choices I’ve made in the hopes that you will find the info useful.
Of course all of this is still evolving as I learn more and have new experiences. So if you have any suggestions, or see me heading down a blind alley, I’d appreciate your feedback.
Digital Performer
Anytime I create a new project, this is the project template that pops up ready to use. (If you click on the image, you get a really large 1280 x 1024 version in a new window or browser tab.) The template for DP6 is probably the most involved and evolved since I’ve been using DP6 a lot lately. It’s also the one undergoing active development as I learn more about the program every time I use it. I want first to give a quick overview on each section of the template and then go into more depth on some of the sections in future installments. So, let’s get started…
The Big Picture
The template has seven main sections with track and routing assignments ready to go. Note that every sequence may not use every section, so to keep things tidy, I use collapsible folders and sub-folders. That way, I can hide sections I do not need. (In the image, folders have the little triangles next to them and their rows are a darker shade of grey. These can be folded or unfolded. Here everything is unfolded.)
The major sections of the template are as follows:
1 – Virtual Instruments: I use Virtual Instruments (VIs) almost exclusively, so this section is at the top and front and center. This section is further broken down into subsections/folders
- “VRack Audio” for managing input from the “virtual rack” of instruments you can set up in DP to be shared across sequences;*
- “Virtual Instruments” for sequence specific VIs; and,
- “MainStage” which is a set of tracks I’ve set up specifically to deal with Logic’s MainStage application, so that I can access most all of Logic8′s VIs. (It’s pretty kludgy and kind of limited, but it does work.)
You’ll note that there are dedicated MIDI and Audio tracks for each VI. This is due to DP’s method for instantiating and working with plug-ins. The naming looks horribly generic (e.g., “Instr-1 MIDI”, “Instr-1 VI”), but using these generic names speeds up work later. (More on that in the future.)
3 – Hardware Instruments: This is the section where I send MIDI to and capture audio from my hardware. Currently, I have a Waldorf MicroQ and Microwave II, K2000RS, Novation SuperNova2, and Roland V-Synth XT hooked up to my mixer and MOTU 828Mk2. This section is set-up a little oddly because of current limitations in my set-up. I’ll go into that next time. (And yes, this paragraph should have been #2 instead of #3, but I just noticed the error in the image. Ah well….)
4 – Loops and Audio: This section handles any (…wait for it…) loops and audio files (found sounds, efx, etc.) that I may use in a piece.
5 – Rewire Apps: These tracks are dedicated to interacting with Reason and/or Live as rewire slave applications. DP requires that tracks exist in your project BEFORE you launch the rewire application, so setting it up in my template saves me time later when, invariably, I forget. I can add more MIDI tracks or audio returns here if I need to work with specific instruments or outputs from Live or Reason.
6 – Kaos Pad Processing: I have a Korg Kaos Pad 3 hooked up to my 828Mk2 as an external effect. It receives audio from and returns audio to the 828 via an internal bus that I set up in DP. This section lets me control that bus.
7 – Aux Returns and Master Fader: I have three buses and their associated auxiliary returns set up for efx processing. Two returns are dedicated to the specific sequence. One return is for an efx bus in the DP virtual rack so I can share efx set-ups between sequences in a project.* I can set up more of either type as I need them. My master fader has an entire set of mastering plug-ins set-up on it, but they are kept deactivated until mixdown.
That’s it for now. I’ll describe some of these sections in greater detail in the future.
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- Learn more about Digital Performer here.
- Motunation – the best user community on the web – can be found here.
* – One way you can use DP is to have multiple sequences in a project that act essentially as different mixes/versions of a song. If after working on a sequence for a while you decide that you want to try a different approach, you simply create a new sequence within the project, copy your tracks to the new sequence, and continue working.
The problem is that each sequence will instantiate it’s own unique set of VI and efx plug-ins EVEN if the plug-ins are the same ones you used in the previous copy of that sequence. After doing this a few times, your machine WILL grind to a halt. I’ve seen it happen and I have an 8-core MacPro with googobs of ram.
DP created V-Racks (“virtual rack”) to address this. A V-Rack allows you to share instrument tracks, aux tracks, or master faders across sequences. It is basically a way of avoiding duplication.
So the way around the problem described above is to take the VIs and efx plug-ins that are shared between sequences into a V-Rack. For example, putting an instance of Kontakt into a V-Rack allows each sequence to access that same instance of Kontakt instead of launching and running its own instance of Kontakt.
