Digital Performer 12 Ships

MOTU is shipping Digital Performer version 12, a major upgrade to its flagship audio workstation software. New features include support for immersive mixing in Dolby Atmos™, AI-powered stem separation of full mixes, a new Arrangement Strip feature, enhanced Track Freeze, and dozens of additional user-requested enhancements.

Jim Cooper, Director of Marketing at MOTU, told us, "DP users are going to love Version 12. It's jam-packed with a great balance of exciting new marquee features like Dolby Atmos mixing and stem separation, combined with a new level of interactive feel, plus dozens of workflow enhancements and user-requested features."

Here's the details direct from MOTU...

Mix, Render and Export in Dolby Atmos®
Dolby Atmos has transformed how entertainment is created and experienced, delivering an intense, immersive listening experience. DP12 gives users all the tools they need to mix, render and deliver spatialized mixes in Dolby Atmos. Users can place and move sounds, effects, instruments, dialog or any audio source throughout the three-dimensional sound field, with elevation, using DP12's powerful and familiar mix automation features. Immersive mixes can be monitored on a surround speaker system up to 9.1.6 (where the .6 represents the height channels), or users can listen to the 3D sound space binaurally on any standard headphones. From creating an immersive remix of a song for streaming platforms like Apple Music® or Tidal®, to mixing 3D sound, dialog, and music for an indie film, DP12 provides inspiration from initial concept to polished mix.

AI-powered stem separation
DP12's new Stem Separation feature can split an original mix, perhaps a favorite song, and break it out into individual instrument tracks (stems): drums, bass, vocals, guitar -- and even ensemble strings and brass. From there, users can do anything they want with the resulting tracks: remixes, mashups or other creative directions. If a user wants to practice a part on their own instrument, they can mute that stem track and play along with the rest of the mix. Stem Separation unleashes creative possibilities with original material, from classic tracks to today's latest hits.

Arrangement Strip
DP12's new Arrangement Strip appears just below the timeline in the Tracks Overview and Sequence Editor tabs. It allows users to re-arrange their song by simply dragging each section's colored bar to reorder the sections across all tracks. Sections snap to each other, but users can also create gaps, if needed, when scoring to picture or other musical situations. Many shortcuts are provided, such as Option/Alt-dragging to duplicate, snipping (removing a section and closing the gap), and splitting sections with the Scissor Tool, all with simple gestures.

Other enhancements

Enhanced Track Freeze -- Freeze tracks directly with one click, without adding a new separate track for frozen audio. Continue to mix tracks while they're frozen. Flatten frozen tracks to freeze them permanently.

Main MIDI Controller menu -- Choose an external MIDI controller, or multiple MIDI controllers, as your primary MIDI input device(s) to manage MIDI input and filter out unwanted MIDI from connected devices.

Hover Effects -- DP12 feels more reactive and dynamic, with hover effects and animations when navigating around the interface.

MusicXML Import -- Digital Performer can now import MusicXML files, as well as export them. This allows for complete, round-trip interchange with 3rd-party music notation software applications, such as Dorico™, Sibelius™ and MuseScore™.

Enhanced Drag-and-Drop File Import -- When dropping external audio files or standard MIDI files (SMFs) into the timeline of the Tracks Overview or Sequence Editor, you can target an existing track, or the space between tracks, which creates a new track (or multiple tracks) between them. You can also target a specific location in the timeline, as indicated by an outlined box as you drag.

Tags and Search Enhancements -- Tags serve as searchable keywords for tracks and chunks. Create as many tags as you wish and assign them as desired to tracks and chunks. You can then use tags for track and chunk searching and sorting.

Enhanced Searching -- The Search boxes in the Tracks List and Chunks List now feature a menu allowing you to search for names, tags, comment text, or any combination of the three.

Preference Window Search -- Quickly find and modify settings and options. Type any keyword to immediately filter the current view.

Search for Commands by Key Binding -- In the Commands window, you can now search for commands by key binding. This makes it easy to find which command is assigned to a particular key binding.

Commands window Keysets -- Keysets let you quickly switch among different key binding sets as you work, depending on the specific task at hand, such as editing or spotting to picture versus tracking in the studio. Set up custom keysets for each task and then quickly switch between them.

Track Presets -- A track preset can include any track settings, from I/O and EQ settings to plug-in chains. Drag & drop presets from the Content Browser to apply them to existing tracks or create new tracks from them. DP12 provides dozens of presets to get you started with vocals, drums, bass, guitar and many other instruments. Or create and recall your own presets.

Custom presets for fades and crossfades -- Save and recall custom presets for fades and crossfades. Drag and drop fade presets from the Content Browser.

Enhanced AAF/OMF support -- Improved compatibility with newer projects generated under the most recent standard.

Large Counter window enhancements -- Resize the Large Counter window both vertically and horizontally. Resize counter text independently from the window size.

Updated surround formats -- DP12 now supports all current industry standard surround formats, including 7.1.2 and 9.1.6.

Support for High Frame Rates (HFR) -- Digital Performer now supports high frame rates above 30 fps, including 47.952, 48, 50, 59.94, 60, 100, 119.88 and 120 fps.

Tutorials Window -- Provides an interactive experience for learning Digital Performer quickly.

Flyover Help Window -- Provides a brief description of user interface elements when you hover the cursor over them.

Support for VST3 auto-migration -- Enables compatible plugins (such as Native Instruments Kontakt) to seamlessly upgrade or change versions while preserving settings and automation.

Performer Producer Pack -- Delivers hundreds of audio loops, MIDI chords and MIDI arpeggios.

Pricing and Availability:

Digital Performer 12 is now shipping for macOS (12.7 or later) and Windows 11 (24H2 or later). Pricing remains the same, as follows:

Full version: $499
Competitive upgrade: $395
Performer Lite upgrade: $395
Upgrade from previous version: $195

Users of competing products can purchase the DP12 Competitive Upgrade from motu.com or from any authorized MOTU reseller.

More information:

• Digital Performer

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