An Excellent Introduction to Digital Performer 
by B Shaw , July 2005

I’ve never used Digital Performer or Mac OS X before although I’ve been recording with PC gear and software for many years. I purchased “Producing Music with Digital Performer” because I was interested in working at a studio that uses DP.

The book made very few assumptions about what I already knew (installing the program is about all) and began by explaining the basics about connecting MIDI and audio gear. Author Ben Newhouse does a fine job of introducing the newbie to all the basics of DP4 including project folders, templates, sequences, and all the various navigation tools and control panel drawers. I’m grateful this information was included although more experienced users would likely skip over this.

The approach taken is always practical and musically relevant as most of the instruction takes the form of “rebuilding” an instrumental track from the included audio CD. Step by step the reader is guided through how to set up the necessary tracks, record, and edit, first using MIDI tracks then audio tracks. A valuable chapter on Mixing demonstrates how to ‘put it all together’ while considering different types of studio set ups. A chapter on Musical Considerations goes beyond using DP and contains a number of midi sequencing tips and tricks that could be valuable regardless of software program used.

The final chapter provides what many books lack and that’s a way to test your knowledge of the subject you’ve been studying. Twelve DP project ‘exercises’ drill you on everything covered in the book, from setting up a project and naming tracks to audio editing and automation. Each step in the exercise includes a reference to the section of the book that covers a particular feature so that you can quickly look it up if you forget how to do something.

Overall I really like this book, I think it’s given me a great heads up on using Digital Performer. Now all I need is to buy a Mac and the latest version of DP.

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