does anyone have any info on early versions of performer?

[supernova777]

screenshots, articles, anything?



this is one of the only images ive ever been able to find
from http://archive.cassiel.com/space/Gearhead/MOTU+Performer/

[MacTron]

Maybe I have somewhere Performer 5 (not Digital Performer 5) or even below... I'll take a look.

Just curious: Why such old versions?

[supernova777]

Maybe I have somewhere Performer 5 (not Digital Performer 5) or even below... I'll take a look.

Just curious: Why such old versions?

curiousity! interest....the electronic music that i like really changed around this time 1990-1991-1992
and i believe the reason is because of the availability of the foundational technology but also because of
"ease of use" + software that empowered people to be able to program music easily in a new 'computer assisted' and pattern based way.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjz0ybO0DQA[/youtube]

im amazed that motu themselves dont have any pages detailing the history of their products for people who are curious..
i should write to them and ask them to create a motu products & technology timeline


this picture is dated as 1985

http://tecfoundation.com/hof/12photos/1985MOTU.jpg

help me search

this page looks cool
http://whitefiles.org/rws/r13.htm
http://whitefiles.org/rws/index.htm

wow this ray white guy has some cool pages here going back way before even the 80s!! and insight into midi networking on those setups..


1980s
vs

1990s


oldschool oms!

[MacTron]

I only found Performer 6 (1997) and Performer 5.5 (1996). But Performer 5.5 don't work at all.
I should have some earlier versions ... but I can't find them.

[arjen_1]

this picture is dated as 1985

LOL That's how I started. My Mac ED had 512K memory and a FD. The only program that was working properly (timing) was Passport Mastertracks Pro4. Performer, Cubase needed more memory. 

Technology changed the music around that period for sure. Besides midi, AKAI samplers were a big step forward.

I uploaded some of my oldest software to FTP before. Could be that there is a early version of Performer in it too. I will see if I can find my old disks. Back in the day I had Performer lying around for sure. Didn't like it though....Cubase was my dream.

[supernova777]

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/oct94/motuperformer.html
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/jun94/applenotes.html

heres an article on performer 5.0 from 1994

CONCLUSION

As a long-term Performer user, I'm very pleased that this upgrade adds such a useful set of new features, and am very happy with the way the look and feel of the interface have been improved graphically. I will certainly choose Performer for the majority of my sequencing needs, but for particular projects I will turn to one of the other sequencers -- as appropriate. If I want to see scrolling notation clearly from a distance, I will choose Vision or Notator Logic. If I want higher-quality notation for printing out from within the MIDI sequencer, I will choose Cubase or Notator Logic.

When you compare the versions of these sequencers which let you use digital audio with a Digidesign system, the picture changes slightly again. For me, the choice here is between Studio Vision for its excellent interface and solid performance, and Logic Audio for its advanced features such as pitch-to-MIDI and timestretching. As far as FreeMIDI is concerned, it is so similar to OMS that it seems crazy to have two competing systems from two of the major companies in this field, neither of which are yet totally compatible with each other. OMS has been around longest, and most of the other manufacturers have started to implement OMS-compatibility. MOTU should bury the hatchet with OMS over this one, and get together with all the others, and with Apple, to make sure that the basic MIDI capabilities work with all MIDI applications on the Mac in a similar way -- so that you can use any combination of MIDI software you choose without the problems that currently arise.

To wrap this up, despite a few reservations on my part, let me congratulate MOTU for having set new standards of excellence in many areas with this new version of Performer -- most noticeably with the slickest-looking graphical user-interface to be found in any Macintosh MIDI software to date.

[mrhappy]

Chris your enthusiasm has got me all re-excited about my old stuff!! Haha! ... and seeing as i'm a bit of a pack rat... I'm thinking' I'll try to fire up the 'ol Mac Plus to take the '87 version of Performer for a spin! Have the matching midi interface and the 'fancy' external 45MB hard drive that cost me almost $1,100.00!!!! Haven't turned it on for probably 15yrs but hey... ya never know?? it MIGHT still work!!

[supernova777]

that reminds me of my spending close to 900$ on a 1gb compact flash for my camera on my trip to europe in 2001....  now its like 30$ to buy one thats 32x the size.. crazy

hard drives in the 80s were not very cool at all. i remember the one i had in my computer circa 87 and it was only a 20mb but the thing weighed about 1lb per megabyte

[P.O.]

How about Performer 1.22?

P.O.

[mrhappy]

Found a box of old 'floppies'... Looks like my original Performer discs... didn't see a version number on them... probably 2-ish as there were also a bunch of update disc starting around 2.41 or so and up to about 3.6ish.. which is probably about as far up as I went with it... brought back a LOT of memories!! Haha!

Won't have a chance to see if it works till next week though.

[chokobo]

I found this today. I totally remember sequencing in Performer 1.22. 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT-6SpQSKKs[/youtube]

[supernova777]

would this performer 1.22 even work on mac os 9?


i saw in the requirements for performer 6 that it showed it did officially support 9.22 os version
and we saw that cubase 1.0 + other really old versions of logic still open in os9
is this the same for performer 1.22?
did anyone try to open this? lol

[geforceg4]

Maybe I have somewhere Performer 5 (not Digital Performer 5) or even below... I'll take a look.

Just curious: Why such old versions?

the older the versions.. the more reliant they were on actual hardware external gear.....

(re: sequencer + librarian packages
performer + unisyn
vision + galaxy
logic + sound diver
cubase + ??  (what is cubase's librarian app called?)