MOTU Performer

This is an article culled from archive material, circa 1997.

Performer was the first professional-level sequencing package on the market; I bought version 2.31 back around 1987. It was best known for its ideosyncratic styling, which meant that windows could not be click-dragged or command-dragged, and the scroll bars did not behave as in standard Macintosh applications. On the other hand, the pull-down title-bar menus worked well, and the graphical layout was good. Performer does have its own particular strengths, such as extremely flexible nested looping of track data.

As the sequencer wars progressed, Performer grew frighteningly both in size and features. It encompassed graphical chunk layout, graphical and score editing, onscreen fader panels, device lists, and numerous other odds and ends designed to score points against the competition (specifically, Steinberg's Cubase and Opcode's Vision). Performer was at a disadvantage against the latter since Vision used Opcode's OMS system; MOTU steadfastly refused to support it, although they did incorporate MIDI Manager support (except for system exclusive transfer, a bug which has not been fixed in the four years since I reported it). MIDI Manager support is the only reason I still use Performer, and I refuse to use any of the bloated versions beyond 3.64, which is perfectly functional and provides a nice balance of features. I bought version 4, but found it to be big and buggy. Version 5 is even bigger and more feature-laden, supports colour, and looks totally spectacular, but I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole.

I cannot and will not recommend Performer over Vision; that choice is one which locks a user into one particular set of products and upgrade options, so the choice is between more than sequencing packages. Personally, I switch between Performer and Vision regularly, depending on the project's particular needs. Since I do most of my MIDI work in Max anyway, choice of sequencer is not that important to me.