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PBR for Audio Software Interfaces (2016)

auburnsounds.com

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Re: PBR for Audio Software Interfaces (2016)

#11

Post by FigBug »

Kuraj wrote: post #4

The article itself is very interesting but the skeuomorphic UI looks horrible to use - especially the knobs, because there is no intuitive AND practical way to emulate twisting stuff with a mouse pointer. Can anyone with practical experience with this tool share their opinion?

I hate skeuomorphic UI and wish it would die. The number of users that have ever used a hardware compressor, eq, gate, analog synth etc is much smaller than the number of users that have grown up creating music completely on their PC. I think it makes more sense to focus on the second group.

The plugins I work on tend to look more like software than any piece of hardware. I still use knobs because they are more efficient use of screen real estate. When you click / drag them, left is decrease, right is increase. You don't need to drag around like a physical knob.

Here is one set of plugins I did: https://www.tracktion.com/products/daw-essentials-collection

Re: PBR for Audio Software Interfaces (2016)

#12

Post by tomc1985 »

jpfed wrote: post #10
tomc1985 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Music plugins have to have skeumorphic UIs, nobody wants to twist generic looking knobs. C'mon man, these are artists, they are not the average muggle. If designers from this world got ahold of the music scene from that world plugins would get considerably worse, as UI's would be the focus of intense simplification, leaving complex features and their power users by the wayside.

Is there any actual evidence that "nobody wants to twist generic looking knobs"? It seems like a widespread assumption, but I don't know to what extent it's been measured or tested. I, for example, am a nobody (a hobbyist musician) who dislikes most custom VST UIs. Back in the day, FL Studio (nee Fruityloops) shipped with a bunch of plugins that looked like they had an autogenerated UI, with every parameter getting i…

I know exactly of that auto-generated UI (I also do hobbyist stuff with FL) and I hated it. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

There's also the unintended side effect that now I know how to operate studio recording equipment because skeumorphic UI taught me how so many of these things work.

Re: PBR for Audio Software Interfaces (2016)

#13

Post by fit2rule »

FigBug wrote: post #11
Kuraj wrote: post #4

The article itself is very interesting but the skeuomorphic UI looks horrible to use - especially the knobs, because there is no intuitive AND practical way to emulate twisting stuff with a mouse pointer. Can anyone with practical experience with this tool share their opinion?

I hate skeuomorphic UI and wish it would die. The number of users that have ever used a hardware compressor, eq, gate, analog synth etc is much smaller than the number of users that have grown up creating music completely on their PC. I think it makes more sense to focus on the second group. The plugins I work on tend to look more like software than any piece of hardware. I still use knobs because they are more effic…

Its really nice to see your work, it does indeed represent the non-skeu way of going, but .. you lost me at knob.

I mean, it is a bit of a cop-out, and you can't go "skeu is the sux" and then .. just use it.

My question to you, then, is: how would you re-do the knob? It is a uniquely viable control; but lets say you -had- to get rid of it. What, then?

Re: PBR for Audio Software Interfaces (2016)

#14

Post by arximboldi »

tomc1985 wrote: post #9
Kuraj wrote: post #4

The article itself is very interesting but the skeuomorphic UI looks horrible to use - especially the knobs, because there is no intuitive AND practical way to emulate twisting stuff with a mouse pointer. Can anyone with practical experience with this tool share their opinion?

Music plugins have to have skeumorphic UIs, nobody wants to twist generic looking knobs. C'mon man, these are artists, they are not the average muggle. If designers from this world got ahold of the music scene from that world plugins would get considerably worse, as UI's would be the focus of intense simplification, leaving complex features and their power users by the wayside.

No they don't. Best audio software does not have skewmorphic UI's. I personally prefer minimalist looks. Ableton Live is a good example in the other direction.

Re: PBR for Audio Software Interfaces (2016)

#15

Post by fundamental »

Kuraj wrote: post #4

The article itself is very interesting but the skeuomorphic UI looks horrible to use - especially the knobs, because there is no intuitive AND practical way to emulate twisting stuff with a mouse pointer. Can anyone with practical experience with this tool share their opinion?

I would disagree with regards to the usability of knobs. They represent the information that would otherwise be presented in a numeric text box or a slider in a much more compact space (since it's angular vs. linear displacement) and the mouse based interaction generally is the same as a slider (grab and then move vertically to change or move vertically with a modifier for fine grained movement).

There are applications out there which use angular drag/mouse information when grabbing knobs, but they are the tiny minority (and as you can guess there's all sorts of issues doing so).

Re: PBR for Audio Software Interfaces (2016)

#16

Post by indigochill »

Kuraj wrote: post #4

The article itself is very interesting but the skeuomorphic UI looks horrible to use - especially the knobs, because there is no intuitive AND practical way to emulate twisting stuff with a mouse pointer. Can anyone with practical experience with this tool share their opinion?

No experience with this exact tool, but I use Reason which is a DAW with a Skeumorphic UI (right down to connecting components with virtual wires) and I find knob-fiddling to work just fine for me. The knobs read from my mouse scroll wheel when I hover the cursor over them. And in some (most?) cases, there's also a value field I can edit directly if I want to be precise.

Or if I want to automate a gradual knob change over time as the song plays, I can either record myself "scrolling" the knob or draw the change into an automation track (and again, can set precise values for knob values at precise times if I want to).

But of course, professionals own hardware that they connect to the DAW, which renders most of that stuff irrelevant.

Re: PBR for Audio Software Interfaces (2016)

#17

Post by AstralStorm »

fundamental wrote: post #15
Kuraj wrote: post #4

The article itself is very interesting but the skeuomorphic UI looks horrible to use - especially the knobs, because there is no intuitive AND practical way to emulate twisting stuff with a mouse pointer. Can anyone with practical experience with this tool share their opinion?

I would disagree with regards to the usability of knobs. They represent the information that would otherwise be presented in a numeric text box or a slider in a much more compact space (since it's angular vs. linear displacement) and the mouse based interaction generally is the same as a slider (grab and then move vertically to change or move vertically with a modifier for fine grained movement). There are applicatio…

As a bonus you get zero precision as manifested by endless fiddling to set the control just right. If it is digital, give a nice digital input. If you want, feel free to also give a clickable interface of the knob but please let dragging die, and always provide numeric input.

Re: PBR for Audio Software Interfaces (2016)

#19

Post by janoc »

So, now an audio plugin system has a physically based graphics rendering engine using OpenGL - in order to save diskspace by eliminating pictures of KNOBS?

Am I the only person who considers this beyond idiotic? So now the audio processing machine doesn't need only a powerful CPU for audio but also a good GPU with good OpenGL drivers so that a plugin (not even the main application, but a plugin!) can draw its knobs?

Seriously, what were they thinking? Why does a plugin even need photo-realistic looking controls? It is not like they work any better than a regular button or slider ...

There is a saying in engineering - "That you can do something doesn't mean you should ..."

double facepalm

Re: PBR for Audio Software Interfaces (2016)

#20

Post by fabiofzero »

The UI would be much better with just the base color channel. The other bells and whistles are just skeuomorphic masturbation and actually get in the way of understanding what's actually going on in the UI.

There's a reason why most DAWs are adopting a simplified, mostly flat and highly readable UI, and this goes absolutely against the current trend.

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