From: Adam Atlas Date: 03:34 on 11 Dec 2006 Subject: Regarding audio software interfaces Dear audio software (including, but not limited to, mixers, synthesizers/samplers, and effects): Who told you you were supposed to look like audio HARDWARE? Please, stop. It's really bad interface design. Love, An aspiring musician who's tired of his music programs being full of fucking knobs and cables and LEDs
From: Daniel Pittman
Date: 03:59 on 11 Dec 2006
Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces
Adam Atlas <adam@xxxxx.xx> writes:
> Dear audio software (including, but not limited to, mixers,
> synthesizers/samplers, and effects):
>
> Who told you you were supposed to look like audio HARDWARE? Please,
> stop. It's really bad interface design.
Oh! Do I feel your hate.
> An aspiring musician who's tired of his music programs being full of
> fucking knobs and cables and LEDs
Thank you, stupid user interface designer. I also hate the way you not
only make the volume control look like a physical knob with a one pixel
"marginally paler black on black" blob to show where the active point
is.
I especially hate the way you decided to continue your real world
metaphor, so you force me to spin the mouse in a circle to rotate the
knob.
Yes, thank you so very, very much.
Daniel
From: Aaron J. Grier Date: 04:37 on 11 Dec 2006 Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces On Sun, Dec 10, 2006 at 10:34:58PM -0500, Adam Atlas wrote: > Who told you you were supposed to look like audio HARDWARE? Please, > stop. It's really bad interface design. no kidding. all this fancy virtual modeling and we're MODELING THE INTERFACE TOO? sliders I can understand, but virtual knobs are the worst. how the hell do you "twist" things with a mouse? prentend it's a slider! MAKING SENSE NOW! some people in the industry seem to like this too. universal audio and bombfactory both seem to take pride in their "it looks like the gear" virtual interfaces.
From: jrodman Date: 05:11 on 11 Dec 2006 Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces On Sun, Dec 10, 2006 at 08:37:43PM -0800, Aaron J. Grier wrote: > some people in the industry seem to like this too. universal audio and > bombfactory both seem to take pride in their "it looks like the gear" > virtual interfaces. I like the ones where you have to click and/or drag (rub?) the comic-book heroes. -josh
From: Robert Rothenberg Date: 09:05 on 11 Dec 2006 Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces On 11/12/06 04:37 Aaron J. Grier wrote: > On Sun, Dec 10, 2006 at 10:34:58PM -0500, Adam Atlas wrote: >> Who told you you were supposed to look like audio HARDWARE? Please, >> stop. It's really bad interface design. In partial defence of this, many people already know how to interact with audio hardware. So it's "intuitive". > [...] > > sliders I can understand, but virtual knobs are the worst. how the hell > do you "twist" things with a mouse? prentend it's a slider! MAKING > SENSE NOW! What about a circular knob that is controlled not by twisting a mouse but by moving the mouse up/down over it? But my all-time favourite is a slider or knob that one controls with a mouse to try and get an *exact* setting (according to a digital readout), because there is no keyboard interface. Some graphics software is guilty of this too.
From: Tia Marie Date: 09:22 on 11 Dec 2006 Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces On Dec 11, 2006, at 1:05 AM, Robert Rothenberg wrote > > But my all-time favourite is a slider or knob that one controls > with a mouse > to try and get an *exact* setting (according to a digital readout), > because there is no keyboard interface. Some graphics software is > guilty > of this too. Because heaven forgive us if we would actually want to have precise setting changes. I know that I as well have see some graphics software that wants you to have a mouse interaction on settings. That drives me nuts. Yes sometimes some one only wants an effect at 0.5 instead of an entire 1 or 10. Of course, I am neither a programmer or an interface designer, I am just the end user what does it matter what is sensible to me.
From: David King Date: 06:11 on 11 Dec 2006 Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces > Dear audio software (including, but not limited to, mixers, > synthesizers/samplers, and effects): > Who told you you were supposed to look like audio HARDWARE? Please, > stop. It's really bad interface design. Not to diminish this obviously hateful situation, but what is the alternative? Make them learn an entirely new interface metaphor that's useless outside of the software? Should someone that knows how to operate these devices not be able to sit in front of software that does the same thing and be able to use it? Clearly a DJ or somesuch shouldn't have to learn to program the operating system's audio APIs, and you don't like the idea of it looking too similar to the hardware they are used to, so where in between do we place their learning curve? In the audio hardware, we have an established metaphor and list of things to do in order to accomplish a given task. Why should that list be different for the hardware or the software? Or is it just that their hardware is hateful from the start? > Love, > An aspiring musician who's tired of his music programs being full > of fucking knobs and cables and LEDs
From: jrodman Date: 06:46 on 11 Dec 2006 Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces On Sun, Dec 10, 2006 at 10:11:33PM -0800, David King wrote: > In the audio hardware, we have an established metaphor and list of > things to do in order to accomplish a given task. Why should that > list be different for the hardware or the software? Right, that's why I enter text to my computer using a visual pen that I move with the mouse. The problem is it's a bad interface for the tools you have availble on the computer: keyboard, mouse, screen. Making a set of rich input metaphors that do work well with keyboards, mice and screens isn't easy, and isn't really solved. But that's not an excuse for refusing to try. -josh
From: Tia Marie Date: 06:52 on 11 Dec 2006 Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces >> Dear audio software (including, but not limited to, mixers, >> synthesizers/samplers, and effects): >> Who told you you were supposed to look like audio HARDWARE? >> Please, stop. It's really bad interface design. > > Not to diminish this obviously hateful situation, but what is the > alternative? Make them learn an entirely new interface metaphor > that's useless outside of the software? Should someone that knows > how to operate these devices not be able to sit in front of > software that does the same thing and be able to use it? Clearly a > DJ or somesuch shouldn't have to learn to program the operating > system's audio APIs, and you don't like the idea of it looking too > similar to the hardware they are used to, so where in between do we > place their learning curve? In the audio hardware, we have an > established metaphor and list of things to do in order to > accomplish a given task. Why should that list be different for the > hardware or the software? I would like to respectfully disagree here. You are assuming that one who uses Software also uses the Hardware. I for one, could care less that there is a switch on a turn table that does X, because I am not a DJ and I am not going to touch a turn table. However, what if I just want to use the software? Why should it be expected that I know the expected functionality of the hardware to use the software? > > Or is it just that their hardware is hateful from the start? I think that it is the hardware is fine for those who want to use the hardware. It's the soft ware that is pretty annoying. Sometimes you just want something straight forward and not have to work about freaking knobs and such. > >> Love, >> An aspiring musician who's tired of his music programs being full >> of fucking knobs and cables and LEDs
From: Peter da Silva
Date: 14:34 on 11 Dec 2006
Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces
On Dec 11, 2006, at 12:11 AM, David King wrote:
> Not to diminish this obviously hateful situation, but what is the
> alternative? Make them learn an entirely new interface metaphor that's
> useless outside of the software?
Use the use-interface metaphor that all the other software on the
computer already uses, which they have already learned or they couldn't
be using the computer in the first place.
This all reminds me of people who thought that you should be writing
software by laying out flowcharts on a grid. I'm not talking about
hooking together dataflow sources and sinks on a grid, which does make
sense (and would actually be a useful model for hooking up a MIDI
network instead of having a bunch of photorealistic cables crossing on
a patch panel), I'm talking about hooking together boxes containing
program steps and conditionals, if-then-else becoming
|
/ \
/ ? \____
\ / Y
\ /
N |
Or the old SCADA programming interfaces that involved hooking together
chains of relays to produce a result, often using ASCII graphics like
---][---... the people who came up with things like B*F* weren't
operating in a vacuum.
From: A. Pagaltzis Date: 14:59 on 11 Dec 2006 Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces * David King <dking@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> [2006-12-11 07:15]: > Not to diminish this obviously hateful situation, but what is > the alternative? Make them learn an entirely new interface > metaphor that's useless outside of the software? Absolutely. Why do I have sliders for the Attack Decay Sustain Release parameters of an FM synth, say, instead of being able to drag around control points on a curve display? Hardware interfaces are constrained by their existence as physical objects. Software interfaces are not. Why should the latter be willfully restricted to the possibilities of the former? > Should someone that knows how to operate these devices not be > able to sit in front of software that does the same thing and > be able to use it? I don't operate on the assumption that skilled people are stupid. I expect anyone who uses audio processing gear regularly has at least a moderate understanding of how sound works, and I expect that with such a background, the directly controllable abstract visualisations that a software UI could coffer would be quite easy to grasp and *much* nicer to work with. > Or is it just that their hardware is hateful from the start? Yep. Pro audio processing involves a lot of highly parametrisable components. That just isn't possible to model in hardware without hundreds of sliders and knobs, and it's not possible to provide intuitive immediate feedback without visualisation of some form. Using the mouse or keyboard to directly change the shape of a visualisation, eg. dragging control points on a curve for an FM synth as I mentioned above, would be a much better metaphor for a lot of audio processing components. You just can't do that in a hardware interface. Regards,
From: Jonathan Stowe Date: 09:19 on 11 Dec 2006 Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces On Sun, 2006-12-10 at 22:34 -0500, Adam Atlas wrote: > Dear audio software (including, but not limited to, mixers, > synthesizers/samplers, and effects): > > Who told you you were supposed to look like audio HARDWARE? Please, > stop. It's really bad interface design. The obvious solution here is to avail yourself of software such as the ecasound suite, jack and linuxsampler which work entirely from the command line :-) /J\
From: Peter da Silva Date: 14:23 on 11 Dec 2006 Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces On Dec 10, 2006, at 9:34 PM, Adam Atlas wrote: > Dear audio software (including, but not limited to, mixers, > synthesizers/samplers, and effects): > > Who told you you were supposed to look like audio HARDWARE? Please, > stop. It's really bad interface design. Ah yes, another mob who'll be first up against the wall when the audio-cock technology comes.
From: Jonathan Stowe Date: 15:13 on 11 Dec 2006 Subject: Re: Regarding audio software interfaces On Mon, 2006-12-11 at 08:23 -0600, Peter da Silva wrote: > On Dec 10, 2006, at 9:34 PM, Adam Atlas wrote: > > Dear audio software (including, but not limited to, mixers, > > synthesizers/samplers, and effects): > > > > Who told you you were supposed to look like audio HARDWARE? Please, > > stop. It's really bad interface design. > > Ah yes, another mob who'll be first up against the wall when the > audio-cock technology comes. > Actually I think that might be a little unfair in the case of 'Bristol' which aims to emulate a number of "classic" electronic instruments and goes to some length to emulate the original controls as well. Of course you can run the synthesizer without the UI at all if that really grabs you. Then you get to control the thing using the real knobs, sliders and switches on your MIDI controller keyboard without worrying about the screen representation. /J\
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