The problem with inserting numbers with your keyboard is that this wouldn't give you any chance of real-time tweaking.

To change a value in real-time the VSTi has to allow you to drag the value up and down with your mouse (I'm sure no-one could enter individual values that quick . And this is essentially how it does work under the GUI. When you click on a knob/slider and drag up or down you are essentially increasing and decreasing the numbers that are hidden under the GUI.

So, in short - you do need this dragging function to enable real-time changes, so why not make it look pretty and disguise it with a knob or slider?

Hope this helps!

Entering a value every time would be tedious...

They should just use faders so its an easy up down motion much better than knobs.

( I know some knobs react to you clicking and moveing the mouse up and down but faders would be loads better and easier to see a direct relation to the mouse and fader position))))))))

[ 02 August 2002, 13:25: Message edited by: Polyhex ]

most of them are midi controllable
looks like your problem is you don`t have a good controller.

i tweak all the nice clasic knobs with the midifaders on my kurzweil 2500s

take for instance the z3 ... all the nice faders in that drawbar-organ interface are controlled with my midifaders.

go buy yourself a controller .. there are some nice cheap ones outthere and i guess lot`s of people at kvr can give ya good advise on them

Several VSTis, Pentagon 1 comes to mind, enable you to drag up/down or left/right. Faders are great but then you give up screen space.

Multi page VSTis seem to be unpopular which is too bad as this would be a way of getting around the dial and knob style interface.

Absynth has a smart idea. Many of it's features are accessed by a numeric control that has 2 - 3 small rectangular buttons that correspond to full numbers, tenths and hundreths. It's fast, less mouseing and can optionally have numbers input. After understanding how synths work it's not counter intuitive entering numbers.

Bruce

[ 02 August 2002, 13:35: Message edited by: x_bruce ]

For me the dials are actually very usefull, especially on virtual analogue synths. The knobs give visual feedback right away and if you have experience with hardware analogue synths (like I do) then having knobs is a pre. Of course there are other ways around it like displaying a graphic representation of envelopes, waveforms, etc, but this takes up loads of screenspace. I can dial up any basic analogue sound by setting knobs to certain angles, but don't ask me what values I should enter to get the same results.

I'm a knobs-kinda-man

I love VSTi technology, I think it has brought music making to more people than ever BUT, and I hope I'm not alone in this....does anyone else hate the emulation on VSTi's of Analog style dials and knobs?

I know why they do it, it looks authentic and is gimmicky, but entering a value rather than clicking and dragging on a virtual dial is surely easier.

The appeal of the old analog synths was their immediacy of programming, but computers are different and I feel most users are quicker with a querty keyboard than twiddling a virtual knob.

What say anyone?