Experiment from the MUTOOLS Lab: LUNA Modular

[pljones]

I've yet to play with it but I'm inclined to be positive...

First: I want to see live MIDI as well as audio in the system. Your picture shows Audio In, Audio Out and MIDI Outs; I cannot understand why it couldn't include MIDI In.

Second: I agree with keeping sequenced parts on the composer window. However, a label on the patchwork with the partname connecting to its target might be extremely useful, particularly if it copied the part's colour.

Third: I tend to agree with DaveL on the racks - I think it's worth having a "basic mixing desk" and "modular mixing desk" with a "make musession modular" option (but no way back). If it were me, I'd be looking to make the "rack" desk just a constrained version of the modular desk - i.e. pre-wired with assistance for plugging stuff in. Don't try to present it as behaving "differently" from the modular desk.

[Branis]

I'd also like to see sequence and audio parts in the modular view, so I can connect them to plugins and audio outputs at will. The same sequence part could easily be connected to more than one plugin, and audio parts to more than one mixer channel.

And what's the timeline then?

I mean: when should such part play?

I'll have to read your previous reply a couple of times to get my head around it, so I'll first answer to this one

The timeline shouldn't be specified in the modular window, but in the arrangement window as it is now. The sequence/audio parts in the modular window would be there just for audio/midi connections, like in the picture below (top left of the modular window):

[pljones]

Yeah, what Branis drew is what I meant in my "Second" comment .

If I use a dummy to merge MIDI parts with different channels, does the event output have all the channels on..?

The drawing lines is a bit tricky... The target area is very small... If I drop onto the plugin strip, and there's more than one possible target, could it pop up a list and let me pick?

[MattmaN]

Wow! This deffinantly has potential.
It will be interesting to see how this concept develops.
Mutools Modular could be solid competiton for other modular hosts.

[muzycian]

I've yet to play with it but I'm inclined to be positive...

First: I want to see live MIDI as well as audio in the system. Your picture shows Audio In, Audio Out and MIDI Outs; I cannot understand why it couldn't include MIDI In.

Don't worry, it will be included when things get more definite & detailed.

This Luna Modular Tryout 1 is just a prototype to see a proposal in action.

Second: I agree with keeping sequenced parts on the composer window. However, a label on the patchwork with the partname connecting to its target might be extremely useful, particularly if it copied the part's colour.

One target can be used by many parts and sequences. So which part should be used then..?

Third: I tend to agree with DaveL on the racks - I think it's worth having a "basic mixing desk" and "modular mixing desk" with a "make musession modular" option (but no way back). If it were me, I'd be looking to make the "rack" desk just a constrained version of the modular desk - i.e. pre-wired with assistance for plugging stuff in. Don't try to present it as behaving "differently" from the modular desk.

Continued breeding... ideas always welcome...

[muzycian]

The timeline shouldn't be specified in the modular window, but in the arrangement window as it is now. The sequence/audio parts in the modular window would be there just for audio/midi connections, like in the picture below (top left of the modular window):

Oops, but doesn't that mean that each part in the Composer also has its twin brother in the Plugin Setup?!

I'm already concerned about the Plugin Setup getting too heavily loaded when you do a big project -> lots of synths and effects.

If then also all parts would be there, then that is definitely not workable.

Right?

Anyway, i'll continue thinking about how the relationship between parts and plugins can be as obvious as possible.

For now:

* clicking a part shows the target in the Part Property Panel
* clicking a part also focusses the related plugin in the Plugin Setup Editor
* drawing a new part uses the focussed plugin
* midi in plays the focussed plugin

edit: maybe if the focussed plugin is graphically more explicit, then things also get more obvious because of the graphical emphasis.

[muzycian]

If I use a dummy to merge MIDI parts with different channels, does the event output have all the channels on..?

A dummy just thrus its input data, so if it receives events on multiple channels, it also transmits them on these multiple channels

The drawing lines is a bit tricky... The target area is very small... If I drop onto the plugin strip, and there's more than one possible target, could it pop up a list and let me pick?

That's a cool idea

[pljones]

Second: I agree with keeping sequenced parts on the composer window. However, a label on the patchwork with the partname connecting to its target might be extremely useful, particularly if it copied the part's colour.

One target can be used by many parts and sequences. So which part should be used then..?

How is this different from anywhere else where multiple sources meet one target? Each source is discrete and arrives at the same target.

In the patchwork (;)), each part appears just once. It has one or more links from its audio out or its event out to the appropriate targets. Just like that target will have links to its targets.

Or am I missing something?

[Branis]

The timeline shouldn't be specified in the modular window, but in the arrangement window as it is now. The sequence/audio parts in the modular window would be there just for audio/midi connections, like in the picture below (top left of the modular window):

Oops, but doesn't that mean that each part in the Composer also has its twin brother in the Plugin Setup?!

I'm already concerned about the Plugin Setup getting too heavily loaded when you do a big project -> lots of synths and effects.

If then also all parts would be there, then that is definitely not workable.

Right?

Anyway, i'll continue thinking about how the relationship between parts and plugins can be as obvious as possible.

For now:

* clicking a part shows the target in the Part Property Panel
* clicking a part also focusses the related plugin in the Plugin Setup Editor
* drawing a new part uses the focussed plugin
* midi in plays the focussed plugin

edit: maybe if the focussed plugin is graphically more explicit, then things also get more obvious because of the graphical emphasis.

You're right, that would be pretty messy.
Maybe the parts could be invisible in the modular window until you click on one in the arrangement window, and then the selected part would appear with all the connections visible. Edit the connections, click away, and the part gets invisible again.

[DaveL60]

Done a wee bit of playing now. I like this a lot -- it seems very intuitive to wire things up. Some (possibly obvious) FRs if you continue down this path:

1) I think there will need to be some zoom in/out on the plugin setup area, so that it's easier to concentrate on wiring particular bits up. I'm finding the "grab points" for connecting and deleting cable rather touchy to find because they seem to be very small -- maybe they could grow as the mouse passes over/near them to make them easy to hit and shrink back otherwise?

2) If the lines in the plugin area are analogous to cables, then it would be nice to be able to re-route a signal by grabbing the destination end of a cable and dragging it to a different input. You could possibly use a left drag to move the cable and a right drag to create a new connection from the existing cable's source to the new plugin's input.

3) A highlight mode, enabled and disabled through the plugin area's context menu, so that as you mouse over things, they "light up" along with their connections to nearest neighbors. A variant would be that mousing over a dummy would light up all of the paths from that to the audio output. Something like this would make it easy to trace signal paths and, especially, to locate unintended connections you'd forgotten about in a complicated setup.

4) A possible approach to clutter control would be to allow a user to group a set of plugs and "box them up", then be able to toggle between "box closed", where you couldn't see the details or edit the connections, and "box open" where all of the bits are there to be fiddled with.

5) The ability to color the plug-in boxes like you can parts in the Composer, or

6) The plug-in's representation in the plugin setup area could be an iconic view of it's GUI (I think EnergyXT does something like that).

Also, I have two BRs:

1) I loaded CM-101, double-clicked on it to get to its GUI, then hit the Open button at the bottom to browse for a patch bank. The file browser window opened behind the CM-101 window, which made it hard to use. Clicking on the file browser did not bring it to the front and, while I could move it I quickly ran into screen real estate issues.

2) When I renamed a dummy to "Dummy 1", blue box didn't resize properly to display the name, which made the renaming kinda pointless.

DaveL

[DaveL60]

'nother FR, 'nother BR:

FR: Should be possible to lasso a bunch of plugs with the mouse and drag them as a group, rather than dragging one at at time.

BF: Added a send plug and a reverb plug. When I tried the connect the Send's send audio out (the rightmost of the two) to the reverb, boom, LUNA-Mod disappeared. I don't know if it's significant that I was dragging from the right-most audio output to the left across the connection from the first audio out to get to the reverb plug (K's Classic Reverb, BTW). This was reproduce-able. {edit} The same crash occured when connecting from the right-most audio ouput of a send to a mixer strip, when the left-most output wasn't connected and I wasn't crossing any lines. The crash occurs at the moment the mouse pointer reaches the audio input of the next plug, and LUNA just vanishes. {/edit}

DaveL

[DaveL60]

Another suggestion (can you tell I'm sitting here playing): I think the Audio Output should appears as a bus at the bottom of the plugin area, with a more or less arbitrary number of connections. That would (a) make for somewhat cleaner "wiring" and/or grouping of plugs in a path, and (b) make it straightforward to allow right-clicking on an input to the output for solo / mute purposes. One of the things I'm strugging with a little bit as I play with this is the ability to solo a particular signal path at a point near the output. I can put a mixer strip there, but then you have to double-click it and click the speaker and it's a little clumsy. I could see the potential for a built-in plug similar to the Dummy that's just a Mute device.

That said, a couple hours fiddling about yielded a quick demo piece. The drum are wretched, but the rest ain't too bad.

http://home.comcast.net/~1982crew/modular.mp3

DaveL

[grizzly]

Hi,

Great conceptual and technical effort! After playing around with this for only 45 minutes, I am, however, inclined to vote 'classic'. I do see (some) of the advantages with modular approach, but I think it makes things more complicated for people not used to modular thingies. And I'm not sure I see the theoretical advantages come to practical use, at least for me.

Somehow a mixing strip just looks and feels familiar and easy to get to grips with, although I see the point in making connections more flexible. But having to draw all things from the ground up in the modular approach takes a lot of time, compared to just inserting a synth in a rack.

But I need to play around some more, I'll try to get back later.

rgds,

grizzly

[muzycian]

Second: I agree with keeping sequenced parts on the composer window. However, a label on the patchwork with the partname connecting to its target might be extremely useful, particularly if it copied the part's colour.

One target can be used by many parts and sequences. So which part should be used then..?

How is this different from anywhere else where multiple sources meet one target? Each source is discrete and arrives at the same target.

In the patchwork (;)), each part appears just once. It has one or more links from its audio out or its event out to the appropriate targets. Just like that target will have links to its targets.

Or am I missing something?

If we show as well all plugins as well all parts there, the Plugin Setup Editor would become too cluttered and unworkable imho.

I think the solution lays in making a more obvious graphical link, as explained before.

I'll check this out.

[muzycian]

I've yet to play with it but I'm inclined to be positive...

First: I want to see live MIDI as well as audio in the system. Your picture shows Audio In, Audio Out and MIDI Outs; I cannot understand why it couldn't include MIDI In.

Don't worry, it will be included when things get more definite & detailed.

Euh, pljones, i've been thining: what's wrong (besides the channeling thing we discussed a couple of days ago) with the current system of auto-routed-midi-input?

Now midi input is always automatically routed to the focussed target plugin.

So if you select a sequence part, midi input goes to its target
If you select a plugin in the plugin setup editor, midi input goes to that plugin

What else would you like to do that is not possible now, in luna modular?