Thoughts on a GUI please

[matt42]

Hi,

This is my first attempt at a GUI that I'm considering using for a VST release. I'm a little paranoid about putting it out there so I thought I'd get some feedback here first:


Just a couple of things the meter area's still just a mock up and isn't scaled correctly yet and "Clip Monster" is just a working title to fill the space. I'm still not sure what it'll be called.

So yeah, any thoughts or constructive criticism would be most welcome

Cheers,

Matt

[thecontrolcentre]

Looks pretty good apart from the "jaunty" text ... I'd keep it all horizontal. Might be better to line up the knobs at the bottom with those above too. Is it going to be free or commercial?

[matt42]

Looks pretty good apart from the "jaunty" text ... I'd keep it all horizontal.

Thanks, "jaunty" text eh? Now you've got me wondering, but it's hard to look objectively after working on this so long. It'd be good to hear others opinions on this as well.

Might be better to line up the knobs at the bottom with those above too.

Good point I'll look at that for sure. See if I can get it to work like that.

Is it going to be free or commercial?

Free ware

[Hlis93]

Hi Matt,

its a little dark off to the right, I'd suggest ya lighten that up a bit. I also see this blue lines not sure what that is, are black rect on the L&R part of the image? The 2 large knobs in the top left corner look tilted, perhaps play with the shadowing for the knob itself and with the center white area.

[matt42]

Thanks Hlis, I always value your opinion on these things.

Hi Matt, its a little dark off to the right, I'd suggest ya lighten that up a bit.

Is it over done? OK that shouldn't be a problem to fix up.

I also see this blue lines not sure what that is

Yeah I was playing around with colours in the highlights of the side panels. I guess it is over cooked. It's also easy enough to fix.

The 2 large knobs in the top left corner look tilted, perhaps play with the shadowing for the knob itself and with the center white area.

OK, that sounds bad. Which way do they look tilted to you?

BTW what do you make of the circular text? You reckon horizontal would be better?

Cheers,

Matt

[DaveHoskins]

The 2 large knobs in the top left corner look tilted, perhaps play with the shadowing for the knob itself and with the center white area.

I've had similar problems before, I think it's because the whole lower right hand side of the knob has no lighting - loosing it's definition. Try adding a subtle light effect, maybe 1/4 of the brightness, on the diagonal opposite of the main light to balance it up a bit. Perhaps blur the shadows a bit more as well, not sure though.
Dave

[PaulSC]

Looks nice overall. Some valid comments above.

I don't mind the slanted text, especially since it differentiates the Freq vs. the Gain knobs across the bottom. But I dislike the vertical meter labels. "In" looks like an underlined "Z". The initial "I" of "In" is larger than any of the other meter label characters.

Labels for sections should be different than labels for individual controls. The biggest issue is the "EQUALIZER" label towards the bottom, which looks like it applies to the switch beside it rather than than the set of knobs below it.

Put a unit on the rightmost (largest) value associated with each FREQ knob, to confirm that the LOW knob is marked in Hz and the HIGH knob in KHz (assuming I've got this right).

Nice work overall, good luck launching the product!

[GaryG]

Norwegion Cruise Lines make audio plugs now? Cool.

I like it. And I don't generally like hardware-a-like guis.

I'd agree that the bottom right looks a bit dark, almost slightly singed rather than in shadow. Also don't like the vertical meter labelling, plenty of room to have them horizontally isn't there?

However, I do like the knob labels, don't recall seeing that approach before. Saves gui space and just looks, well, not like every other plugin out there.

[Hlis93]

The 2 large knobs in the top left corner look tilted, perhaps play with the shadowing for the knob itself and with the center white area.

OK, that sounds bad. Which way do they look tilted to you?

BTW what do you make of the circular text? You reckon horizontal would be better?

Cheers,

Matt

I don't mind the text but I think you might want to try differently.

The knob problem is a hard one to figure out from the image, depend on how you've done it. I'd need to see the knob itself and play with it, I can see what needs to be done but I don't know how to explain it, more of a hands on thing for me, if you send it to me I can help. Mostly this occurs with knobman when you use the emboss with a very dark and circle and a bevel, with psd you can adjust the white/black or use another color, use another layerfx like color burn etc etc etc etc and fake it more effectively, in my experience knobman has problems with this since you can not adjust those things, I'd guess you could add another layers to hide, accent, and adjust it…that's not much help is it

Also the beveling on the yellow background should be sharper and not so smooth, hardware is not smooth like that metal is a hard edge or a small taper, plastic on the other hand can be smooth but I don't feel like this is simulating plastic.

I think you're doing a good job its just the fine details you need to work out.

[RunBeerRun]

I like it, colorful, easy to grasp. The black sides kind of water it down, make it look like hardware, which limits the creative potential.

[matt42]

Thanks for all the replies so far. There has been some very useful feedback and I've made quite a few changes to the design already based on your advice. These changes have themselves then suggested new ideas - which is cool.

I'll post an updated version soon to show the progress.

[ouroboros]

my 2p; seems nice. Maybe a little trimming to shrink the overall size a bit?
I like the curved text, but I would prefer that the labels were either uniformly on the same side or the font was bigger/bold/different so that they stood out from the other data. Also, the weight of the fillips between the different control areas makes me want a thicker border line.

but if you printed it as is, it would still be better than a graet many guis

[matt42]

Maybe a little trimming to shrink the overall size a bit?

Already done


I feel this is moving in the right direction. Thanks for all the input so far it's been really helpful.

[GaryG]

IMHO that's great. Aligning the knobs, rotating the vu labels, shrinking it down etc... it's all really pulled things together.

[cpr]

I can't put my finger on the exact thing I am seeing, but the meter segments seem to lack the 'realness' of the rest of the look..