MeldaProduction

Acer Hyperspace · Post by **Acer Hyperspace** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 10:44 am

The MDrummer interface looks pretty monochrome and dated already. Why not have some GUI updates for it?

MeldaProduction · Post by **MeldaProduction** » Sun Oct 09, 2011 5:53 pm

Well, there are several styles available. And to be honest, this is a very "personal" matter and for some people (including me

) the GUI looks quite good and modern. If you have some graphics, please just send me, maybe I could design a style from it.

Acer Hyperspace · Post by **Acer Hyperspace** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 1:59 pm

MeldaProduction wrote:Well, there are several styles available. And to be honest, this is a very "personal" matter and for some people (including me ) the GUI looks quite good and modern. If you have some graphics, please just send me, maybe I could design a style from it.

Basically, what I define "modern" graphics are:
-Buttons, sliders, displays, etc. that don't have solid colours and black outlines around them
-Have some lighting, shiny, glossy, etc. effects
-Vibrant colours

...Or any graphics effects that make people feel that this software is designed modernly. A good comparison and analogy would be Windows 7 and XP. Just see how better looking Windows 7 is compared to XP. That should be a good one

Another comparison would be how the interfaces of today's smartphones, like those of iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Palm OS, etc. look compared to the old, blocky PDAs and monochrome phones a decade ago. Get the point?

Example of such nice looking and modern audio softwares would be the softwares from the usual popular companies. No examples needed, it's practically everyone...

MeldaProduction · Post by **MeldaProduction** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 2:59 pm

Yeah, but it's still a matter of personal taste. I always check other plugins and our ones and can help myself, to me they just look good

.

TFF · Post by **TFF** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 5:19 pm

I prefer the current GUIs to any glossy, ultra-colorful whatever design.

Acer Hyperspace · Post by **Acer Hyperspace** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 1:23 am

MeldaProduction wrote:Yeah, but it's still a matter of personal taste. I always check other plugins and our ones and can help myself, to me they just look good .

Yes, I understand it is a matter of taste, so I hope you can cater to a variety of tastes by having such "modern" skin options defined by me. The skins would be great for me!

MeldaProduction · Post by **MeldaProduction** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 12:20 pm

Acer Hyperspace wrote:
MeldaProduction wrote:Yeah, but it's still a matter of personal taste. I always check other plugins and our ones and can help myself, to me they just look good .
Yes, I understand it is a matter of taste, so I hope you can cater to a variety of tastes by having such "modern" skin options defined by me. The skins would be great for me!

Sure, please if you can provide some graphics, I can definitely check it out.

Acer Hyperspace · Post by **Acer Hyperspace** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 1:46 pm

MeldaProduction wrote:Sure, please if you can provide some graphics, I can definitely check it out.

Alright, here are the list of softwares I find seriously cool, but please don't copy someone else's graphics, but make your own from the examples. It's good to have a personalised graphics.

Some examples:
-Image Line Toxic Biohazard: Superb sci-fi-like black and green interface!

-Voxengo plugins: The knobs look as cool as it can get...

Happy developing! (preferably not copying...)

MeldaProduction · Post by **MeldaProduction** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 2:07 pm

Seriously??? I know Voxengo plugins are good, but I don't like the GUI at all, especially the knobs. In fact they are completely the opposite to Toxic. Anyway to be honest, this doesn't really help. I thought you will design your own graphics you'd like...

Acer Hyperspace · Post by **Acer Hyperspace** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 2:46 pm

MeldaProduction wrote:Seriously??? I know Voxengo plugins are good, but I don't like the GUI at all, especially the knobs. In fact they are completely the opposite to Toxic. Anyway to be honest, this doesn't really help. I thought you will design your own graphics you'd like...

As you stated, it is a matter of taste, so to have something in common, try out the Toxic interface.

I didn't design my own interfaces. Yet.

I do have tons of great ideas in my brain, but since I am already have interests/ambitions to be a physicist/astronomer (Scientists making music?

I can't believe it too!), music producer/DJ, artist/comic production, designer, 3D graphics artist/animator, movie director and script/story/novel writer, I think I shouldn't overload my brain with modular stuffs or coding/programming.

Only if there are softwares which can create things from your wildest imaginations... I won't need to learn all these techniques! If such things exist, I would pay a fortune for it! I think I can create an entire movie by myself, with music, visuals and story with these skills.

Alright, I think that should be enough for my life story... Now back to the point! People's tastes are different, and I had heard people really loving or hating Voxengo's interfaces.

Maybe you can create your own graphics which still qualifies as good looking and modern. It might bear no resemblance to Toxic Biohazard at all, but it might still end up as my favourite softwares for its graphical interface. If I am to complain to someone else about graphics, I might even use yours as an example!

If I am ever to embark into the world of making my own music softwares, I would consider Symbolic Sound's Kyma. Far more feature packed than the ordinary Reaktor, SynthEdit, SynthMaker and the like. For normal softwares, I would just take up any coding language which is cross platform, for both PC and Mac users. I haven't picked my choice for this, as I don't want to fry my brains thinking about these things...

Pat2070 · Post by **Pat2070** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 12:00 pm

Hi guys

Just to clarify, if we provide the graphics you'll include them in your plugs??

Multiple choice of themes (not just colour combinations) is always cool imo.

For me, modern looking skins =

Ircam Plugins

Rob Papen Blue

Imageline Drumax

Wavearts plugs

Native Instruments Razor

Arpg8r

Novation Ultranova

Softube FET Compressor

PSP Xenon

Radian Sound Lab Atmos

Magix Am Track Compressor

stimresp · Post by **stimresp** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:07 pm

I'm a bit of a GUI whore myself, but I think MDrummer is very-well skinned considering it's complexity. I much prefer sliders over virtual knobs too.

Different tastes.

MeldaProduction · Post by **MeldaProduction** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:03 pm

Hi folks, thanks for the examples. Anyway note that the GUI is skinnable, but the main structure must stay. Which means, there WILL always be sliders, they might just look different. There were many debates about knobs vs. sliders and at this point I'm pretty sure there won't be knobs (except for the active presets screen in some effects, where there is enough space), general sliders are just better and can benefit from the advanced features, such as resizing.

miro pajic · Post by **miro pajic** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 6:46 pm

Oh, that topic again but there must be a reason it always comes up

First of all, I totally respect Vojtechs decisions and doing things his way. On the other hand I definitely understand peoples requests for knobs, instead of sliders. I can explain to you why (from my point of view):

IF the "standard" Melda plugin would i.e. have a maximum of 4 or 5 sliders per row, which are bigger (than now) with some real slider-knobs (is that a word?) and clear seperation, things would be less "stressy" (for the eyes/brain) and I think most people wouldn't complain. It IS true...I personally also sometimes don't intuitively pick a melda plugin, while sometimes it would be the best choice. Seriously...I often asked myself why!? I came to the conclusion: It is the GUI, the tight rows of tiny slider fields (now it's not even real sliders) etc. So I find myself often liking to use some of the simple ones like MLimiter (awesome saturator/clipper!!!!! and yes..I DO prefer it to MulitbandSaturator LOL)

Vojtech, please don't get this wrong...but some points are somewhat relevant.

Here's a pretty cool comparison regarding "No flashy rendered 3D GUI with shades etc" and NOBODY ever has complained about it:

There is sliders AND knobs...AND...the GUI is, guess what...resizable.

Why is it ok in that case? Because the GUI is large (enough), very clear, easy on the eyes and somewhat "inviting" to tweak.

I'm ONLY talking about psychology here, not taste...more about "how what you see, influences your decisions and if you even chose it and make friends with it on a long basis"

Anyway..I actually didn't want to feed the topic. I'm really only trying to be constructive guys

I love the plugins but the GUI topic is seriously mattering. I would NEVER say so, if it would be about taste but as said...the way they affect me IS somehow relevant...

P.S. Saying that sliders will use less space is not always true. Look at V-ROOM above. 4 knobs vs. 2 sliders. At least in that case

MeldaProduction · Post by **MeldaProduction** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:49 pm

First of all Miro, don't worry, there's no improvement without criticism

.
BUT this topic didn't start because of knobs vs. sliders, but because the guy just doesn't like, how it looks, colors and stuff... Just to be clear.

Now to that image - well, seriously?

This is one of the ugliest interfaces I have seen

. Anyway that's not the point - I think the trouble here is not the sliders vs. knobs, but more like less controls vs. more controls. The truth is, I know the plugins to the deepest level, yet I still use the active presets

. Simply because I'm lazy, as most people are. And there are knobs in the active presets. Hence they kinda represent the "simple plugin". Therefore personally I consider this solved to be honest

. If you are a beginner/lazy person/just don't have time => use the active presets. They have just 4 controls that's it (btw. MMultiBandSaturator has it, so why to use MLimiter?). And if you want to mess with the details, go into the edit screen, where there are sliders with all their advantages.

But still I have to react to your arguments about knobs vs. sliders. You say they are resizable - but it is not true! Of course they are bigger, but what did you gain by making them bigger? Nothing! That's the point of sliders. The trouble here is that most plugins use knobs, because they are easier to develop

, so you are used to them.

From my perspective also the knobs would even be harder to implement in the plugins, because there are just too many of them and knobs need to be placed manually, no resizing, nothing. Everything gets complicated for nothing.

Moreover there's one more trouble - there are almost 60 plugins! If they would be designed like you suggest, you would be in a big trouble, because how to choose from them? They would all looks so different, no system with it. As it is now, all plugins basically look the same way, at least the structure, so you can quickly find out what's going on.

Ok, that's it. Now this is my conclusion :

Effects: Most have active presets, which look good and have knobs, so everyone should be happy. Edit screens have sliders and will have sliders from the reasons I mentioned.

MDrummer: The main screen has just a few controls, mostly selectors of drumsets and rhythms, so it should be fine. Editors have sliders and will have sliders, same reasons

. From time to time if would be useful to have knobs, like in the mixer, but seems there's no need to be honest.

Appearance: Well, of course when it comes to styling and colors and stuff, that's a question. But to be honest, I'd rather focus on more creative things (and there are many, unfortunately

) than another playing with graphics which some would like and some would not again

.

MeldaProduction

KVR Audio

A better looking interface for MDrummer and other plugins