MXXX Improvements & Feature Requests

[dmbaer]

I’m starting this thread and Vojtech’s suggestion and with his permission. Let me get it started with a simple cosmetic enhancement suggestion.

In grouping Multiparameters, the groups seem to appear in alphabetical order of the group name. It would be nice to be able to control the order. For example, if I have three parameter groups: Yadayada Lows, Yadayada Mids and Yadayada Highs, it makes sense for them to appear in that order top to bottom. Instead we get Highs, Lows and Mids.

How about providing some convention to start the name with text that doesn’t appear to the user? Example:
1//Yadayada Lows
2//Yadayada Mids
3//Yadayada Highs
as the group names, where the “//” and anything before it does not appear in the label.

[dmbaer]

Another suggestion. In the LR to MS module, it would be ever so convenient in many cases if there was an output gain for M and S, with a range of silence to +12dB. Likewise, in the MS to LR module, an input gain adjustment would be valuable. Leave the defaults a 0dB and backward compatibility would be assured.

[vectorwarrior]

It would help to see where feedback signals start. Perhaps add a number in the module to represent at a glance what is generating feedback and where:

[dmbaer]

Here's another suggestion - that is unless I'm missing some way to make this work as things stand now.

I cannot figure out a way to disable a module with a multi-param switch (or use a mult-param switch to turn off one module while turning on another). If we have CPU-intensive modules in a preset that users are going to want only occasionally, it would be of benefit to give them an on/off switch in the preset interface. Switching between active modules would be a side benefit that would come in handy from time to time as well.

Or is there way that we can already do that?

[vectorwarrior]

Another one... it would be nice to be able to mute an output without disabling modules. In the case of the 10th sample active preset, a Utility unit is used to turn the sound to silence as we cannot switch off the channel as the LFO would be switched off. It would be cool to simplify and elegantly handle cases where we want control signals without sending the control signals to the output.

My suggestion is to be able to right click the 1-4 output nodes, like you can with the main modules, and be able to mute it from there, but without disabling modules in the lane.

Hope that makes sense!

[dmbaer]

Here's another thing that maybe can currently be done, but I cannot figure out how to do it properly.

I was playing around with both the upper (preset-level) band splitter and the crossover module. In both cases all my attempts to allow the user to control the crossover frequencies via a multi-param met with disappointing results. For one thing, I could not get the parameter to display in Hz with the "use first param units" option, only percents. For another, I could not get the crossovers not to pass each other, as would be the case when adjusting crossover frequencies with the graphic control.

Is there an example preset that shows us how to properly work with this sort of thing?

[MeldaProduction]

Oh, how to respond now...

- Sorting multiparameters - not true, just checked. The multiparameters appear in the same order as you define them. But note that there are 2 multiparameters per column since there are so many of them. Right click on a multiparameter to change the order.

- Gain it LR<->MS - I'd rather avoid that actually. Personally I don't see a reason to do that and there are plenty of FX (Utility for example) that are designed exactly for that. I quite don't see a reason to duplicate it here. In fact it never occured to me

- Feedback marks - well, easier said than done, but I'll see.

- Disable FX by mutliparameter - sorry cannot be done, when an effect is bypassed the whole structure changes and there are way to many things to do then. I'll think about a solution though...maybe some "pseudobypass" that would just copy the input, but it's a really complex thing...

- Don't disable muted FX - this is actually very extreme and rare case - technically you are creating a signal that is never used in the processing, only sent as a feedback to a modulator. I understand the idea, but actually I don't think this is worth considering. Right now the engine automatically disables the FX not being used to save CPU, which is more important imho.

- Crossover issue - sorry I just cannot understand, could you elaborate a little more? I don't get the 2nd one at all and I checked the units of the first one and everything seems fine.

[dmbaer]

- Crossover issue - sorry I just cannot understand, could you elaborate a little more? I don't get the 2nd one at all and I checked the units of the first one and everything seems fine.

I'm super busy for the next few days, but I will get back to you on this with a more detailed explanation of the problems I'm encountering. Thanks.

[dmbaer]

- Crossover issue - sorry I just cannot understand, could you elaborate a little more? I don't get the 2nd one at all and I checked the units of the first one and everything seems fine.

Sorry, pilot error. The default and disabled wet/dry parameter was left first in the list - I had forgotten to delete it. Thus, percent units was all I ever saw.

However, there are still some major weaknesses here with multi-band control from the simple panel. There seems to be no way to control a band's solo and mute settings from the simple panel. Even if there were, you'd use up most of your available MPs if assigning them as switches to solo and mute in a five or six-band structure. Furthermore, although you can assign an MP to band limit, there's no way to prevent the user from making, for example, band 2 upper limit higher than that of band 3.

One solution would be to allow the upper band control to be (optionally) shown on the simple page. Keep the context menu out of the picture - just let the user manipulate the cutover points and the mute and solo settings. This would add a great deal of user friendliness to multi-band MXXX structures, IMO.

[dmbaer]

- Sorting multiparameters - not true, just checked. The multiparameters appear in the same order as you define them. But note that there are 2 multiparameters per column since there are so many of them. Right click on a multiparameter to change the order.

Here's what I'm talking about. Start with the empty preset. Name the first six MPs "A", "B", "C", "D", "E" and "F" respectively. For A and B, assign the group name "ONE", for C and D the name "TWO" and for E and F the name "THREE". In my test, I also turned Large Control to Off and Same Row to On.

Unclick "EDIT" and you get to the simple screen. I see the groups in the following order (top to bottom):

ONE, THREE, TWO

The MPs are assigned to the correct groups, but the groups are not in the logical order and there seems to be no way to change that other than using names like "1 ONE", "2 TWO" and "3 THREE".

Is this now making sense?

P.S. Is there any way to make the Large Control setting default to Off? With so many possible MPs in MXXX, I would think this would be the more commonly desired setting and I'm finding that it's slightly annoying to have to change it every single time.

[MeldaProduction]

crossovers: I don't really follow, what band solo/mute? And why would you want that limitation about crossover points? It can actually be really cool in many cases , used that one in many presets for the multiband effects.

multiparams: Aaaaha, it's about groups! I'll check it out! I think the default "large" is actually a good thing simply becauses in most cases people will use just a few parameters. Not sure...

[dmbaer]

crossovers: I don't really follow, what band solo/mute? And why would you want that limitation about crossover points? It can actually be really cool in many cases , used that one in many presets for the multiband effects.

From your MMultibandDelay documentation, Band Editor section (but it's probably repeated in dozens of other manuals):

Band editor displays available bands, crossover frequencies delimiting them, and input gains and panoramas. Use left mouse button to drag band limits (vertical lines between bands), input gains (horizontal bars in each band) and input panoramas (bars in the bottom of each band). Use right mouse button to open the Band menu. Buttons on the left of each band let you mute, solo and bypass processing in each band.

As to band limitations (lower band cannot pass next higher bands left boundary), isn't that the way the band editor works right now when dragging with the mouse? I'm not at my DAW so I can't quickly check. Mostly as a user, I would want the software to save me from inadvertent overlaps. I really can't think of any practical case where I would want it to let me do that.

[MeldaProduction]

Correct. In the band editor it doesn't let you move the bands accross each other. However when modulating for example it does, because who says it's a bad creative idea. Just try that, you'll see that there's so much you can do with it. In a perfect world with perfect filters it would actually be much less useful . But in our world it lets you in a way smoothly bypass some bands for example.

[dmbaer]

Correct. In the band editor it doesn't let you move the bands accross each other.

But what about my initial point? What about making the band window optionally visible from the MXXX simple page (without out the context menu available)? As I said, there's no way to address the mute and solo switches via an MP and you'd use up nearly all your MPs if you did that (along with adding a control for each of the cutover frequencies). For some presets that I've been working on a design for, this would make all the difference between a highly usable result and one for which use would be awkward.

[MeldaProduction]

I'm afraid that probably won't be possible. Way too complex and the MXXX design actually doesn't aim for this - the goal is to make presets that are simple enough, like the traditional plugins allover the market. If you want complex stuff with crossovers etc., then you'll have to use the modular editor. After all that's the difference between easy screen and edit screen.