All new guis are sucking valuable resources

[2ZrgE]

I am afraid that vector graphics are a pretty tough sell, still. They might work with fancy gradients and stuff but rendering those is ultimately more CPU consuming than just blitting bitmaps.

However, we're experimenting a lot. We'll do some testing and I think we'll have some polls at some point.

Can you elaborate a little? I use some Melda plugs and they have a mode for GPU acceleration, where the graphics card handles the GUI. And they are freely resizable...however, Melda plug-ins are simply not as luscious looking as Hive!

Let me ask it this way: How close are we to beautifully rendered, 3D photo-realistic GUIs that are as easy to stretch and resize like an elastic band?

The new Sylenth may not be photo-realistic, but it has beautiful GUIs which can be stretched continuously.

[dtmd]

AUTO-ADMIN: Non-MP3, WAV, OGG, SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook links in this post have been protected automatically. Once the member reaches 5 posts the links will function as normal.

When "supercomputer" are dealing with faulty graphic driver, it doesn't matter how many TB of ram is instaled, is it 4-6-8-32-64-512 core cpu, is it hdd, sdd, air, water or pixie grease cooled.... Eventually it will freeze and crash.. repeatedly.. on some minor graphic related task....

Big, upscaled images are not (so) problem(atic). Multilayering png image data with alpha transparency compositing.. and some kind of overlay mode/s (needed for gamma) on top of each (i guess) pane.. chokes and lags not only plugins gui.. it freezes and glitches whole daw (live, reaper, audition..), when ram & cpu stays at relatively low values.... Top (root) pane (movig it in editor, with few elements on it, couses lag) is problematic (guess). Overlay layer/s (?) who are sitting (guess) on top, are probably responsible for sluging.. Especially noticeable with size increased gui.....

Creating "3" independant ("neutral/darken/brighten") versions of gui, maybe could be better approach then messing with overlay and opacity modes. Add, screen, multiply, overlay.... are nice.. when they are implemented right and don't interfere dramatically with performance (of dsp plugin).... Reaktor (eg babooshka) can have gzillon macros inside macros.. inside macros.. with no impact on gui performance.. Cpu cost is another story..

Some people will rip out all "luxurious" (air conditioner, front pane, passenger seats..) things out of sports car.. Some will crump it up with bling lights, neon tubes, 33 subwoofer boxes, heavy wooden, interior panels (http://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/gallery/cool-car-interior-made-from-wood-photo-gallery_7.jpg).... Different interest in different people.. over same PRODUCT. Future of that car development and progress is market research based. Sales (what kind of people.. buys..) are judging (mouth to feed) factor in economy (what could we make.. sale..) of any kind..

Valhalla DSP is decent (for those rip out.. customers) and pure vector based developer.
Fabfilter coud not (all hail fabfilters clean(est) plots.. and sliding (png) animations.. and knob inner/outer (png) overlays.. and precise, no twitching, glitching.. wyhiwyg sounding dsp plugins, with lowest possible resource demand.. even with maxed oversapling..) go into that category..




Pngs/tiffs are relatively harmless.. when "used proper".. in proper enviorment..

If anyone's interested; here (http://uptobox.com/is7ydwkj23g1) is (few extremely simple layers on top each other) multilayered Runciter, parameter automation daw killer example..



of "bad layering"..

All in all.. all u-he plugins are fully skinnable. Anyone can strip them down to flat, imageless, colored, bordered (and rounded allso) pannels with flat imageless knobs, buttons.... change, replace (eg knob/slider), reorganize element within editor enviorment.... if wooden, chrome, rubber (or even carbon).. borders are not their choice of desired matterial.... In that case, root panes "gamma", should not (guess) be issue....

[2ZrgE]

Nice wooden panels, but can I hear them in the mix?

Unfortunately, yes, you do.

There were multiple tests where people got the same audio algorithm with different UIs, and people favoured the sound of the better looking ones. So yes, the UI changes the perception of the sound of plug-ins. Which is why Diva is our best selling plug-in and which is also why we work on a redesign of Zebra.

A well known psychological phenomenon. Like people get easily fooled if they have to compare 'expensive' wine to cheap one when the labels are faked. Or if they have to listen to compressed vs. uncompressed audio material.

A well known phenomenon in this forum too..

[exmatproton]

What? Runs smooth as butter

1. Eye bleeding on any resolution
2. Not resizable gui - double eye bleeding on my 30"

Hhmmm, i feel the "old" arturia plugins are worse....jupiter?? Cs80??

[Urs]

Multilayering png image data with alpha transparency compositing..

Our gamma presets are rendered into the bitmaps. While we *could* do all sorts of compositing (similar to Photoshop transfer modes), we don't.

[Urs]

Valhalla DSP UIs are also flat like steppe.

Again, as long as we don't know whether Sean sells his reverbs in the hundreds or in the tens of thousands there is no argument to be made for "flat UIs sell".

[Urs]

And also again... as long as we render on the CPU bitmaps will be faster than vector graphics. We need to go GPU to do vector based drawing efficiently, but as I said, this can take a whole year for a single developer to get right.

By the time it's done, chances are everyone has a machine where things run smooth like hot butter anyway.

[valhallasound]

Valhalla DSP UIs are also flat like steppe.

Again, as long as we don't know whether Sean sells his reverbs in the hundreds or in the tens of thousands there is no argument to be made for "flat UIs sell".

Whether or not they sell, it all comes down to the preferences of the developer.

I've had plenty of people talk about how much they hate the flat GUIs of the Valhalla plugins. I don't mind these sort of discussions, especially when they happen in a public forum, as my sales tend to go up when these discussions are happening.

In any case, I design flat GUIs as this is my PERSONAL preference. Us developer folks will absolutely take economics into consideration, but at the end of the day, you have to live with what you created. The aesthetics of the developer should be reflected in the products they sell. Urs has his preferences, I have my preferences, and it's all good.

Plus, I would have no idea how to design a GUI for something as complicated as some of the u-he plugins. For all I know, "flat" might break down once you get all those controls on the screen. My current goal is to create minimal algorithms that work with minimal GUIs, but this doesn't work for a softsynth.

Sean Costello

P.S. Not really on topic, but while I'm here: I have a sneaking suspicion that Diva sounds more like a proper analog synth than my Prophet-6 does. I won't be making detailed tests for this comparison, as I don't think I really want to know the answer.

[david.beholder]

Hhmmm, i feel the "old" arturia plugins are worse....jupiter?? Cs80??

I never have any Arturia plugins as they don't emulate synths they've named after. (Same thing about roland plugins and recent stuff)

I've tried oddity 2 demo becuase I've heard good reviews but got scared of UI.

By the way, new FXpansion Strobe 2 is vector and a bit ugly but i like the direction they are taking.

Not really on topic, but while I'm here: I have a sneaking suspicion that Diva sounds more like a proper analog synth than my Prophet-6 does. I won't be making detailed tests for this comparison, as I don't think I really want to know the answer.

Aren't they different i.e. P6 have sweet spots Diva can't reach and vice versa. So it's not really clear how to compare
And I still have all my synths packed after move

Question: I really like your Plate rever. Any plans on Spring rever?

[ksandvik]

I have never purchased a SW synth based on looks or whether it's a bitmap or vector implementation. Only exception if the bitmaps don't scale properly for retina displays so it's tedious to see anything or if the controls are so tiny I can't hit them with mouse movements -- but that's another story.

[ghettosynth]

Nice wooden panels, but can I hear them in the mix?

Unfortunately, yes, you do.

There were multiple tests where people got the same audio algorithm with different UIs, and people favoured the sound of the better looking ones. So yes, the UI changes the perception of the sound of plug-ins. Which is why Diva is our best selling plug-in and which is also why we work on a redesign of Zebra.

A well known psychological phenomenon. Like people get easily fooled if they have to compare 'expensive' wine to cheap one when the labels are faked. Or if they have to listen to compressed vs. uncompressed audio material.

A well known phenomenon in this forum too..

Possibly related to the McGurk effect.

[david.beholder]

Btw, if someone is not happy with GUI? Reaper has ascétique GUIless mode.

[pdxindy]

Valhalla DSP UIs are also flat like steppe.

Again, as long as we don't know whether Sean sells his reverbs in the hundreds or in the tens of thousands there is no argument to be made for "flat UIs sell".

I love the new Valhalla Plate reverb... Great sound and GUI... one of the reasons the GUI works great for me is that the plugin has a total of 12 parameters.

[david.beholder]

I love the new Valhalla Plate reverb... Great sound and GUI... one of the reasons the GUI works great for me is that the plugin has a total of 12 parameters.

I'm 100% with you.

Btw, how do you rate Valhalla Room? How does it in comparison with VVV room?

[scintillator]

Some examples of flat vector graphics that do seLL :

I don't have those sales numbers, but I need to feed 12 people and their families. Every month, all year, every year.

A bit off topic, don't you think? So you take absolutely NO criticism, views different from yours (as also shown in the current tape thread), recommendations that are not in your line of thinking, etc. If someone persists, you become aggressive (4damind tape thing), leave thread or... point out that you have throats to feed.

You should have said this from the very beginning, to save us the time and effort of typing about your products, because you're obviously not going to listen, because you obviously know best.

This quote, just make it your sig. This will keep the buggers off.