Daw's & Their Instrument / FX Browsers - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

[zenophilix]

Least favorite: Probably Tracktion, Live 8 and previous.

Favorites: Live 9+, then possibly a combination of Studio One, FL, and Reason. Really like having the images of the plugins there, makes it a lot faster to grab what I want, especially if I happen to forgot what a particular effect is called.

[inkwarp]

i feel i should give a shout to FL Studio's pop up browser. it's fairly clear and easy to find everything from it. the ability to save thumbnails for fx and instruments is really well done.

[THE INTRANCER]

Screengrab of how Reaper's browser looks on my system, it takes a full five minutes to find anything

[chk071]

So awesome! I mean, really, you don't lose overview at all.

[THE INTRANCER]

I discovered during my University course on Interactive Multimedia Development I graduated in 10 years ago, that there was a clear division between those who chose 'Computing Programming' and those who chose 'Interactive Multimedia / GUI Design', and that was from other students, but it was also something I found through my own research coursework studies. Interestingly, there is books written for programmers... but it's pretty clear that there are developers that are stubborn in acceptance and / or blind to the concept of intuitive and accessible workflow.

https://www.amazon.com/Interface-Design ... 1893115941

"Most programmers' fear of user interface (UI) programming comes from their fear of doing UI design. They think that UI design is like graphic design―the mysterious process by which creative, latte-drinking, all-black-wearing people produce cool-looking, artistic pieces. Most programmers see themselves as analytic, logical thinkers instead―strong at reasoning, weak on artistic judgment, and incapable of doing UI design.

In this brilliantly readable book, author Joel Spolsky proposes simple, logical rules that can be applied without any artistic talent to improve any user interface, from traditional GUI applications to websites to consumer electronics. Spolsky's primary axiom, the importance of bringing the program model in line with the user model, is both rational and simple.

In a fun and entertaining way, Spolsky makes user interface design easy for programmers to grasp. After reading User Interface Design for Programmers, you'll know how to design interfaces with the user in mind. You'll learn the important principles that underlie all good UI design, and you'll learn how to perform usability testing that works."

[THE INTRANCER]

Reaper apparently had an update in the past few days.... no changes to their old archaic browser into the 21st century still...

[coolbass]

Screengrab of how Reaper's browser looks on my system, it takes a full five minutes to find anything

This is stupid.
Make some smart folders and everything is super easy to find.
But I guess that is too difficult for a genius like you.

[zenophilix]

Screengrab of how Reaper's browser looks on my system, it takes a full five minutes to find anything

This is stupid.
Make some smart folders and everything is super easy to find.
But I guess that is too difficult for a genius like you.

That was... oddly aggressive.

[Hink]

Screengrab of how Reaper's browser looks on my system, it takes a full five minutes to find anything

This is stupid.
Make some smart folders and everything is super easy to find.
But I guess that is too difficult for a genius like you.

That was... oddly aggressive.

duly noted

[vurt]

[andypryce]

Double

[EnochLight]

Reaper apparently had an update in the past few days.... no changes to their old archaic browser into the 21st century still...

Resurrecting your own thread - sweet! You know Scotty, we disagree on a lot of stuff - but Reaper's browser is one thing we can agree on. It was one of the reasons why I never could get into using it, and ultimately why I decided upon Studio One as my secondary DAW.

It's not going to be any surprise to anyone I don't think... in how I view Reaper's browser from the aforementioned title, but for someone who migrated from another daw, I will say that when I arrived with Studio One 2.6 before version 3.0, the lack of thumbnails in the browser was a pretty dire departure from what I was use to before

Right - it was nice to see PreSonus take a cue from Propellerhead's Reason and improve their browser. I feel the device thumbnails really improved it as well....

[andypryce]

But being able to select, insert and pre-listen the stuff I want right at the position in the chain where it is supposed to go is just great. Suddenly the browser isn't something detached like a library you have to walk to first to get your books, it feels more like having all the books right there when you sit at the fire in the evening and feel like reading.

This takes the BWS browser to another level. Trying out samples, fx, vst, presets in context is awesome.
Try out different kicks on drum machine or different brand delays compressors and without changing the song until you close the window. Or just press esc and everything is just the way it was. Brilliant.

Also for outside sample browsing the new Loop Cloud 3 is awesome. Since you can add your own library to it too.
You can preview all your library with it synced with your daw and with midi files. So you can for example preview all snare drums only hitting on 2 and 4 in sync with your song is insane. You can also create your own custom midi files for it. And it is free.

[JoseC.]

My real experience is limited to Ableton Live, Cakewalk/Sonar, and Reaper. I used to own Reason 2 a century ago or so, but I lost memory of that. So, on topic:

Good: Reaper and Cakewalk. Ex aequo. Each can do things the other can't, but they are decent and get the job done.

Bad: Live. A browser that won't let you browse your own drives unless it scans them first. That is bad. I get the idea of a library database, but it should be an extra option, like in Kontakt, IMO. The rest is meh, an uglish mediocre browser. (Edit: to be fair, hot swap is cool, but just works with its own devices)

Ugly: Reaper. Really. And it gets worse if you find a decent theme for the rest of the program, its ugliness stands out even more.

[zenophilix]

Reaper apparently had an update in the past few days.... no changes to their old archaic browser into the 21st century still...

Resurrecting your own thread - sweet! You know Scotty, we disagree on a lot of stuff - but Reaper's browser is one thing we can agree on. It was one of the reasons why I never could get into using it, and ultimately why I decided upon Studio One as my secondary DAW.

It's not going to be any surprise to anyone I don't think... in how I view Reaper's browser from the aforementioned title, but for someone who migrated from another daw, I will say that when I arrived with Studio One 2.6 before version 3.0, the lack of thumbnails in the browser was a pretty dire departure from what I was use to before

Right - it was nice to see PreSonus take a cue from Propellerhead's Reason and improve their browser. I feel the device thumbnails really improved it as well....

Device thumbnails are a must for me. The visual recognition makes it so much easier to just grab something. Ableton, step it up, I love everything else about your software...