1 Delay To Rule Them All? Did Melda Just End The Delay Wars?

[Neon Breath]

At that point, quibbling over whether the UI has pretty colours or simulated wooden end cheeks loses any relevance.

You totally miss the point of the basic principals of design, especially important in software interfaces. Which are not the importance of having a nice wooden panels and nice colors as you say, but to have an intelligent, coherent and well thought layout of the interface, giving access to the tools & features easily and yes therefore, leading to creativity. That's the whole purpose of design.

[Gamma-UT]

How have I missed that point? Do the knobs and buttons in these plugins not do the job one expects? Are modulators not in the modulator window? Because that would be actively bad design.

You appear to be just focused on whether it looks purty or not, which is only one aspect of design. I agree that there are changes that could be made but devices as complex as some of them are will have to involve a number of tabs and windows. And when you are used to the layout of one of these plugins you are used to the layout of all of them.

[sleepcircle]

it's not just that. the size of the text, the arrangement of the items and spacing, the way stuff is grouped and how it provides feedback to the user are all VERY important in the field of design. there are books full of stuff about good design and bad design and all the little mistakes that can be made.

ever heard of a Norman Door? it's a door which—even when you've opened it a dozen times before—subconsciously prompts you to push instead of pulling, or vice versa.

There are many things which we intuitively feel directed to do by our environment—called 'environmental memory'—where the shape and the position and the appearance of a thing subconsciously remind us of its function so that we don't have to sit down and remember what it is. Most things do that, in fact. Certainly all well-designed things do.

If something is badly designed, it either offers no cues to end users or offers the wrong ones, so that they're constantly required to stop and consciously re-acquaint themselves with how to manipulate the object in order to get a result, instead of focusing on the result itself.

This constant state of 'assessment' very likely is a huge breaker of 'flow' which is a creative state where people are able to make more intuitive artistic decisions. (For this reason, for example, writers are advised to separate actually WRITING from editing and revising the text.)

It's not about looking nice, it's about whether it is constantly distracting you with just the burden of using it to the point where you can't get into or maintain a "right-brain" mode of thinking. (I realize that it's not a PHYSICALLY left and right hemisphere, but there are definitely two primary modes of thinking none-the-less and it's easier to refer to them this way)

[funky lime]

That's basically the same for most of us who own any Meldaplugins, I guess - it start to believe there are more unused than used Melda-licenses.

Maybe the happy users don't feel the need to announce it on a forum?

Seems to be a problem of expectations. A wrench is an extremely handy tool. Just not so much when what you actually want is a paintbrush.

It's a false equivalency for sure, but I'm just imagining someone reviewing a table saw: "Yeah it's great as a saw, but the way it cuts just doesn't inspire me creatively"

[HSum]

Their ui follows their construction of the processing. It's generic and always reminds me of some bad 90's webdesign with a css grid. Things are added dynamically and fit into rows & columns, even if it doesn't make sense or creates awkward designs (like 1000px wide buttons with small text in the center and its caption on the left of a button).

Anyways MTurboDelay is abolutely not the "1 delay" and it obviously doesn't end the delay war.

[Gamma-UT]

it's not just that. the size of the text, the arrangement of the items and spacing, the way stuff is grouped and how it provides feedback to the user are all VERY important in the field of design. there are books full of stuff about good design and bad design and all the little mistakes that can be made...

Do the sliders not slide? Do the knobs not turn? How many points or em-spaces should the text be spaced from the control to make a difference? Do you know?

But all this is by the by because Neon Breath clipped out a quote to force some point I wasn't making. The point I was making was that issues with the visual the design of a tool do not ruin the potential for creativity.

It's OK to not like the design of something but it would be nice if the self-professed UX designers of KVR didn't pipe up with same lecture each and every time about label spacings the moment UX gets mentioned in order to justify those preferences. I am sure there are better ways to lay out Melda's plugins. There are better ways to re-design a Fairchild limiter (which end of the knob's range is fast attack again?). But the tools are there and I'd rather have access to them than throw them to the side simply because they don't conform to a particular aesthetic.

[sleepcircle]

i don't throw them to the side, personally, although i don't use them as often as i use some others. i was just explaining the most likely reason some people say it makes them feel 'uncreative'

and i wasn't talking about aesthetic. i don't know if that was obvious, but i didn't mention colour schemes or bevelling or graphic design or interesting photoshop effects and photo textures or anything like that.

[ThomasHelzle]

I would say it's more related to the people involved.

Some people - like the dev himself - are more into engineering. So they argue that the main use of a hammer is that it is able to hit nails on the head and put them in fast. If the hammer does that, nothing can be wrong.
If you are more the engineer type regarding music, any EQ that does well what an EQ does is a good EQ.
And if you are that kind of engineer, the look of the hammer, if the handle is wood or plastic or if it's form is elegant, doesn't interest you one bit.

Then there are people who are more visual. Their brain actually works different in that something that looks good (which doesn't mean wooden side bars, mind you) and is organised in a way that makes "visual sense", so its easy to grasp with one look instead of hunting through subpages, tabs, subwindows and modes, makes them more "creative", since they don't have to go into "engineering mode" or look at the help file each time, which throws them out of their musical inspiration.

People are very different in that regard and they also have very different relations to music - one does it for fun, another is a mixing engineer, another is mainly a musician playing a (good looking and feeling to him) guitar.

I have plugins that make me want to use them and some that I only use because they do something I haven't found a better plugin for. And then there are plugins (also DAWs and other things of course) that make me want to be somewhere else. Melda is such an example and I saw some comments from the dev on KVR about the GUIs as well as on other things where he basically provided that he is seeing himself as gods gift to mankind in areas where myself and many others would strongly disagree, and I think this contrast makes it so funny in a way - which this thread reflects...

But nevermind, in the end it doesn't matter of course, everybody will use what works for him or her, but the hyperbole headline of the thread leads to stronger reactions than if the op would just have written: "I happen to like the new Melda plugin".

Cheers,

Tom

P.S. Very good post sleepcircle on why good design is important!

[Gamma-UT]

Some people - like the dev himself - are more into engineering. So they argue that the main use of a hammer is that it is able to hit nails on the head and put them in fast. If the hammer does that, nothing can be wrong.
If you are more the engineer type regarding music, any EQ that does well what an EQ does is a good EQ.
And if you are that kind of engineer, the look of the hammer, if the handle is wood or plastic or if it's form is elegant, doesn't interest you one bit.

This is a false dichotomy - it's not about engineer vs artist. It's about realising a vision or not. If I am an artist of the physical painting variety, I am less bothered about whether it has a plastic or wooden handle than whether the head keeps its shape, whether the bristles stay in place and how it holds water or oil. Even when the darn thing is worn out, it's probably still good for stippling. And maybe it's the only brush you've got to hand before the light fades.

I'm sorry, but when people talk about tools that do or do not inspire them to be creative, I question their commitment to creativity. A lot of creativity is, realistically, a slog. It would be nice if it wasn't. But the value is in the end result. And more time is spent in questioning one's own decisions than figuring out whether a tool is precisely the right shape or not.

[Gamma-UT]

But nevermind, in the end it doesn't matter of course, everybody will use what works for him or her, but the hyperbole headline of the thread leads to stronger reactions than if the op would just have written: "I happen to like the new Melda plugin".

Yes, it is a daft thread title, especially when you consider it's a bunch of skinned MXXX presets. Nothing wrong with doing that but the gamut of things for which you can use delays is so wide that sometimes you're going to use a straight one-tap delay and sometimes maybe you need Bidule to wire together the mother of all multitaps. Using the latter for the former isn't a great idea.

[cron]

I tend to describe Melda plugs as having extraordinary attention to detail, but sometimes the wrong details. A focus on framework over functionality. Sure I can make one modulator respond to another modulator controlling 50 sliders whenever a nearby sparrow farts if I put the time in, but I defy anyone to figure out how to assign one LFO to one parameter without first reading the manual. The plugins are wildly obtuse and inaccessible when compared to, say, the extraordinary power and intuitiveness of FXpansion's TransMod system. Power doesn't need to be hard.

I love and regularly use the simpler plugins like MMorph though.

[Neon Breath]

Then Gamma-UT, if it's as simple as 'this knob does its knob job and this slider does its slider job, then it's gotta be a good tool' how do you explain so many people are so repulsed and put off my Melda's plugins? Why there's a general consensus about their GUI?

[Gamma-UT]

Then Gamma-UT, if it's as simple as 'this knob does its knob job and this slider does its slider job, then it's gotta be a good tool' how do you explain so many people are so repulsed and put off my Melda's plugins? Why there's a general consensus about their GUI?

At some point you're going to make a point that doesn't misrepresent what I've written. Until then, tatty-bye.

I believe I also answered the first question in my first response to you.

[jancivil]

I actually enjoy setting up and getting into the details under the hood and do hours of sound design. Weeks of sound design.
But, for example I downloaded the Melda Saturator, whatever it's actually called and it was just a PITA to use, a drag. As pointed out already, there's too much going on, the interface IMO is crap, it's not a useful tool for me when there are other ways to get there that are simple.

In itself applying saturation (or setting up your delay) is not really creative in sensu stricto, it's not about moments of inspiration; it's closer to being a mix engineer. And I mix while composing, but I would say that level of attention to a technical matter is more like a separate job than rolled into the 'creative inspiration' process. As to that, I am absolutely inspired by sound/that tool. Being that I do set that up first.

But still, if it's a waste of time for someone, that can't be argued.

[ThomasHelzle]

I would also add, that in a market as saturated as that of VST plugins, it's not about scarcity or only having that one brush. If I can select between probably a thousand EQs or delays, In addition to it sounding good and having the features I look for, of course I also select one that has a good layout and "makes sense" to me. If my eyes are pleased as well, so much the better

And just to put this in perspective: I'm also a user of SideFX Houdini, a 3D software that a lot of people think of as extremely hard to use - for me it's pure bliss, so it's not as if I'm advocating looks over function or "one knob does it all" stuff. I'm just generally interested in design and what it does to people, and Melda simply baffles me every time.

Cheers,

Tom