Sharing some thoughts & suggestions

[Audiospaceman]

First of all i must say that you guys are doing a wonderful job!! Thank you Vojtech & Team for all these amazingly powerful tools you produce!!
May I share with you the following thoughts based on my experience?

1) In the Layer Source (MDrummer), it could be very handy to have a "lock" button next to the copy and paste buttons. This "lock" button would effectively lock the current selected layer preventing it to change to any other layer mistakenly.

2) When every meldaplugin parameters are changed new settings are produced to be eventually saved as new presets. When already saved presets are set to be changed again it would be nice to have a visual feedback to show us that the preset is now changed and therefore needs to be saved again. A visual feedback could be a dot or asterisk next to the preset name.

3) I feel that the preset button on top of every plugin window and sub window became too large. The area once used to drag the plugin window is now much reduced. Most times i incidentally hit the huge preset window button instead of neutral area...

4) I just love the "click&pops" and "stairs" modes found on MNoiseGenerator. Is there a chance to extend these functionalities to a sort of vynil/tape/
analog machine noise generator? Sweet...

BR

[dmbaer]

3) I feel that the preset button on top of every plugin window and sub window became too large. The area once used to drag the plugin window is now much reduced. Most times i incidentally hit the huge preset window button instead of neutral area...

You are not alone in finding this a major annoyance. There's no need for the preset control to be so wide in most cases. This is high up on my list of wished-for improvements.

[Dirtgrain]

#3 gets me too often.

[mevla]

+1 4 # 3

[MeldaProduction]

First of all i must say that you guys are doing a wonderful job!! Thank you Vojtech & Team for all these amazingly powerful tools you produce!!
May I share with you the following thoughts based on my experience?

1) In the Layer Source (MDrummer), it could be very handy to have a "lock" button next to the copy and paste buttons. This "lock" button would effectively lock the current selected layer preventing it to change to any other layer mistakenly.

I'm a bit confused - you want a button that would prevent you from selecting a layer in a listbox?? That seems a bit extreme.

2) When every meldaplugin parameters are changed new settings are produced to be eventually saved as new presets. When already saved presets are set to be changed again it would be nice to have a visual feedback to show us that the preset is now changed and therefore needs to be saved again. A visual feedback could be a dot or asterisk next to the preset name.

While I'd love that, it's actually very difficult, currently impossible. In most plugins it is easy, since they just have a few automatable parameters and that's it, so every time a parameter is changed, the preset is changed. We do that for the undo thing. But Melda plugins also have lots of nonautomated ones (various graphs...), and checking changes to these would mean going through thousands of lines of code and hopefully catching all places where this happens. And that's just impossible in current time schedule... just too many stuff on the plate.

3) I feel that the preset button on top of every plugin window and sub window became too large. The area once used to drag the plugin window is now much reduced. Most times i incidentally hit the huge preset window button instead of neutral area...

I agree, but the problem is, that it needs to be as large as possible, to make sure the preset names (unknown ahead) fit. It's also for technical reasons... I spent a long time with that already and failed, oh well . Not that it wouldn't bother me from time to time too..

4) I just love the "click&pops" and "stairs" modes found on MNoiseGenerator. Is there a chance to extend these functionalities to a sort of vynil/tape/
analog machine noise generator? Sweet...

I'd like to and definitely other noise ideas could be implemented, but I'm not sure vinyl and stuff would be one of them, since I think that would imply some sort of filtering. But actually we could add an EQ to the noise generator for that, hmmm... we'll see, low priority.

[dmbaer]

I agree, but the problem is, that it needs to be as large as possible, to make sure the preset names (unknown ahead) fit. It's also for technical reasons... I spent a long time with that already and failed, oh well . Not that it wouldn't bother me from time to time too..

Well, I would argue that it does *not* have to be as large as possible to accommodate really long preset names. Make the preset name field half the current width (or two-thirds ... just give us some extra space to do a mouse drag from so we don't have to mouse way over to the left of the window). Then implement a tool-tip type display if the name overflows the available space that reveals the full preset name. From what I've seen, this would rarely even be needed.

[DarkStar]

Re #3 WIDE presets button: how about this a a workaround?
-- At the moment, after clicking the button, the Preset Browser opens only when the mouse is released and the mouse is still over the button;
-- if the mouse is clicked on the button then moved off the button MOVE the window until the mouse is released;
-- if the mouse is clicked on the button then NOT moved off the button OPEN the Preset Browser when the mouse is released.

[Audiospaceman]

Hi everyone, it's really nice to read all your replies and sharing!

1) In the Layer Source (MDrummer), it could be very handy to have a "lock" button next to the copy and paste buttons. This "lock" button would effectively lock the current selected layer preventing it to change to any other layer mistakenly.

I'm a bit confused - you want a button that would prevent you from selecting a layer in a listbox?? That seems a bit extreme.

Yes Vojtech, i agree it might be extreme... but the idea about the "lock" button feature was born a couple of days ago when I was programming a drum part from custom folders. I was working inside the SAMPLER layer source. By mistake pressed another layer source... but when I went back to the SAMPLER tab the drum part was lost (the link was reset). It took a while to find and link back to the lost drum part since it was inside a custom folder with hundreds of files. I believe a "lock" button could have prevented the layer change.
What do you think about it?
Thanks a lot

[Audiospaceman]

Re #3 WIDE presets button: how about this a a workaround?
-- At the moment, after clicking the button, the Preset Browser opens only when the mouse is released and the mouse is still over the button;
-- if the mouse is clicked on the button then moved off the button MOVE the window until the mouse is released;
-- if the mouse is clicked on the button then NOT moved off the button OPEN the Preset Browser when the mouse is released.

Absolutely right DarkStar... but something still feel uncomfortable with that behavior. Some elegant solution is presented by dmbaer but perhaps the best workaround is to get used to take the mouse directly to the upper left corner of the plugin (where the name is) and drag the window.
Adaptation is often the key to succeed and get the work done...
BR

[jmg8]

I have been wanting more noise types for ages. Most of the competition have quite a selection. I think it adds quite a bit for sound design.
To be fair though, most of the competition use samples for noise (Serum, Avenger, Massive X) and the sampler will be here soon, so we can get some library of noises added here.
A good example of a selection of noise types that are not samples, is UVI Falcon.

[dmbaer]

To be fair though, most of the competition use samples for noise (Serum, Avenger, Massive X) and the sampler will be here soon, so we can get some library of noises added here.

I was thinking the exact same thing. One advantage we see in Massive X is that the samples can be re-pitched to good effect. I hope Vojtech can locate a generous collection of useful noise samples to include in the factory content. NI did a great job of doing this for Massive X. Most of those samples are interesting, useful and invite innovative application. I am impressed with what UVI did in Falcon as well, but if I had to choose between Falcon and Massive X noise, it would take no deliberation - Massive X wins easily.

[jmg8]

Serum noises are pretty good also.
No need to choose, we will get both!
I think Vojtech will add some more to the noise generator. They both have advantages. Generated noise is completely random and non repeating, so can be used for organic stuff. Sampled noise can be key tracked.
I certainly have some good noise samples to add to the factory library already. So I reckon we will have a good collection there.

[nichttuntun]

I have been wanting more noise types for ages. Most of the competition have quite a selection. I think it adds quite a bit for sound design.
To be fair though, most of the competition use samples for noise (Serum, Avenger, Massive X) and the sampler will be here soon, so we can get some library of noises added here.
A good example of a selection of noise types that are not samples, is UVI Falcon.

Samples for that purpose are totally lame

[jmg8]

For what purpose?
Sampled noise is better in some situations, as it can be key tracked which sort of "glues" it to the sound.
Also for attacks, it sounds the same every time it triggers, whereas generated noise is random so it has a softer attack sound.
It also gives opportunity for many noise sounds that wouldn't be possible to produce with a noise generator.
So not lame at all.

[nichttuntun]

That was the reason for a smiley

If you want to emulate machine generated noise like in a Tape Machine or a TV-Speaker, sampled noise is not so good.