KVR Audio

Rockatansky · Post by **Rockatansky** » Thu Dec 17, 2020 9:41 am

From the available contrast schemes, I prefer version 3.

From a UI design perspective, I find the controls weirdly positioned, too much random centering and offsets, they don't line up as nicely as they should. I also think positioning of the section box titles should be unified, for example it makes no sense to have the 'tone stack' label off to the left instead of centered at the top like all the others. There's a lot of empty (=wasted) space in between the modules, but then the 'plugin' section label has to be moved to the left because there's no room for it at the top of the module area... all a bit weird and inconsistent. I also find reading vertical text tedious, but that may just be me.

swanky.jpg

Spitfire31 · Post by **Spitfire31** » Thu Dec 17, 2020 9:48 am

+1 on vertical text!

prodigal_sounds · Post by **prodigal_sounds** » Thu Dec 17, 2020 4:41 pm

@Garrin, I would like to add that your UI design is on point. It's gorgeous.

Don't listen to Rockatansky about "wasted space" (grin) - the spacing of the modules is nice and balanced. It would be so easy to get cluttered.

I don't mind the vertical text so much but agree that it is "less good" than horizontal titles on all modules. Are the real-estate constraints really *that* severe that vertical text is necessary?

garrinm · Post by **garrinm** » Thu Dec 17, 2020 5:26 pm

Thanks for all the feedback. I agree the higher contrast version is better, I will tweak it a bit and go with that. I think the vertical text is a fair point. When I mocked this up on paper it made a bit more sense than in context in the final layout, especially with the space available. I will also experiment with the scope in the middle and probably send some more screenshots to see which variant people like best.

Rockatansky wrote: ↑Thu Dec 17, 2020 9:41 am From a UI design perspective, I find the controls weirdly positioned, too much random centering and offsets, they don't line up as nicely as they should.

Thanks for that detailed review. I see what you're saying about the alignment, but the situation there is not completely straightforward. The UI is resizable so everything current aligns w.r.t. to borders and text elements using standardized dimensions. If I align the knobs, then the contents won't look properly centered (i.e. in the plugin section the knobs align to the bars which align to the edges, and which take into account the size of their labels, where "H" and "S" take less room than the digits ...)

Hopefully when you're using it resizing things it'll feel a bit more natural / not so out of place. I'll keep your feedback in mind though.

Thanks,
Garrin

garrinm · Post by **garrinm** » Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:48 pm

Here's a couple more screenshots comparing having the small knob values on the side, versus no values (you will be able to middle click to enter the value into a text box, so it'll be possible to see the exact value that way).

There were some more tweaks and I followed up on some of the recommendations:

- improved contrast
- scope in the middle
- horizontal labels

jbraner · Post by **jbraner** » Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:05 pm

I like them both. I don't mind the vertical numbers too much - but if there are no numbers, maybe show them when th emouse hovers over the knob?
Or even - what about trying the numbers right in the knob - like the big ones.
Does that look bad?

prodigal_sounds · Post by **prodigal_sounds** » Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:44 pm

I think I like the version without sideways value text. It's cleaner. So long as a tooltip or edit popup shows the value, it's good.

greenmind72 · Post by **greenmind72** » Wed Apr 07, 2021 6:12 am

I thought I’d give this thread a nudge - Swanky Amp Pro version is coming out soon for intro price of $35 (early release 14th April?).

It’ll be a public beta, including cabinets and some pedals. I’m really curious to hear the full package, and see what it exactly offers.

All the best for the launch Garrin!

garrinm · Post by **garrinm** » Thu Apr 08, 2021 2:15 pm

greenmind72 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 6:12 am I thought I’d give this thread a nudge - Swanky Amp Pro version is coming out soon for intro price of $35 (early release 14th April?).

It’ll be a public beta, including cabinets and some pedals. I’m really curious to hear the full package, and see what it exactly offers.

All the best for the launch Garrin!

That's right ^. To be clear, there will be a limited run of licenses available at that price and people on the mailing list will get the first go at it. I'll be sure to keep some available for the forumites

.

I'm expecting the full launch sometime in May, I'll post here and on the website with more info in the weeks ahead.

Thanks,
Garrin

garrinm · Post by **garrinm** » Thu Apr 08, 2021 2:20 pm

In the mean time, here's a couple of screenshots of the current UI. I've incorporated as much of the feedback as I could.

A few of points:

When you hover over a control, the label with its name shows its value instead. No more vertical labels!

The UI is re-sizable but right now the boxes just move apart to create more room and the scope fills up that space. In the future I'd like to make this a bit more responsive.

The UI is denser than it was previously, I think if you tried to use it on a laptop screen with some scaling it was a bit unwieldy.

When you hover over a control, the information about it displays in the top right. There is no more delay, it'll show up instantaneously.

Currently there are only 4 pedal slots. Shortly I will upgrade this so you can paginate between groups of 4 pedals.

Please send feedback!

Thanks,
Garrin

garrinm · Post by **garrinm** » Thu Apr 08, 2021 2:30 pm

Here's a very quick update since there's not been much activity here for a while:

The last few months have not been idle. As the old adage goes: the last 10% is 90% of the work. It's not quite that bad but it certainly is a big effort to wrap up the lose ends with something like this.

The majority of the work was done behind-the-scenes. Things that will help with stability and upgradabilty (not actually a word).

The "other majority" of the work went into the cabinet section. I'm very happy with the outcome of that work and I think the result is something that's not seen in other cab simulators. Whether or not people enjoy it is a whole other story, and I'm looking forward to getting feedback on it so I can keep iterating. But the underlying technology is quite powerful (there'll be a blog post about it at some point).

As a result there's not been any new pedals introduced. But part of the behind-the-scenes work went into building a good foundation for the pedals. So the hope is to keep adding to the collection of pedals over time based on what users like and maybe with an eye for doing some slightly off-the-beaten path things.

Garrin

jbraner · Post by **jbraner** » Thu Apr 08, 2021 4:15 pm

I think it looks great!
Also - IMHO the amp (and speaker sim) are the star attractions here - and the pedals are just icing on the cake, so 4 pedals is fine. Besides there are loads of other pedal plugins available - not to mention using real pedals

vom · Post by **vom** » Thu Apr 08, 2021 5:07 pm

Looks great! Can't wait to try this. I use Swanky Amp a LOT (even after I started micing up my amp more recently), but I've generally been switching off the cab and using IRs, so particularly intrigued to see what improvements the pro version has in that area!

garrinm · Post by **garrinm** » Thu Apr 15, 2021 12:42 am

Quick update: there's been some issues that came up last last week and I've been working very hard to resolve them. It was a bit of a domino effect. And while everything is pretty well under control finally, there are a few outstanding issues that won't make for a good experience at the moment.

So I've had to make the decision to push back the beta release to Monday.

Thanks for your patience,
Garrin

jbraner · Post by **jbraner** » Thu Apr 15, 2021 8:23 am

take your time...

We still have "Swanky Amp Classic" (patent pending) to keep us busy

Swanky Amp (release 1.4.0)