So, when it comes to parameter automation, to the best of my knowledge, all DAWs implement a similar paradigm, which is, as we all know, a lane over the timeline where you can draw a shape (from a simple ramp to more complex waveforms). This model generally works very well for parameters with continuous values, e.g frequency, resonance, volume. When it comes to parameters that represent discrete values, the best example of this I think is BPM synced rate (LFOs, delay etc), this model doesn't really work in my opinion.
The main problem is that you need to draw straight lines at fixed points that are very close to each other, which, depending on your screen size, can be a bit of a tedious and slow process. Not only that, but the visual feedback doesn't convey any useful meaning. If I see a ramp that goes from 0 to 100 on a frequency parameter, I know there will be a filter sweep and I can more or less guess what it will sound like. If I have to switch from 1/4 to 1/16 on an LFO rate, looking at two straight lines with a really small distance between each other doesn't really help. I normally need to add cue markers to document the values.
One workaround I found recently is the use of buttons. I just map each button to a different rate and then turn them on and off over the timeline. Like this
This method obviously has quite a few drawbacks, the main ones being:
- You need to use multiple lanes
- You need to make sure that button on states don't overlap otherwise you'll get the sum of the values that the buttons point to.
Now imagine, instead of having multiple lanes, if you could have one single lane, where you can see the actual value rather than a straight line. I'm really terrible with mockups but imagine something like this.
You would just need to select the timeline, set the boundaries and then just enter your desired value.
Obviously for this to work the plugin would need to transmit the actual values to the host and not just the percentage. In this example I used Serum which doesn't. I'm a not too sure if this is a limitation in Bitwig or that's just how VST technology works tbh. So ideally the user should be able to map the plugin value to a given ID, and then enter this value on the GUI.
What do people think of this proposal? Am I the only one who thinks this would be an amazing workflow improvement?
Thanks for reading this and look forward to hearing your opinion.
