KVR Audio

jzero · Post by **jzero** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 4:00 am

Lunch Money wrote:BetabugsAudio was founded on simplicity of concept combined with rather nice GUIs

This my favorite GUI ever!
http://www.betabugs-audio.com/

(just poking fun)

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 4:27 am

<chuckle>

All the other domain names similar to "www.betabugsaudio.com" that normally re-direct to "www.betabugsaudio.com" say the same thing.

Even if you forget the "www" part, you'd think that the page didn't exist.

Greg

xanda123 · Post by **xanda123** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 2:05 pm

Don't know about anyone else but I think GUI is very important, I for one won't use a softsynth if it looks shit and I don't agree with it don't care how good it sounds I just can't stand to look at something that I hate for more than 10 minutes which makes it quite hard to program, so I just don't bother.

origami · Post by **origami** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 2:09 pm

sound is sound. what's obvious is that image is important and can be inspiring. when a synth has a cool gui, well, it grabs your attention. then if the sound is crap, of course you don't use it.

the problem is the reverse. sometimes you see a horrible gui and so you think that synth must be crap and never take the effort of downloading it. and maybe you're missing a great sounding synth.

that happens to me with Xhip adn Augur, for instance. I still haven't downloaded them just cos their guis are not attractive. I guess I'll finally do it though...

but we always like to watch beauty, don't we?

vbrother · Post by **vbrother** » Thu Jul 23, 2026 6:13 pm

Wondering in the age of Serum 2, Pigments 7, Current, etc. if the same evaluative ethos of GUI design still holds? I remember people complaining about the original Absynth's GUI, which can seem retro or quaint today...

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Thu Jul 23, 2026 7:08 pm

Wow, ultimate necro… 2005 to today? It would be better to start a new one.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Thu Jul 23, 2026 7:20 pm

My stance hasn't changed.

MillerSam · Post by **MillerSam** » Thu Jul 23, 2026 7:25 pm

For me, it's more about being inspired than the sound. What Plugmon did with the Diva UI is fantastic and, in my opinion, makes it more inspiring to use. A synth UI can be bad but still have a great sound.
The user interface is a key thing in how you approach it.

https://plugmon.jp/product/mona/

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Thu Jul 23, 2026 7:48 pm

Diva's UI isn't bad, but Mona works really well with it and looks great.

solar28 · Post by **solar28** » Thu Jul 23, 2026 11:33 pm

I wonder how many of the original posters are now themselves dead?

rod_zero · Post by **rod_zero** » Fri Jul 24, 2026 4:16 am

GUi has to make the synth more enjoyable to use, GUI that are pretty just for looks sake just try to cover for other weaknesses.

But we have come a long long way since 2005, skeumorphic design has been going out of fashion in synths. Serum, Pigments, Phasplant, falcon, vital, avenger, almost all super synths have embraced GUIs designed for actually using them with a mouse. The only synth that remains with a terrible GUI is Omnisphere, that thing is stuck in 2005.

JasonSpatola · Post by **JasonSpatola** » Fri Jul 24, 2026 5:12 am

Urs wrote: Thu Jul 23, 2026 7:20 pm My stance hasn't changed.

That actually legitimately aged well!

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Fri Jul 24, 2026 6:50 am

rod_zero wrote: Fri Jul 24, 2026 4:16 amBut we have come a long long way since 2005, skeumorphic design has been going out of fashion in synths. Serum, Pigments, Phasplant, falcon, vital, avenger, almost all super synths...

All of these still have skeuomorphic aspects in their UIs though. Most all of them have drop shadows around physical appearing buttons, they put curves and graphs visually into displays and they use virtual LEDs to display states. Most mimic a light source with virtual edges being brighter on some sides and darker on the opposite sides, some even have gradients on panels mimicking diffuse reflection. Even Vital subtly places panels "above" backgrounds by dropping shadow on latter.

But yeah, thankfully those with 3D aspects all use parallel projection, not that gimmicky perspective look where knobs stick out towards the outer edges (which btw. I suspect is one of the reasons some UIs use humungous amounts of memory, as each 3D knob needs its own animation stack)

Munin · Post by **Munin** » Fri Jul 24, 2026 6:52 am

If you are going to be staring at something for hours and hours on end I think it's fair to expect that this thing should at least not be unpleasant to look at. Others may disagree though. I feel like skeuomorphic is kind of making a comeback and that's cool too.

Something I am quite flabbergasted by is that Ozone somehow got uglier over the years.

Maccaroni · Post by **Maccaroni** » Fri Jul 24, 2026 7:22 am

I agree with Munin here. I think one of the reasons why I don't like most "modern" software synthesizers (e.g. Pigments) is that they are too gimmicky. I get it, 2026 computers are capable of making everything including text editors look like it was featured in Star Trek. However, when making music, I much prefer to not be distracted by the GUI. So, skeuomorphism it is for me.

Good GUI, Good Sound?