Viper|1.2.2 update with bugfixes and new skin

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adamtrance wrote: Anyway I appreciate all ideas and comments but you have to look at it from a design/programmers point of view.
Or maybe we should look at it from a users point of view, no?
adamtrance wrote: Image

Now its a nice idea to make the controls in the tabs changeable, but it will turn into a logistics nightmare. Just think about this, I have to create clickable mouse areas (green squares) for the knobs. But then if I allow knobs to be tweaked people will complain they want to choose filters and all other stuff, so then I have to create more mouse areas (blue squares). I would be forced to do this because it makes zero logical sense to allow only a few parameters to be tweaked, how would I explain that to a user? They would have to understand the whole thing right away. Ok so now that all those parameters are editable how would it work? If you are in the Osc section but want to change the cutoff without going to to filter section, then when you click on the little cutoff, should the tab switch to the filter section or stay? If it says then if you want to go to the filter you have to click around the controls and that would be a pain in the behind. Plus what if someone wants to go to the filter section, but clicked on the cutoff and changed it by accident? then I will get complaints about that. Then people want options for making it behave differently. As you can see it will become a nightmare quickly, plus I can go on and on with all the issues, but I have to get back to the 64 bit. I hope you guys see its too much trouble for something small. The easiest way to solve is to have them as big tabs that convey information and problem solved. I cant make everybody happy.
Personally, editing those little controls wouldn't be my first choice, but it wouldn't be a bad thing, especially with a re-sizable GUI. As for your questions about all the different options, I think that's rather easy actually. See that whole part on the left side where it says the name of the section? Like Oscillators etc. Ya that huge section that is bigger than most tab buttons? Those would be where you click to change tabs and the mouse areas that look like they should be mouse areas would be mouse areas and would not change tabs but edit the controls. Seems pretty straight forward. Can't imagine someone clicking a filter cutoff knob and being surprised that it moves (if it's a control). Then they just click the huge area to the left to change the tab. Again, not something I'm necessarily saying is perfect, but could be something to think about. I just wanted to express that having oscs completely separate from filters and completely separate form modulation is a bit click heavy for making minor adjustments between the different areas.

What about the wavetable menu being made automatable? I'd probably overlook the tabbing if I could map out every control.

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I think the Virus design and Viper keeping fairly true to that deserves respect myself. It seems to have worked very well for a lot of people in the last 10 years or however long the Virus control interface has been available for.

Works for me all the time, that is my perspective anyway. Looks great :tu:

To add : At first I disliked Virus control interface or just the way virus does things, it did not seem to feel intuitive and I found it a bit confusing and was a clunky programmer. But now as discussed with others here it is a very logical lay out, going from left to right the sound, roughly .speaking (or from top to bottom for Viper by the looks of things)

I think it takes time to get comfortable with a synth interface. The critical thing is.. is the sonic result worth the effort and for the Virus it is without any shadow of a doubt. After a while you get eye to ear coordination and you feel all cosy and right at home. :hug:

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I personally have zero complaints about Viper's layout. It's incredible easy to use and I've recommended it to Roland Cloud for inspiration because they need help with their own GUI's!

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I really don't want to make a big deal out of this. But, you can't and shouldn't compare a hardware editor GUI to soft synth plugin GUI. At least most of the editors i have seen looked and felt pretty horrible. Viper's GUI is really OK-ish for me, but, i wished it would allow access to oscillator and filter controls on one page. That's the biggest issue i see with it, plus the wasted potential of the sidebar, which i really think would have allowed control over the shown parameters. I don't see much of a point in seeing them, when it's obvious when you play a sound anyway.

So, yep, see this as a minor rant, but not at all a "dealbreaker". Actually, i don't think i even care how the Virus editor does, Viper doesn't offer all of the features of a Virus TI anyway, so, it shouldn't be the top consideration to orientate on the editor's GUI. Just my opinion.

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Where is the good virus sound bank on the soundcloud that was here for a while when is the released and which website.

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chk071 wrote:I really don't want to make a big deal out of this. But, you can't and shouldn't compare a hardware editor GUI to soft synth plugin GUI. At least most of the editors i have seen looked and felt pretty horrible.
What big deal what are you talking about? Access GUI is controlling their software, on top of that Access used design topology used by 99% VSTi GUI designs out there.

In other words - Access GUI looks pretty much like any other VSTi released way before Access.

So if he choose to work on that as inspiration it would not be anything wrong. He may use Spire for inspiration and in the end it will also look kinda Access, kinda Spire, kinda Sonic Academy Ana etc.etc.

He does not have to reinvent something which is used by millions of people already. Following these same looking layouts is actually a good thing. People does not want to be confused.

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One example for the Virus/Viper vs Spire GUI debate. What if I want to make an osc-to-osc FM patch with the FM amount controlled by an envelope and the velocity? In Spire i have to switch back and forth between the two oscillators to set up their waveforms and relative pitch, then go to the matrix to set up the modulation amount, and when I see the matrix I don't see the envelopes ... Lots of tab switching and menu diving. Horrible. In Viper I see both oscillators, the FM amount and the vel-> FM and env -> FM knobs at once, I have to switch to another tab only once to set up the envelope. I don't need the matrix and I have only a small menu for the FM type where the default pos triangle typically does the job.

What I wanted to say is that synths like Spire or Virus TI are bound to have tabs. How you group the parameters defines what kinds of patches will be made in the most intuitive way. I agree that Spire with its half-tabbed GUI may be more flexible. On the other hand, making more complex sounds is actually easier in Virus/Viper because of the fixed predefined assignments and logical grouping of parameters within these tabs.

Well, Bazille Gearporn. Everything is on one screen. How on earth can anyone program this horrible mess of fake cables and esoteric controls is beyond me. But there are no tabs.
You may think you can fly ... but you better not try

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If you choose to buy an actual Virus you will be pleased the GUI looks/works like this. I suspect many a Virus owner will buy Viper and it may inspire others to buy a Virus. They will be comfortable very quickly I think.

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On top of that Access Virus had even worse GUI then Viper on Powercore and Protools cards way before Virus TI GUI. And it worked just fine. Actually many people still use it today in their production.

Image

Looking forward for native 64 bit :love:

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..blew the dust off jBridge and got the demo.

Left Panel:
The tabs are so big you just click in the general direction without even looking to the side.
When the knobs would be adjustable...it could happen that you adjust something while not really looking.

So..i think it's better the way it is now. (+ the reasons "Mr. Trance" posted)
-The panel is an overview and that does it very well..bingo.-

--
To test it without jBridge: Just get the bitwig64bit demo..it loads 32bit vst. (and shows latency of plug-ins)
- WonderEcho -

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recursive one wrote:One example for the Virus/Viper vs Spire GUI debate. What if I want to make an osc-to-osc FM patch with the FM amount controlled by an envelope and the velocity? In Spire i have to switch back and forth between the two oscillators to set up their waveforms and relative pitch, then go to the matrix to set up the modulation amount, and when I see the matrix I don't see the envelopes ... Lots of tab switching and menu diving. Horrible. In Viper I see both oscillators, the FM amount and the vel-> FM and env -> FM knobs at once, I have to switch to another tab only once to set up the envelope. I don't need the matrix and I have only a small menu for the FM type where the default pos triangle typically does the job.

What I wanted to say is that synths like Spire or Virus TI are bound to have tabs. How you group the parameters defines what kinds of patches will be made in the most intuitive way. I agree that Spire with its half-tabbed GUI may be more flexible. On the other hand, making more complex sounds is actually easier in Virus/Viper because of the fixed predefined assignments and logical grouping of parameters within these tabs.

Well, Bazille Gearporn. Everything is on one screen. How on earth can anyone program this horrible mess of fake cables and esoteric controls is beyond me. But there are no tabs.
Dune 2 actually shows that it's possible to have a lot of stuff under the hood, while presenting the most important stuff on one page. I agree that Spire isn't really the most thought out and clear layout either. BUT, it has the most important controls on one page, unlike the Virus editor or Viper. I consider it the very least to be able to have the controls of the main oscillator, the filter, and amp and filter envelopes on one page.

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Well, I'm not trying to say that Viper GUI, or Spire GUI are the best ever made. I just mean that when you have got used to any of them and have understood the logic behind the layout you can be very productive with it. I'm not a sound-design expert but I feel myself equally comfortable with programming Viper, Spire and Dune2.

After all, I think Viper GUI may be not perfect but it is totally useable. Given thet Adam does everything himself, I'd prefer him to concentrate on other things instead of redesigning the GUI, at least on the present stage.
You may think you can fly ... but you better not try

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adamtrance wrote:Hmm, I didnt want to post until the 64 bit is finished so that it could be my 604th post, but oh well, ill do it when the 128 bit comes out for my 1208 post :P

Anyway I appreciate all ideas and comments but you have to look at it from a design/programmers point of view. When I looked at the Virus GUI, I was investigating if there is anything I could do a different way. Look at the Virus control:

Image

There are a lot of tabs at the top, but convey absolutely zero information. Can you tell from this screenshot what filters they use? How many oscillators are enabled? Which effects are turned on? Nope nothing, you have to go to each page to see whats going on. I wanted some easy way to see the most common parameters, and since Viper is a VST you dont need multi outs (since you can load up as many instances as you want, however you can only have ONE Virus control thats why it needs multi outs), I didnt need the left most part, it was just a waste of space. Then I thought it would be the perfect place to put some bigger tabs that show information for free.

Image

Now its a nice idea to make the controls in the tabs changeable, but it will turn into a logistics nightmare. Just think about this, I have to create clickable mouse areas (green squares) for the knobs. But then if I allow knobs to be tweaked people will complain they want to choose filters and all other stuff, so then I have to create more mouse areas (blue squares). I would be forced to do this because it makes zero logical sense to allow only a few parameters to be tweaked, how would I explain that to a user? They would have to understand the whole thing right away. Ok so now that all those parameters are editable how would it work? If you are in the Osc section but want to change the cutoff without going to to filter section, then when you click on the little cutoff, should the tab switch to the filter section or stay? If it says then if you want to go to the filter you have to click around the controls and that would be a pain in the behind. Plus what if someone wants to go to the filter section, but clicked on the cutoff and changed it by accident? then I will get complaints about that. Then people want options for making it behave differently. As you can see it will become a nightmare quickly, plus I can go on and on with all the issues, but I have to get back to the 64 bit. I hope you guys see its too much trouble for something small. The easiest way to solve is to have them as big tabs that convey information and problem solved. I cant make everybody happy.
Actually for me the design of Viper looks closer to the Novation UltraNova VST editor than the Virus TI editor, at least the left part of the Viper GUI:

http://global.novationmusic.com/sites/d ... Editor.png
Image

FWIW i had owned a Virus TI MK1 desktop from 2006 until 2015 and an UltraNova since 2015 so i had used both VST editors.
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1

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Ingonator wrote:Actually for me the design of Viper looks closer to the Novation UltraNova VST editor than the Virus TI editor, at least the left part of the Viper GUI:
Yes I was inspired by that, but I dont think you can click on the controls in the tabs there as well, I never tried it though..
http://www.adamszabo.com/ - Synths, soundsets and music

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