Making MuLab More Obvious & Easy

[EvilDragon]

Touchscreen will enhance a DAW, imagine using the touchscreen to adjust the front panel on the mux or even build a mux! Are you seriously saying you'd still use the keyboard and mouse instead of the most natural way you could ever imagine, ie, you're fingers?!!!

As a controller for sliders and whatnot, yes, but for dealing with items and work in MIDI editor, hell no. Just not fast enough.

[Crackbaby]

Just as said before .. fingers are not precise. It's good for browsing the web maybe and oh, zooming in on pictures. But for working in a daw? How much movement does a certain action require from your fingers if you use a touchscreen versus using a mouse? Move a slider using the scrollwheel and then move your hand to the screen and try do do it by dragging your finger. All UI's needs to be bigger unless you have really thin fingers.

Touch screen has its uses, but it will not replace a mouse and keyboard. Ever.

[sl23]

To be honest I don't think you're gonna have a choice! Eventually laptops and PC's WILL evolve to completely embrace touch and other technologies we don't even know of yet.

The PC cannot stay the same it won't survive. Jo can surely take into account the best of both, which was what I said above. Just as the transition between 32 and 64 bit hasn't just left 32bit users hanging!

[EvilDragon]

Desktops will ALWAYS have the most CPU and RAM power available to them. That is a fact and their best leverage, also the reason they WILL survive and won't ever be 100% replaced by touchscreen-only devices like iPad or whatnot. For proper studio/DAW work, desktops will ALWAYS be the best and most powerful solution, especially if you own things like UAD, Duende, Powercore, etc. There is no room nor connectivity for them on an iPad-like surface. And I don't know about you, but I sure don't see myself waving my hands in the air or holding them forward all the time to do a comp of takes or whatnot for prolonged amount of time. Keyboard+mouse it is, more ergonomic, faster and more precise.

Exactly because of these reasons PCs as desktops will stay the same.

[sl23]

Why do you think they are superior? Because companies like Intel put restrictions on specs like they did Netbooks and now Ultrabooks.

You're too busy judging by what you know instead of thinking of the future. I see you're point though but eventually mouse and KB WILL be replaced by other methods. Interfaces as portrayed in films like Minority Report and Prometheus are becoming more possible. Personally I don't like controlling something I can't actually touch, but it's likely that will become the norm within 10-20 years. Though that's a long way off, do you really think the PC has a place amongst equipment like that? I don't.

Have you not seen demo's of hand gestures moving items from screen to screen? That's just the start...

Anyway you have your opinion and I respect that you want to believe that so let's just forget it as I don't want this getting outta hand, ok, after all this is just my opinion as yours is your own. I'm not trying to argue with you, in case I'm coming across like that

All the best

[EvilDragon]

Why do you think they are superior?

When you put 2x Xeons with 64 GB of RAM with terabytes of storage and all the PCI Express ports for expandability (not to mention actual GPUs, CUDA is the REAL future) in a touchscreen-based surface for your DAW work let me know.

[Crackbaby]

I rather make a minor gesture with my hand than waving my arm. It will only become the norm if it's better.

How will the mux editor be for touchpad? First of all, everything must be MUCH larger. Imagine those small triangles. They'll need to be as big as a fingertip at least. What will the consequence be for users of the mouse? Suddenly you can't fit as much on the screen. Hello scrolling and more movements needed.

Controlling an individual synth with multitouch is probably much better with touch screen (though i haven't tried it myself) but for detailed editing i rather stick with a mouse.

I don't think im stuck in "what i know instead of thinking of the future". I try to think of every situation and compare and see how it would be.

[sl23]

So you think windows won't change to embrace the touchscreen then? Oh actually it already has! You think they're going to stop? No chance, it's a transition period. Why? because the iPad is stiff competition and has the potential of stealing many PC customers. People like you are in the minority and big companies care about money far far more than the minority. That's a fact. Where Windows goes the software has to follow suit. MuLab will evolve with it it won't stay the same with its 'little triangles!'

There are millions of users who do little more than use a PC for basic tasks. True many industries rely on a PC to be powerful but to think that powerful Tablets won't EVER happen is naive. No they won't have top end CPU or 64GB RAM for many years yet, but WTF would I do with 64GB of RAM!!! I don't want or need that if you do then you must be doing some serious music or video editing! Like I said you're in the minority.

EDIT: Unless you're a gamer I forgot that But how many PC gamers are there compared to console gamers? Minority again. Never see the fascination of playing games on PC personally. I've tried a few and couple worked, one f**cked up my DVDdrive with it's copyright protection (this was Moment of Silence that I bought in Game.) Plus a few others I couldn't get to work properly cause of one problem or another. To sum it up: a major pain in the ass!!! Consoles just work, simple. Not that I play games anymore though.

But as I said, 64GB is a massive amount of RAM, and I couldn't even afford to but the motherboard to fit the RAM to let alone the RAM!!! Even if I could, I could never justify having that amount, and the majority of users will fall into that category. I reckon in general, 8-16GB is realistic for most people for music composition. More people are starting to use laptops anyway as they get more powerful so the amazingly high spec you quote becomes redundant for all but a select few.

[EvilDragon]

There are different types of music production. Mine relies on using Kontakt and a lot of sample libraries along with virtual synthesizers - lots of RAM is necessity.


Even though Windows are starting to support touchscreen interfaces, they are not going to remove keyboard and mouse support obviously. It stays there, and it won't go anywhere, it will always be there. Even in 10 or 20 years (if Windows even exists then).

[Crackbaby]

How about some critical thinking of your own. Your only argument here is "look what everybody else is doing, we must too!". And your facts are not based on real facts. Facts are based on statistics. You have no idea if we're in a minority or not. Do you really think that big companies with all their employees will switch to touchscreens? People at work do more than browsing the web. Will an accountant prefer a touchscreen over a keyboard? Just because the argument "touchscreens are the future!" doesn't make it more efficient by any means.
So much hype. Do you know why companies push touchscreens so much?
It's a new market and they want an as big as possible share of it. And in order to expand they need to sell. Thus you see this message that touchscreens are the future all over the place making it "facts". You've clearly fallen for it.

[EvilDragon]

Touche.

[MuTools]

Some thoughts:

• I also think there will always be a choice/need between smaller (more 'handy') systems and larger systems (more powerful and dedicated). The smaller ones are using touchscreens, the larger ones have more controllers like keyboards, mouse (or similar), etc. Both are very interesting and filling in different needs.
• As you know i'm currently still R&Ding alone. That has the consequence there is a limit on how much i can do. It's something i'm realizing more these days, as MuLab and MUX are growing. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but i do have to take the dev limits into account when taking design decissions.
• Indeed it's not my intention to push MuLab towards something like Reaper. For several reasons, the main reason being the limited dev time. I want to make sure MuLab covers a wide functional basis, from both creative and productional pov, but then i'll rather invest time to make MuLab and MUX even more modular and with more import/export options so that you can use MuLab and MUX for all its strengths and on many systems, and eventually plug it in into a bigger (desktop) software beast like Reaper for those who need even more options. So i'll rather evolve MuLab so it's also available on touchscreens, than to evolve it direction Reaper.
• About the modifier keys: In some cases i agree they're still the best solution but i tend to minimize the need for predefined modifier combis as much as possible because they're too cryptic imho. (i'm not talking about using them in a user-defined sub-system like the shortcut system, user has all freedom there). In the example of changing the sequence loop, where we get a popup choice, i still didn't read an argument that modifiers would be faster in that case. The only pro-modifier argument i read is that the alert could be annoying visually after some time for some users. Though i can understand that argument, it's not a sufficient argument for me to invest a full parallel modifier based sub-system because i only have limited dev time and there are many ideas and FRs waiting, ideas and FRs of which i think they're more popular and more fitting within my small company concept.

Hope this info helps in understanding certain design decissions. It's all an on going process though. Life is constantly changing. Thanks for all very interesting feedback so far. It's interesting to read all these different point of views!

[sl23]

I rather make a minor gesture with my hand than waving my arm. It will only become the norm if it's better.

HAHAHA Really! What about phones? They are far inferior when it comes to texting and posting on web but they flourished in no time because the general public aren't like you people wanting to stick with old methods. I prefer a normal keypad on a phone but if I got one with it I'd lose all the functionality of a smartphone! So I have to adjust. You may have to as well. Just a fact of life.

So much hype. Do you know why companies push touchscreens so much?
It's a new market and they want an as big as possible share of it. And in order to expand they need to sell. Thus you see this message that touchscreens are the future all over the place making it "facts". You've clearly fallen for it.

Clearly you're wrong as I said above I prefer a Keypad. However I have used my mates iPad, I hate apple btw and would never buy one of their products for myself, and I found it far easier to use than any software I've ever used on a PC, why? because the interface is more natural. The experience has shown me it's easier nothing to do with hype. Simple as that. It's not about me falling for hype. I'm 40 years old and I think I've grown out of that stage now!

It seems you are just so narrow minded that you can't see that not everyone is like you. All you see is that YOU find it easier and better so it must be easier for EVERYONE ELSE to use those archaic tools. WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!

You think a child brought up to use touch technology is gonna find it easier to use those tools, of course not, it's stupid to even think that. But you don't think of that you seem to be stuck in you're own thought patterns like most people.

And as for my only arguement being what others do, are you seriously that stupid? Companies follow exactly that which is what you even said yourself??? They follow what people want so if the majority want touchscreen then they're going to make it. I'm in the minority for wanting an android smartphone with a keypad, do you think they'll make one just for me? Ridiculous! And if you seriously believe their are more power PC users than those with low power systems you're dreaming.

[Crackbaby]

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[sl23]

Some thoughts:

• I also think there will always be a choice/need between smaller (more 'handy') systems and larger systems (more powerful and dedicated). The smaller ones are using touchscreens, the larger ones have more controllers like keyboards, mouse (or similar), etc. Both are very interesting and filling in different needs.

Thank you exactly what I said in the beginning! That MuLab would probably cater for both.

So i'll rather evolve MuLab so it's also available on touchscreens, than to evolve it direction Reaper.

Not sure what you mean by 'direction of Reaper' but glad you are open to touchscreens. Hopefully you can sort out something for the MuX's plugin points, the 'little triangles' mentioned previously. But I'm sure you'll do a good job

Hope this info helps in understanding certain design decissions. It's all an on going process though. Life is constantly changing. Thanks for all very interesting feedback so far. It's interesting to read all these different point of views!

HAHA I bet you're laughing your ass off!!! That was all my point was 'Life is constantly changing' but it always ends up people thinking their pov is better! I don't know how things are going to pan out, but I see what's happening NOW. And that is that touchscreens are getting more and more popular. If Microsoft have even turned to that area then I doubt they'll suddenly abandon it.

PC's won't stay as they are, tech will advance that's an absolute certainty, no question is there? HOW they change though is something else. But I think there'll be a fork where power users will still use old methods because they've 'grown attached' to that. But new generations will not like those old methods and therefore it cannot stay that way can it? Surely that makes sense? As Tablets become more popular, there will be more peripherals, wireless Mice and KB's are aplenty, but a wireless controller/KB is rare. Maybe even wireless soundcards, graphics, storage, who knows? But things won't stay as they are.