Hive 2.1 Izmo skin by Plugmon

[plugmon]

Abbreviations and shortened terms are generally a terrible thing for usability, the less the better. The problem I have here is that most shortened terms could absolutely fit on the GUI; there's so much free space there.

I agree on Reverb/Distort should have full text. Also voicemode, I was wondering which is better (drag or menu) and just tried, but yeah... seems not as natural as other elements.

For Sub OSC labels, it's rather perplexing to me that there're 2 knobs with identical labels, closely placed each other.

For other things like A/R for comp, F.B. for delays etc, or any other icon vs label preference, I again suspect that the linguistic backgrounds affects greatly.
For those who are not native to latin characters, to read alphabet texts itself is a burden. Interpreting 2 characters of "F.B." is easier than reading 8 characters of "Feedback", seriously. Some free space left is relaxing as well. The density like the original skin's FX section is hard to me.

So "the less the better" theory is not true of everyone... I'm in fact curious on this point. I'm willing to un-abbreviate these labels if the people of "the fewer letters, the better" like me are extreme minority.
Are these abbreviations so unnatural as to get stressed, or actually not a big matter? I don't have any sense like, say, which looks the most natural, FeedB / Feedb / Feed B. / F.Back / Fback / F.B. and so on.

[plugmon]

Shouldn't detune be closer to "unis"? Could the word unison be used rather than unis?

You mean you often adjust Unison & Detune alternately to find the best position so the two should be placed closely for faster workflow? Wooooh definitely right.

Just flipping Unison/Phase can improve this much!

[Howard]

So "the less the better" theory is not true of everyone... I'm in fact curious on this point. I'm willing to un-abbreviate these labels if the people of "the fewer letters, the better" like me are extreme minority.

Me: I find unnecessary abbreviations annoying. If there's room for Volume instead of Vol, for instance, then I would definitely want the latter.

[plugmon]

By the way, has anyone felt that It is better if Shape Seq / Sequencer had different colors?
I have another color coordination idea where turquoise is used for SSQ and pink for misc mods instead.



Not sure how people feel on pink as one of the mod colors.

[[nx]]

By the way, has anyone felt that It is better if Shape Seq / Sequencer had different colors?
I have another color coordination idea where turquoise is used for SSQ and pink for misc mods instead.



Not sure how people feel on pink as one of the mod colors.

I personally love this

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Not sure how people feel on pink as one of the mod colors.

It looks good to me, but I'm not colorblind. I don't know if it would all just look like a random jumble of colors to our colorblind friends, and since not all colorblindness is equal, if there's even anything that could be done about it.

[neuromod]

I like the pink.

[plugmon]

I am glad you are open for comments/feedback.

I must tell you that the less contrast makes it harder to read and the way to enlarge the pop up sequencer windows are not at all obvious.
Took me a while
rsp

Thank you. Would've taken me forever to find those.

Though I don't think it would've taken you forever to find them, I have to admit that the SSQ/SEQ panel is kinda scattered, like "oh, there's a room for a toggle. Let's put it there!" Something not smart.

Maybe giving up symmetry here too will result in the clearest layout




Oh, and what about the abbreviation "SSQ" for Shape SeQencer? Is it comprehensible or sounds weird? Just 'Shape' is better choice?

[zvenx]

Yeah i think that is better.
SSQ works for me.


rsp

[neuromod]

To me, "shape" works better because I already think of the Sequencer as a "step" sequencer, so SSQ stands for either. But if others aren't sharing this quirk, please ignore me.

[Garzita]

Pink is good, always good

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

To me, "shape" works better because I already think of the Sequencer as a "step" sequencer, so SSQ stands for either. But if others aren't sharing this quirk, please ignore me.

Agree. Shape is one character longer than SSeq but should remove all confusion.

[3BYKOBNK]

Тhe letter q is still sick:

EJ4APTwx1u.png

[wilx]

I wonder if there's a way to make the two filters look more distinct from the two oscillators/sound sources. At the moment all four 'modules' look like they're pretty much the same thing, until you look more closely.

Also (and this may be beyond tweaking) I think there's a big issue from a UI/readability point of view with mixing black text on white AND white text on black -it feels like everything's a bit too contrasty and the eyes are constantly having to refocus. Massive X , Alchemy etc mix up the two options, but in a more intuitive way - the main controls use one scheme, and a smaller, more focused bit of the UI uses the inverse scheme. I think that works better for legibility.

Otherwise I think this is great - love the layout and the many little design choices which focus on usability.

[e-musician]

Basically I love the overall layout, the idea of a black/white colour scheme, the icons and everything else.

But, even with the new version, the main problem (or, what I consider to be the main problem) is still obvious: lack of CONTRAST between the various shades of white/grey/black (which leads to poorer usability).
Massive X's GUI is much better in that respect (both in the Default and the Light Skin).
What I mean, for instance, is the contrast between the Voice Mode display in the top left against the white background in Izmo.

Furthermore, Izmo still looks a bit too blurry to me (again, maybe due to contrast).

The contrast settings of the dark grey parts (top, middle, browser background) should also be higher (maybe +12 or so, but I have no clue).

I also like the lower part (Vibrato, PB, MW, FX ...) much better in the first version of Izmo.

Maybe a different shade of white (similar to Massive X or to the Tokyo Ghost skin for Bazille) would suit Izmo well.

As regards pink: I would NOT like it.