About the manuals

[Starship Krupa]

I will start by saying that I love Meldaproduction plug-ins. The ones I have, both from the free bundle and the ones I have purchase, continue to astound with their usefulness and depth of features.

As a veteran of the software industry, I can see how Meldaproduction keeps the costs low and the features rich by sharing code across the product line. This is unusual in the audio plug-in world, where most companies seem to still follow the product cycle model where each one starts from scratch and has an independent code base to maintain.

I am kind of in awe to see how it has been implemented, and how the concept extends across everything the company does, from the website to the manuals. When a new product comes out, the web page code and manual are probably at least 75% complete before they are even touched. This is fantastic. And it all looks really slick, too.

However. Where I get lost is when I try to explore the manuals and website documentation to see what an effect does and how to use it. Since the manuals are all at least 75% boilerplate, it is often difficult to scroll through all the explanations of Mid-Side processing (which are the same in all the manuals) to get to what I am really looking for, which, to be honest, is often not easy to grasp.

Some of the manuals start by explaining the "Random" button, which is not too friendly a welcome, and a feature that is not even applicable to all plug-ins. I'm not going to hit "Random" on a compressor unless I'm bored or frustrated or both. If I get to that point, it's probably time to step away from the DAW. Although the Random button is probably good for gaming the Preset Exchange (kidding).

The manual for MAutoAlign sets a really good standard, by explaining up front what the plug-in does and how to use it in different situations. MModernCompressor starts with Presets, but it at least gets to features a couple of pages down.

Sometimes it is not even entirely clear to me what the plug-in does, like MAGC, which I have downloaded and installed with every Free Bundle, thinking I am going to try it out someday, and I will likely own the pay version eventually.

But I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do with it. Maybe I put it on one track, send it a sidechain from another track, it analyzes the volume somehow, and makes the track that it's on the same volume? If that is it, then where do I set the channels' faders? Where do I pick up the sidechain from, pre or post fader?

[MeldaProduction]

First, thank you!

Now I agree that sometimes it can be a bit problematic. The thing is, for plugins like MAutoAlign there's the introduction that tells you what the plugin does and how to use it. But for things like MFlanger it doesn't make sense, you just cannot explain how to use a flanger , it just sounds somehow and all you can do is to play with it until it starts sound "right". But I agree that MAGC could use some info. But it's really a very specific rare thing to use, and it's free so... Anyways when the time allows I'd like to get someone to write some intros for the plugins that need it.

As for AGC, it is mainly for use with 3rd party plugins, that don't have our AGC feature (so pretty much all of them ). Like this:
Track 1 -> Send to track 2 -> Send to MAGC sidechain
Track 2 -> some plugins -> MAGC

This way you can keep the loudness intact. It's much better to use a dedicated solution like MCompare though.

[Starship Krupa]

As for AGC, it is mainly for use with 3rd party plugins, that don't have our AGC feature (so pretty much all of them ). Like this:
Track 1 -> Send to track 2 -> Send to MAGC sidechain
Track 2 -> some plugins -> MAGC

This way you can keep the loudness intact. It's much better to use a dedicated solution like MCompare though.

Ah, okay, you sort of took that one feature so we can add it to other plug-ins. Nice.

Then I can guess that MGain is good for 3rd-party plug-ins that don't have built-in parallel processing.

[alexis1]

...

As for AGC, it is mainly for use with 3rd party plugins, that don't have our AGC feature (so pretty much all of them ). Like this:
Track 1 -> Send to track 2 -> Send to MAGC sidechain
Track 2 -> some plugins -> MAGC

This way you can keep the loudness intact. It's much better to use a dedicated solution like MCompare though.

I do use MCompare, but was wondering how do you "Track 1 -> send to track 2" in your Cubase?

Thanks!

[MeldaProduction]

alexis1: I'm not sure right now, but I assume the Sends should do the trick. Just add a new send in the mixer with the target track or sidechain to send the signal to.

[masitito]

However. Where I get lost is when I try to explore the manuals and website documentation to see what an effect does and how to use it. Since the manuals are all at least 75% boilerplate, it is often difficult to scroll through all the explanations of Mid-Side processing (which are the same in all the manuals) to get to what I am really looking for, which, to be honest, is often not easy to grasp.

Yes, the general outline of the manuals is very confusing.

Some may think of it as a waste of space but I like manuals that have a title page (may contain a screenshot) followed by a table of contents followed by a short introduction. Even for a flanger this can be done (eg "a classic guitar effect, originally created by two tape reels one slightly delayed, can be used on other instruments, etc)

A nice thing to have after the introduction is a screenshots with icons (eg numbers, letters). The icons are listed in an index below the image and tell the user about the main elements (main toolbar, metering sections, etc).

Then I want a description of all elements that occur only in this plugin. Only then common Melda plugin elements should be explained. But as oscillators, EQ bands etc are also shared by many plugins I suggest to create a single "Common Melda Stuff" manual that includes the installation procedures as well.

Masi

[] Peter:H []

I completely agree to what the OP is saying. The manuals are cluttered with boilerplate which could easily be refactored into a "Understanding the Melda-Way of plug-ins: The basic usage concepts" manual that is linked into any of the others...

Anyway: I was only recently aware of a use case for MUtility and was completely impressed to find everything in just one place, see this tutorial about "Ultra Depth": http://www.masteringtuition.com/index.php/secret-no-1

I think these "Use Cases for Plug-ins" section is some of the most importand information.
Sure, some of the more prominent plug-ins have their own video tutorials which exactly go thru some use cases, but anyway, just wanted to say that use cases or at least one valuable use case would are more importand for me than having a manual with all boilerplate stuff included.

Please don't take this as a rant - just writing these lines out of pure astonishment that I finally understood, what a beast even MUtility can be As I own the TotalBundle I was and will be a Melda Fan Boy! Keep up the good work!

] Peter:H [

[jmg8]

Code: Select all

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Here is the "Ultra-Depth" preset for MXXX

[MeldaProduction]

Hehe I understand, but what you ask for is pretty much impossible. The plugins are way too complex, so there's like a million use cases. So even for a free plugin like MUtility you basically ask for a book containing all the millions of existing tricks one might use . So like the books about mixing and mastering, which are generally quite costly, you want to add it for free to a doc about a free plugin . Yeah, I know, extreme case, but it is like that. Then look at the mentioned MFlangerMB. Can you imagine the infinite the world of possibilities you have just with the modulators? Because I don't and I created it!

Overall I agree that the layout of the docs is often not ideal, ordering-wise. But you know, it's generated automatically based on the GUI and changing that would be extremely painful, so personally I just have to choose - either spend weeks trying to fix the documentations most people won't read anyways, or use the time to actually make something useful.

[Starship Krupa]

I completely agree to what the OP is saying. The manuals are cluttered with boilerplate which could easily be refactored into a "Understanding the Melda-Way of plug-ins: The basic usage concepts" manual that is linked into any of the others...

I don't think it's "clutter," but it's unnecessarily difficult to wade through to get to the information about the plug-in I'm reading about. I like the idea of putting the boilerplate at the bottom and the content that is unique to the plug-in at the top, as Masi suggests.

And I'm not surprised that the manuals for the Free Bundle are generated automatically! I've long been fascinated by written accounts of sailors who came up with elaborately rigged sailboats to allow them to circumnavigate the Earth singlehanded. Electromechanical devices that minimize the effort needed to perform the many tasks required to keep a boat moving across the ocean on the correct course.

The cleverness of Meldaproduction's shared code, from the plug-ins through the web advertising, through the pdf documentation, and the help systems, everything, reminds me of them, that economy of effort. It somehow manages to be modular while also remaining nimble, mostly avoiding the clunkiness that modular design can sometimes suffer from (the "mostly" refers to the documentation issues I've already mentioned).

Anyway: I was only recently aware of a use case for MUtility and was completely impressed to find everything in just one place, see this tutorial about "Ultra Depth": http://www.masteringtuition.com/index.php/secret-no-1

Whoa! That is awesome! I've never used MUtility for anything, but let's see, it can handle the 30ms time delay, the Right channel phase invert, the Left/Right channel swap, and could even do a bit of level trimming. Put an instance of MEqualizer in front of it and you have the whole chain the person is talking about. That seems preset-worthy. Once I get it working I'll try to do a jmg8 and upload one for MUtility.

[mabian]

I completely agree to what the OP is saying. The manuals are cluttered with boilerplate which could easily be refactored into a "Understanding the Melda-Way of plug-ins: The basic usage concepts" manual that is linked into any of the others...

I totally agree with this.
Voxengo has something quite similar to what quoted above.

- Mario