----- Original Message -----
From: "aaron" <step@systorm.com>
To: "IDM" <idm@hyperreal.org>
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2000 3:59 PM
Subject: RE: [idm] scary shit / reason software
quoted 10 lines i think that propellerheads have a great idea..> i think that propellerheads have a great idea..
> they are making the gear accessible on a computer..
> but they are KEEPING the gear metphor..
>
> i perosnally know about 10 musicians who refuse to use a comptuer for
> music..
> simply because they are gear-heads.. they look at reaktor's interface and
> cringe.. they see audiomulch and almost lose their lunch.. these guys want
> knobs, cables, & leds.. and lots of em.. Reason could very well be the
> software that blurs this line enough to tempt them to use it..
Well that's fundamentally a misapprehension - it's the software that does
the work, always. (And I don't care if it's hardwired it's still
fundamentally software).
I think interfaces should be as transparent as the task will allow, allowing
you to do what you want as easily as possible. (That is, rom a position of
not-knowing - of course if you have already learned one interface and become
highly skilled in it then even a better-designed one will be harder to use
at first if it departs from what you are used to).
Ssome people (mostly musicians) will prefer what propellerhead have done,
but it would be a whole lot better for me, and anyone who has never used the
original hardware anyway, if you could turn all that crap off.
quoted 1 line and any of you people who think the graphics on screen on Reason are> and any of you people who think the graphics on screen on Reason are
taking
quoted 4 lines up serious system resources.. you need to look into visual programming a> up serious system resources.. you need to look into visual programming a
> little more.. interface design is always negligible compared to realtime
> audio processing..
> most of the knobs are repeated.. there's only like 10-ish face plates..
and
quoted 2 lines most of the grapics are bmp's anyway.. which take no overhead once> most of the grapics are bmp's anyway.. which take no overhead once
> rendered.. especially with directx..
Yeah, well I did run Rebirth on my old, very slow, machine at home before I
upgraded it so at the time I resented _any_ extra overhead whatsoever.
quoted 3 lines and yes it DOES have to look like roland gear.. that's what makes it> and yes it DOES have to look like roland gear.. that's what makes it
> usable..
> anyone who's been playing with gear for a few years knows that you can
pick
quoted 1 line up any new roland box, and learn it in a few minutes.. they are always> up any new roland box, and learn it in a few minutes.. they are always
very
quoted 1 line straight forward and simple.. which makes them classic..> straight forward and simple.. which makes them classic..
I agree totally, sure they are, but that's not what you get with Rebirth,
what you get is a little picture of a Roland on your monitor which you have
to manipulate with a mouse. That's an entirely different thing.
I'm no particular fan of the monitor/keyboard/mouse point-and-click
interfaces as a generic tool for doing anything, it can easily be inproved
upon in domain-specific circumstances. I am all in favour of, say,
mixing-desks with just the sliders and motors built in but which leave the
processing to your computer. Not to mention traditional input devices such
as a piano-keyboard. (And despite being a bit of a digital-only-fascist I
can see the attraction of two decks and a mixer for djing because it's so
beautifully responsive). What I am in favour of is doing the sound
processing on general computing hardware so that you can change the
software, which is key to the whole thing anyway (at least in the digital
domain and there's little you can do with analogue gear that you can't do
with digital if you throw enough processing resources at it). And where the
traditional computer interface is used the developer should play to it's
strengths. It may be fiddlier than some of the dedicated hardware interface
solutions (someone once compared using a mouse to drawing a picture with a
pen sellotaped to the uderside of a brick) but it's still more flexible in
terms of what you can display. I'd certainly rather have a well-used
graphical display as part of my setup than have to squint at any number of
tiny little b/w LCDs. But what's the sense in that if all the designers want
to do is (poorly, due to the limitations of the medium) emulate a piece of
hardware?
Ross.
PS. I admit that I'm just as biased as some of these musicians though, I'm
a programmer working for a company which specializes in interface design.
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