Audiotool suggestions

As a developer, I’m utterly blown away that this thing is running in the plugin as well as it is. It’s a massive feat in terms of engineering.

As a musician however, I find it absolutely infuriating to actually use, to the point where I literally can’t even grit my teeth and brute force my way through making something musical in it. I find it absurd that I am being offered such a suite of interesting and useful tools, yet interface choices and device design niggles consistently impede my progress.

I need to stress that I am a huge fan of the research and work being undertaken by these guys, and I think what they’re doing is absolutely integral to the future development of the Flash platform.

A little background.

I’ve been using various software sequencers for about 20 years, from ProTracker to Screamtracker, Emagic MicroLogic through Cubase, PlayerPro, Rebirth, Fasttracker 2, MadTracker, Modplug Tracker, Reason, Ableton Live and now most recently having landed firmly on Renoise. If there are any specific features of a sequencer I am after it is accuracy, speed and clarity, which so far has meant returning to trackers time and time again. In other words, I am partial to a keyboard-driven interface, and I don’t much like scrolling around a window to find what I’m after.

As for hardware and devices, I currently own and use a Korg R3 and Z1, a Nord Modular G2, a Nord Micro Modular, a Waldorf Blofeld and, oddly, a Theremin. I have been using VST plugins for about as long as they have existed, and I have used both PureData and Max MSP; I am used to cable spaghetti, both virtual and physical.

Musically, I’m much more of a “tinkerer”. I produce few tracks, but I experiment and create patches and loops near constantly. Over time, I’ve become very interested in synthesizer and sequencer UI.

Now, I’m well aware that the Audiotool is not intended to replace any of the above mentioned products. It is an educational community oriented tool that offers a sizable subset of synthesis and sample based functionality in the context of a modular “studio” environment. It opts for a “physical look and feel”, presumably to inspire play and lower the level of abstraction.

So take the following list of issues with a big pinch of salt; These are my personal geeky gripes, but I still feel i should get them out there.

Effect unit GUI design

This is my biggest gripe overall, and it may be the most personal; I have no idea why these devices have to take up this much screen real-estate, yet use so little of it on actual GUI, only to maintain a kind of pseudo-simulation of real world devices. Some devices are more guilty of this than others.

For instance, the Kobolt 16 channel mixer pulls it off just fine.

I’m of the personal faith that virtual knobs are a deadly UX sin, being much more in favor of sliders or even value input text boxes, but in the context of a device with this many controls, knobs actually allow for more GUI in less space. The device is obvious and well designed, it looks physical, and uses its real-estate effectively.

However the effects are where things start going downhill.

These things make me absolutely crazy. You look at that “effect pedal” and you think hey,  even if it’s a 150×256 area used to show a total of two knobs and a button, that’s not THAT bad is it?

This is a single effect chain for compressing, filtering, driving, low gaining and delaying a single drum instrument. Actually setting it up, connecting it and using it is no effort at all, but it takes up a chunk of workspace larger than a 16 channel mixer, and 60% of that lost space is just a row of big on/off toggle buttons. The pedal metaphor simply falls flat on its face here. Imagine having 8-9 of these chains in addition to your actual instrument devices. You are constantly scrolling around trying to orient yourself as to what goes where. The teensy tiny pixel text labels on the tiny knobs are like a slap in the face of UX conventions as well.

Suggestions:

• I strongly suggest ditching the antiquated pedal metaphor. Redesign the devices to sit more comfortably in a row, taking up only the space they absolutely require. Alternatively, introduce a Reason-style combinator unit.

Modularity and the Splitter device

At the heart of Audiotool is the user’s ability to connect devices through a series of inputs and outputs. Devices are placed on the “table” by drag and dropping instances from a bank. To get audio output from a device, it must be connected to the audio chain by way of cables, which are created by dragging from a port to another. This sort of setup is quite common, used in visual programming languages like PureData and Max MSP, but also in virtual modular synthesizers like Native Instruments’ Reaktor or the Nord Modular series of synthesizers. Compared to its peers, Audiotool’s implementation suffers tremendously.

Ports are categorized into inputs and outputs. Logically, an input can only have one source, and this is enforced. However, outputs are only allowed one connection, forcing you to set up a series of splitter/merger devices. These devices have idiosyncrasies of their own, for instance splitting an input into three outputs, specifically. So if you need 4, you need to chain one of those outputs into a new splitter. Each splitter takes up another chunk of screen space for seemingly no reason at all; I have yet to encounter an instance where I actually needed a complicated signal mixer for a split signal, and I’m not talking about Audiotool. I’m talking about every other modular system i have ever used. The Merger device is much, much more useful than the splitter, since an input can only logically take one source unless you do some kind of automatic mixing behind the scenes (which wouldn’t be cool from a UX pov, muddling the user’s expectation of what will happen). There is however no good reason why you can’t simply drag multiple cables from the same output to several inputs. The splitter device ends up becoming a huge speedbump I find myself forced to cross time and time again, contributing further to the screen clutter, and is probably the single biggest interface impediment to a quick modular workflow.

The beautiful thing about modularity is the playfulness it inspires. If it won’t cost you extra effort to make that extra connection and see what happens, why don’t you just go ahead and try it? Currently, the Splitter sits squarely in the way. There’s certainly a use for the functionality offered by the Splitter and Merger, but in my mind, having written rudimentary modular systems before, there is no good reason why you’d impede the user’s playfulness in this way. As it is, Auditool replicates the worst of real-life cable spaghetti. That’s a physicality I’d much rather leave in the past.

Suggestions:

• Allow multiple connections per output.

The layout grid

When you drag a device onto the workspace, a grid of sorts appears, allowing you quick and easy alignment of new devices. This is brilliant. However, the layout engine doesn’t allow you to drag and drop a device “between” existing devices, moving them to either side. Instead, you must move the devices apart manually, then move your new device in between. With the aforementioned considerable screen clutter, this quickly becomes an absolute nightmare.

Suggestions:

• If the current system makes this form of automagic difficult to implement, I suggest modifying the layout engine to use a looser spring constraint based layout where device bounds, weighed by size and using connections as additional springs, push against one another until there is no contact.

The Pulverisateur device

This thing is fantastic. It is, as I understand it, Andre Michelle’s first “real synth”, and it does a ton right, including often forgotten features like oscillator sync, optional keyboard tracking, audio input and a filter envelope with an interesting and powerful loop toggle. However, it can also be very difficult to use for anything precise. The biggest culprit is easily the LFO waveform knob. Since there is no pitch envelope generator (argh), if you want to use the Pulverisateur to create analog kick drums that go beyond the limited capabilities of the two supplied drum machines (more on the 808 later), tweaking the LFO to perform as you wish feels like a total crapshoot.

Suggestions:

• For morph knobs, allow clicking on the symbols to set the knob precisely to that value.
• Introduce a pitch envelope

The Beatbox 8 device

Less critical this, but I’m a TREMENDOUS 808 fanboy. This should have been my absolute favorite device. I have sat night after night working on an accurate 808 emulator patch on my Nord Modular, so BE IT if it consumes 99% capacity, and it is bloody hard to do, so I can see why this unit isn’t feature complete. The 808 is one of the dirtiest, grimiest drum machines around, and the first unit I drop on the Audiotool workspace. You drive this thing through a few effects, and every single instrument on it can be a monster. I implore you: Finish this device!. The lack of settings on some of the drums absolutely cripple it, and actually enforcing the If you want this to be a real 808 tribute, please include feature parity of some sort, especially on the kick drum and snare. The Beatbox 8 is a pale shadow of the 808, yet close enough to frustrate. To spend this much time on recreating the UI and sequencer, only to leave out integral drum part features is really cruel! Actually enforcing old flaws of the unit, such as the need to sacrifice the hand clap for maracas just adds insult to injury. There is no “lesser” drum on the 808, and denying users the full palette is.. Let’s just say there are unhappy kittens out there

Samples

I’ll be frank; I can not stand the samples on offer. I have made a huge effort to explore them, but it is utter sample-CD drivel. I’m sitting on harddrives worth of personal sample collections; Why am I not offered the ability to upload?

Suggestions:

• Offer users 100 megs worth of sample space or use local file paths. If copyright infringement is called into question, block the associated song or user, and allow users in the community to tag songs as questionable.

Summary

Audiotool team; As a musician I would love to make music and share it with others using your tool, but as it is, I feel my ambitions get truncated by the UI choices you have made. I can stomach a lot of odd choices, but the moment something stops me from doing what I want before I do the truffle shuffle it wrecks my inspiration.

Very much looking forward to your next version! You guys are champs.