[Ardour-Users] a few thoughts

Ross Johnson Ross.Johnson at homemail.com.au
Wed Dec 5 06:28:43 PST 2012


On 6/12/2012 12:29 AM, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:
> On 12/05/2012 12:32 AM, Paul Davis wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 6:03 PM, Adriano Petrosillo
>> <ampetrosillo at gmail.com <mailto:ampetrosillo at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>     User-defined channel strips, as in "you decide what to put in it",
>>     meaning there is NO DIFFERENCE to normal Ardour operation, you still
>>     load plugins the normal way, you still get to choose which plugins
>>     to use, you still have your say on EVERYTHING, you just have the
>>     OPTION (which you may want to use or not) to have some parameters
>>     ready on a channel strip on the mixer, just like a "custom" version
>>     of Mixbus, with your favourite plugins
>>
>>
>> to repeat: done.
>>
>>     and a layout YOU choose to make.
>>
>>
>> not done. and vastly more work than the first part.
>
> well, it took me some time to see it (because i found some of the OP's 
> remarks a bit offensive) but i think here adriano is pointing into a 
> very interesting direction:
>
> auto-swallowing a gui into a channel strip is next-to-impossible, like 
> paul explains. but adriano talks about customizable: the user gets to 
> decide the layout and what's to be included in the strip, i.e. s/he 
> has to do all the hard work, not the software. good solution from a 
> programmer's POV, and from a user experience POV :)

Perhaps there are better ways today but I like what several/many/(most?) 
hardware digital consoles do, which is to use a single FX 
control/display panel on the desk and a select button on each track or 
buss or master strip to bind the whole panel to that strip until another 
strip is selected. The DAW equivalent would be a separate window or 
frame where a single instance of each plugin type in use in the session 
appears, and all plugins therein display only the settings for the strip 
that is currently selected. If the selected strip doesn't use one or 
more or any of the plugins then those simply appear as by-passed.

I assume that pre and post fader plugins are still possible in Ardour in 
which case either have a separate pre and post FX panel and one strip 
select button, or one panel and separate pre and post select buttons per 
strip. The former would probably work better IMO.

That way track strips don't need to swallow plugin guis or create havoc 
with layout, plugin guis [for the track of interest] can remain visible 
at all times, and CPU cycles are kept to a minimum because only one 
strip is having it's plugin parameter and dynamic elements displayed and 
updated in real-time.




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