Skeumorphism anyone?

[laxu]

To be fair, it isn't really any different to almost any other application from the same period.

Back then, what we call now call "UX design" was very much in its infancy, and what was in the forefront of most developers minds was functionality, not usability per se.

At least that's my recollection anyway!

Note that this 3rd party app is actually much newer. Website is dated 2008. I think it's just what the developer knew to work with to achieve what they wanted. Or who knows, if their modeler of choice is a GP-100 then maybe their computer isn't the latest and greatest either.

Otherwise 2008 was actually the age of skeumorphic design.

 

[Digital Igloo]

Skeumorphism is not a design concept. Its been misappropriated and means that to a lot of people, but that isn't what it is actually about.

I used to gatekeep the term "ProTools" back when M-Box first came out. Everyone with a $300 M-Box (or worse, the 8-track download of "ProTools Free" started bragging about their "ProTools rig" and I wasn't having that, given that I'd spent tens of thousands on my PT|MIX Plus and PT|HD rigs. Eventually I stopped caring because... what's the point, really?

And don't get me started on how a chorus is now a "hook," a middle 8 is a "bridge," and an entire mix with all instruments minus vocals is somehow a "beat."

Language evolves and terminology changes to reflect public acceptance, for better or worse. The vast, vast majority of the knowing public recognizes that "skeuomorphism" absolutely is a design concept, and Silicon Valley's leading design teams (who know way more than any of us here do) push that narrative themselves. Fighting a battle with semantics is a lesson in futility.

We have all had to learn some bad affordances like when the "hamburger" icon (three lines) became a staple of mobile websites to indicate "this opens a menu." I remember not understanding it when I first encountered it. I'm sure the floppy disk icon for "save" is equally baffling for Gen Z folks who have never seen the real thing.

We've tested this. Every kid I know who's old enough to work a smartphone or tablet knows what a floppy disk icon means. They don't need to know what its real world analog is, only what it represents. Younger kids may never have seen a telephone handset but they know a green handset icon facing up is [answer call] and a red handset icon facing down is [hang up].

The "SAVE" text on Helix's Save button drives me nuts. It should've been a floppy disk icon; all the other buttons in that cluster are silked with icons. So I snuck it into the inspector header on the save/rename screen in silent, passive-aggressive protest.

 

[Orvillain]

Silicon Valley's leading design teams (who know way more than any of us here do) push that narrative themselves.

Kill them all. Send them to the hell of a thousand swan songs.

 

[Orvillain]

Ok, totally understandable from that background. Seeing that blueprint view I totally thought it would be like a "arrange it like your real kit" view and being able to see the drums bounce or highlight a bit when played.

Totally agree on the description of skeumorphic, even though I also often equate it to "fancy graphics representing the real device."

The "devs just crammed everything on screen at once" design is a pretty common occurrance when the feature set makes sense to them and they want to make it all as visible and fast to access as possible, which is why I called it a "power user" view. To me the ideal is the halfway point between these where the user is not overwhelmed with options but it's still pretty quick to access.

Some time ago Leon Todd made a great video about the Roland GP-100, the first digital modeler ever. Someone has made a 3rd party editor for this and I genuinely love it in its sheer simplicity and the way it shows you more of what you need than Axe-Edit, HX Edit etc manage to do.
Amp, cab controls always available and then whatever effect you have selected.

Sure, it's as old fashioned as it gets, but it has a certain clarity and simplicity to it that modern UI designs often miss. I think it's also a good example of how to make sliders work well - not too big, not too small, with easily visible (and typable) numeric value too.

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Yeah, on this... it's actually making a lot of the same mistakes that BFD3 makes. Many options within tabs that have nonsensical labels, particularly to non-English speakers. Duplicating information across panels makes sense (patch name and algorithm) but only really when one or more panels can be hidden. If that is the view, then you don't need that information in both places. It's visually distracting.

The main crime here - and what BFD3, Helix, and Axe Edit also make - is the complete abandonment of modality in favourite of kitchen-sink screen-spaff that to the newbie user, can be incredibly intimidating.

How it looks is incidental. I mean, it looks like grilled ass the same as Reaper does, but that isn't the central problem.

It's clearly been laid out by a developer or a techie, who doesn't really know what user experience they want to communicate.

 

[the swede]

I prefer a minimalist approach where you borrow the familiarity of the real thing, and make it easy to read. While not copying something actually real, the Valhalla plugin design are pretty great IMO. Try to imagine the same but with the layout of your favorite amp - That would be my first choice.

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TL/DR Minimalism makes it easier to read; Knobs make it easier to understand. That's what I prefer.

Not related… but i recently played around a little with a free version of GR6 by Native Audio and actually (being a Helix slider fanboy) found the UI to be very inspiring. It’s not that they try to mimic the design of real things, or go full on with the tiny amp knobs (ndsp), they just threw in “hints” of it (the amps) but still managed to design it user friendly and leave the rest to imagination, kinda like Valhalla ui, simplistic… easy… just play.

Guitar rig also has the advanced stuff hidden away, and present a few knobs that just “do it”, if you want more, dive deeper… quite a cool plugin I might say.

I quite like that Chicago model, easy… turn a knob, sounds great, play the guitar. No idea what it’s supposed to be, but when things are presented like this, I tend not to care.

 

[jberenguer]

Ok, totally understandable from that background. Seeing that blueprint view I totally thought it would be like a "arrange it like your real kit" view and being able to see the drums bounce or highlight a bit when played.

Totally agree on the description of skeumorphic, even though I also often equate it to "fancy graphics representing the real device."

The "devs just crammed everything on screen at once" design is a pretty common occurrance when the feature set makes sense to them and they want to make it all as visible and fast to access as possible, which is why I called it a "power user" view. To me the ideal is the halfway point between these where the user is not overwhelmed with options but it's still pretty quick to access.

Some time ago Leon Todd made a great video about the Roland GP-100, the first digital modeler ever. Someone has made a 3rd party editor for this and I genuinely love it in its sheer simplicity and the way it shows you more of what you need than Axe-Edit, HX Edit etc manage to do.
Amp, cab controls always available and then whatever effect you have selected.

Sure, it's as old fashioned as it gets, but it has a certain clarity and simplicity to it that modern UI designs often miss. I think it's also a good example of how to make sliders work well - not too big, not too small, with easily visible (and typable) numeric value too.

View attachment 8274

do you still have the gp-100 software editor? The original site is down. if so could you upload it to: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1e2-Ec8Yx8t4ag-Hg3WfyDR6LUMhXapH-?usp=drive_link

 

[laxu]

do you still have the gp-100 software editor? The original site is down. if so could you upload it to: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1e2-Ec8Yx8t4ag-Hg3WfyDR6LUMhXapH-?usp=drive_link

Unfortunately I don't seem to have the file anymore.

 

[James Freeman]

I think the new Dyna Cabs made me start thinking about this.

Sometimes I wish models in digital gear were more similar to having the actual physical gear they are based on. And could be configured and used the same as having the physical gear.

Example:

I pull up a Deluxe Reverb amp model and it contains the preamp, power amp, reverb, speaker, cab, everything just like having the real amp sitting there. Same controls on the front panel, same inputs that can be selected, I can disconnect the internal speaker and plug into an external cab, etc. The ability to have an AB pedal I can throw in front to change between the channels,

Or I pull up a Mark IV and it contains all the same front and back panel controls, all channels, etc.

The UI models we have are fine and have their benefits, but sometimes they have limitations too that the real amps don’t have

Bumping this thread.
It's a a strong YES from me dawg.
I would totally eat a fully functioning skeu design that has all the bells and whistles that the real amp has.

 

[SKU]

It doesn't really matter what the UI looks when it's controlled by hardware inputs. For touchscreens in special I think a lot of space is wasted using this design and turning "digital pots" by hand gestures is an awkward way of interacting with the interface. There's no such control type in standard UI/UX design for a good reason. The closest common control for a gradual a - > b input type is a slider.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Not related… but i recently played around a little with a free version of GR6 by Native Audio and actually (being a Helix slider fanboy) found the UI to be very inspiring. It’s not that they try to mimic the design of real things, or go full on with the tiny amp knobs (ndsp), they just threw in “hints” of it (the amps) but still managed to design it user friendly and leave the rest to imagination, kinda like Valhalla ui, simplistic… easy… just play.

Guitar rig also has the advanced stuff hidden away, and present a few knobs that just “do it”, if you want more, dive deeper… quite a cool plugin I might say.

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I quite like that Chicago model, easy… turn a knob, sounds great, play the guitar. No idea what it’s supposed to be, but when things are presented like this, I tend not to care.

fyi, my guess is the Chicago is a model of a vintage supro

 

[laxu]

It doesn't really matter what the UI looks when it's controlled by hardware inputs. For touchscreens in special I think a lot of space is wasted using this design and turning "digital pots" by hand gestures is an awkward way of interacting with the interface. There's no such control type in standard UI/UX design for a good reason. The closest common control for a gradual a - > b input type is a slider.

Even the Tone Master Pro has a slider type UI option you can use to adjust onscreen knobs instead of awkwardly covering the knob with your finger and trying to turn it.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

If we're on round 2, then Ill repeat.

Skeuomorphism doesn't automatically mean bad. There are good and bad examples of all types of approaches. When skeuo approaches are just totally abandoned a lot of useful information gets needlessly thrown in the bin and the the user experience is compromised. I remember Kazrog having this anti skeuuomorphic attitude years ago, and his way of improving it was this (apologies for potato quality):

Which is frankly dreadful.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

At the end of the day, I still wanna feel like I'm playing some form of a guitar amp, even if I'm plugged into what is essentially a mobile computing device feeding near field monitors playing at 75 dB. That requires some degree of the UI referring to guitar amp design.

 

[Achilles]

Raise your hand if you've ever bought a new amplifier and shortly after getting in home found yourself simply looking at how freaking cool it is!
It's like a self contained nuclear reactor for your guitar.

No amount of GUI magic will ever take the place of that.
It can be a decent enough fake out, but that's all.
Plus GUIs can't smell like transformer laquer.

 

[laxu]

Raise your hand if you've ever bought a new amplifier and shortly after getting in home found yourself simply looking at how freaking cool it is!
It's like a self contained nuclear reactor for your guitar.

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No amount of GUI magic will ever take the place of that.
It can be a decent enough fake out, but that's all.
Plus GUIs can't smell like transformer laquer.

Honestly none of these particularly appeal to me visually. Marshall looks are of course a classic, but the Mezzabarba and basic SLO do nothing for me. I am not a fan of those chicken wire grilles.

A lot of real amps out there are a bit "basic bitch" visually, and you have to pay a lot to get a different tolex color than black etc.

Not that I am one to talk, the BluGuitar Amp 1 I use certainly doesn't win any beauty contests.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

I think there should be a distinction between tablet or computer-based software modelers and hardware modelers. Skeumorphism in software? Fine. Skeumorphism on hardware monitors with less than 10" screens? No.

I wish there was something more than a name to symbolize the amp model you are playing, though. Doesn't have to be full-on skeuomorphism, but it would be cool to have some actual visual cue regarding what model you have loaded.

 

[Achilles]

I am not a fan of those chicken wire grilles.

I mainly like them because of the cross ventilation they provide.

 

[James Freeman]

Raise your hand if you've ever bought a new amplifier and shortly after getting in home found yourself simply looking at how freaking cool it is!
It's like a self contained nuclear reactor for your guitar.

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No amount of GUI magic will ever take the place of that.
It can be a decent enough fake out, but that's all.
Plus GUIs can't smell like transformer laquer.

100%
Not sure I like the smell of new lacquer though, kinda stinks.

 

[Achilles]

I wish there was something more than a name to symbolize the amp model you are playing, though. Doesn't have to be full-on skeuomorphism, but it would be cool to have some actual visual cue regarding what model you have loaded.

When I was using the QC I made placards with different amp logos on them that I'd place over the touchscreen as a psychological pacifier.

 

[bikescene]

Skeuomorphism is convenient when getting familiarized with a new tool.

However, I’ve adapted and gotten used to the sliders in Helix Native, menus in FM3-Edit, and drop down selection of NAM captures. The generic appearance is less distracting for me when I want to get stuff done.