What do you look for from an amp modelling VST?

[Sascha Franck]

I have already posted this before, I still think it's an excellent UI (we may debate about the color choices):

Every important thing in one place, no page flipping, excellent. Too bad it doesn't sound exactly great.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I’m not endlessly flipping, I like to work quickly and without going in circles or wasting time.

But page flipping is the opposite of that. And you have to do so with the plugins you seem to like.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

But page flipping is the opposite of that. And you have to do so with the plugins you seem to like.

You’re assuming i’m going back and forth between pages a lot, when in reality, you only have to change pages sporadically, and for the most part you don’t NEED every control exposed all of the time. If all of the controls were equally important to the function of the plugin, they’d deserve to be on the screen more. I try to avoid going in circles so i’m not jumping between pages constantly.

I have already posted this before, I still think it's an excellent UI (we may debate about the color choices):

View attachment 48447

Every important thing in one place, no page flipping, excellent. Too bad it doesn't sound exactly great.

Not just saying it, but this looks dreadful. It’s like a load of freeware plugin windows all open at the same time from 2003. You can’t really tell what anything is or what it’s doing without reading the text and they’re making no effort to take advantage of being able to make things look different in order to distinguish them more. Furthermore the positioning of things isn’t really intuitive either.

You seem to place an enormous value on having every control exposed at once, to the detriment of almost anything else.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Not just saying it, but this looks dreadful.

I wasn't saying it looks great. But it's extremely functional. I know you prefer form over function by now.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I wasn't saying it looks great. But it's extremely functional. I know you prefer form over function by now.

No, it’s about context. Good design is about optimising both. Dumping a load of generic controls on a screen with plain colours, tiny unreadable fonts and zero context is not helpful or particularly useful.

I like plugins that pay attention to both what you can do with it, and also how you go about doing it. Having to click a mouse occasionally doesn’t have to be such a burden, as long as the times you have to do it are carefully considered. There is precisely nothing clever about just making everything available at once, it’s akin to just ignoring the user experience entirely.

 

[Orvillain]

The thing about Amplitube is, it is a workstation plugin. Like Superior, like BFD, like Guitar Rig, etc. It isn't really going to give you the same one-click solution that NDSP does so well. Flip side is, try doing any parallel shit in a NDSP plugin, you can't.

Also I'm pretty convinced the cab section of all NDSP plugins (and the QC) is total pony. I hear really nasty phasing when moving their virtual mics around.

 

[Sascha Franck]

No, it’s about context. Good design is about optimising both. Dumping a load of generic controls on a screen with plain colours, tiny unreadable fonts and zero context is not helpful or particularly useful.

When I post about some stuff I like, you *always* get all wound up about the looks and never even remotely adress the functional aspects.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Having to click a mouse occasionally doesn’t have to be such a burden, as long as the times you have to do it are carefully considered.

When you adjust the combination of an amp and a drive pedal (hence a pretty delicate thing at times) and have to click each and every time to select one of the two, that's just no good design.

 

[Orvillain]

What if you had:

- fx view (ala NDSP)
- amp view (ala NDSP)
- cab view (ala NDSP but better!)
- easy view (boost pedal + only the essential amp controls + cab position preset selector)

??

 

[Sascha Franck]

What if you had:

- fx view (ala NDSP)
- amp view (ala NDSP)
- cab view (ala NDSP but better!)
- easy view (boost pedal + only the essential amp controls + cab position preset selector)

??

I'd likely be fine with that.
But how about a "performance view"? I know, not as essential on a plugin as on a live unit, still possibly worth having.
Could be a separate page only showing you the stuff you want to see. Maybe with a reduced UI so a little more stuff would fit on there.
Rightclick block, select "add to performance window", done.

Signal chain I'm usually using to come up with sounds:
Compressor, dirt box, perhaps EQ, amp, perhaps EQ, cab.
And I actually don't fool around much with the cab stuff because combining an amp and a cab and saving it as a preset is what I'd call "homework". But the things I really fiddle around with the most are comp, dirt and amp. For me, these should offer as instant access as possible, because that's gonna end up as my core tone for whatever cunning plans I may have.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

When I post about some stuff I like, you *always* get all wound up about the looks and never even remotely adress the functional aspects.

Sure, if you ignore the times when I agree with you. I think it’s fair to say once you get ideas in your head you cling on to them VERY hard (like this global blocks thing). It’s similar here where you’ve decided mouse clicks are far too slow and would much rather deal with loads of poorly labelled generic knobs which probably take longer to find and require more careful clicking.

When you adjust the combination of an amp and a drive pedal (hence a pretty delicate thing at times) and have to click each and every time to select one of the two, that's just no good design.

It’s not hard to dial in, and if it really was that critical and difficult just open another plugin for the pedal on the screen at the same time. Or use a MIDI controller. If it’s that important neither are hard to do. I can’t say it’s something that’s ever bothered me in the slightest, and I certainly wouldn’t want to sacrifice a good GUI in order to sometimes be able to see everything at once.

Much like with the global blocks stuff, if it’s such a burden there are tons of ways of finding a solution that will do what you need rather than expecting one device or plugin to sacrifice what makes it good in order to achieve some niche features.

IMO good design prioritises the majority of use cases, while still leaving enough possibilities for more niche uses. Plugins by their nature make it easy to see whatever you want on the screen at once, if that’s what you really want.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Much like with the global blocks stuff, if it’s such a burden there are tons of ways of finding a solution that will do what you need rather than expecting one device or plugin to sacrifice what makes it good in order to achieve some niche features.

You very obviously don't understand the purpose of global blocks. Otherwise you wouldn't claim there'd be "tons of ways" of finding a solution. Because there aren't. And yes, I've tried pretty much all of them.

 

[Orvillain]

And we all frickin' love sliders right??

 

[MirrorProfiles]

You very obviously don't understand the purpose of global blocks. Otherwise you wouldn't claim there'd be "tons of ways" of finding a solution. Because there aren't.

Depending on what you are trying to achieve with them, and assuming you’re prepared to add additional gear to do it then I think you could find a solution. I think they’re a good idea, but I’m just saying there are workarounds that can do what you need. If adding it as a feature makes other things worse, I think it’s worth treading carefully and it’s likely the reason they aren’t so common yet.

 

[Sascha Franck]

And we all frickin' love sliders right??

Defenitely not. On plugins, they're usually a waste of space. There's some exceptions, though. With GEQs they nicely represent the frequency plot and with, say, envelopes they may represent the dynamic plot, but otherwise, I prefer nicely to use knobs any day. Let alone it's usually easier for knobs to accept scrollwheel actions.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Depending on what you are trying to achieve with them, and assuming you’re prepared to add additional gear to do it then I think you could find a solution. I think they’re a good idea, but I’m just saying there are workarounds that can do what you need.

Ok. Tell me about the workarounds to keep one amp at the same settings throughout multiple patches in any modeler that doesn't already feature global blocks (of which there are only two anyway). Pretty excited to learn about them.

If adding it as a feature makes other things worse, I think it’s worth treading carefully and it’s likely the reason they aren’t so common yet.

If whomever added global blocks, it wouldn't have to make anything worse at all. Sure, if you do it the Boss way and mix up global blocks with block presets, that's a tremendously bad idea to start with. But had they kept the preset thing out of things, it'd just be an additional function with exactly zero impact on anything else. Don't use them and they're completely out of the way.

 

[Orvillain]

Slight aside but I remember the first version of FXpansion's Geist. We did some user testing, brought a few peeps in from outside the company to check it out, regular users like. It did have the whole 'everything on screen all at once' approach and they HATED IT. Got lost whenever they tried to do a simple thing.

I think you need to be really careful about what you put on screen at any given time, and the mouse and keyboard are certainly there to be used. Just gotta find the right balance.

Aside from the utterly bowel amp graphics (sorry NDSP!!!) I don't actually think the workflow of this is too bad. I don't think it is too clicky at all really.

I deliberately chose a plugin I do not like the aesthetics of, in order to really analyse how it works. It is pretty sensible. I don't like those four icons across the bottom, that represent the amp models. Those are beyond dysfunctional. They belong in a museum along with the bearded lady and the other circus freaks.

 

[Sascha Franck]

And fwiw, that discussion should belong to laxu's global functionalities thread as global blocks are typically pretty meaningless in a plugin (and if you were to use them live, things such as Mainstage or Gig Performer actually allow you to mimic a global block function).

 

[Orvillain]

This is hilarious. This is a Gig Performer layout for the Petrucci plugin. DRIVEL AND TRIPE!

Functional? Maybe. I couldn't tell you, because I won't be using it. Because I'll be too busy replacing my eyeballs with a pair of cows testicles, using a stapler.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I think you need to be really careful about what you put on screen at any given time

I don't even disagree.
Which is why a kinda personalized performance view might be decent.
Also, most folks using S-Gear praise it for its easy access to everything - and fwiw, I totally agree on it being fugly. Could defenitely do with a modernized UI scheme.