Time to be a little contentious… Can anyone tell me what advantages MOD-UI has over Zynthian’s standard layer structure? I know it looks very pretty, the drag and drop workflow is perhaps more intuitive and visual presentation of patches is a boon but, despite these cosmetic and sound design workflow elements, does it have some killer feature that means people use it as their main configuration?
To add a little more context… I really like the graphical presentation of MOD-UI but it has significant limitations. I am wondering whether some effort might be worth spending on implementing the good stuff of MOD-UI in the core Zynthian workflow and avoiding having MOD-UI as an additional overhead. (There is overhead to maintaining different methods of doing broadly similar stuff and integrating into common workflows and dataflows.)
Agreed, I’ve liked the MOD-UI interface. IT certainly has pushed on into territory that the Pi4 will allow us to access.
Presumably there are structural files that describe the patch structure it uses? Would it be sensible for us to adopt some sub or super set of that to allow us to develop the blossoming area of Pre & post effects?
Yes, this thing is beautifully drawn, but I couldn’t make friends with it … one big problem is resetting configured ports on boot …
Zynthian itself is an incredibly powerful and flexible machine, the mod-ui module destroys for me, as a musician who expects simplicity and reliability from a musical instrument, the overall positive impression of the system as a whole.
Maybe it makes sense to add an item to the web config that disables loading mod-ui?
Doesn’t that count a lot ? I mean, when creativity is concerned, and when a muse dares visiting us, is it not important that our tools help us reaching our goals in the easiest way…
(2 excellent rock bands are hidden in here… sure you will find them… that’s was unintended, and by far, too easy)…
I mean the command of the web interface to hide the menu item …
and, possibly, disable loading mod-ui into the device memory in standby mode … I don’t know how this is implemented …
today, experimenting with zynthian, I thought about this, sorry, this is a slightly different topic … is it really necessary to assign a midi channel to fx layers?
In essence, this is how it is implemented in DAW, the “FX layer” is an audio bus in which some plug-ins are present, such as reverb or delay… not excluding the use of these buses as an alternative to “mod-ui”, with an effect chain for guitar processing.
Is there a need to use midi channels on these buses?
…or something similar, which is in some software samplers, for example, Native Instrumets Kontakt, where an attempt was made to implement the mechanism of midi ports … A, B, C, D … there are 16 channels in each of these ports …
Once again, from a strict user point of view, the MOD-UI appeals in a way that reassures those coming from the ‘planet of endless reels of cables and plugs’ (like myself).
The visual gate bridge between classic and modern sound modification systems gives (me) an idea of what it is I’m actually doing.
I use the MOD-UI for effect chaining mainly.
Just my 50 cents
“Just a pretty face”…
And even then… is beauty not important ?
Ask a guitarist if a Gibson Lespaul is “just a pretty face” ?
Some people care, that the visual of an UI evokes the real instrument with a simulated serigraphy on a simulated aluminium case with simulated wood cheeks and simulated plastic knobs and shadows… “My fake plastic love”…
Some prefer having basic but fully and immediately readable elemental UI…
We use our computers for a lot of different things, but the drummer never uses his drum kit to make cookies or to watch porn… when he sits in front of his snare drum, he is already is a musician mood and can forget everything else…
I believe that when your computer ressembles a musical instrument, you get into an atmosphere that is different from coding a program, writing a novel or playing a bill online, and for some people, the dedicated UI helps immersing into what they are actually doing at the moment…
When my computer screen shows me the fake interface of a Juno 106, I’m already feeling a keyboard player inside of me… and also, I find my way into the different commands, much easier…
And even if that were only for the look… that’s useless, not functionnal, and thus, that’s essential…
Indeed - so if the visual aesthetics and GUI workflow are advantageous but if the module offers no functional benefit we could plan to add the useful GUI / workflow bits to the core Zynthian workflow, e.g. have a drag and drop, pull and connect UI for the layers. (We could borrow from MOD-UI.) I would love to see that. If on the other hand there are users that say, I can’t do XYZ with layers and must use MOD-UI for this functionality then we would need to consider whether the functionality is required within the layer workflow.
