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Why Are There So Many Knobs in Audio Software? (theoutline.com)
John Lagomarsino, writing for The Outline: Skeuomorphic design, where user interfaces emulate the appearance of physical objects, has been popular for pretty much the history of personal computing. The ideas of "files," "folders," and the "recycle bin" in Windows could be considered skeuomorphs, intended to help transition early computer users from analog to digital, as could the idea of an "inbox" and "outbox" in email and the paperclip that symbolizes attachments. More recently, a lot of early iOS apps were famous for their heavy-handed skeuomorphic elements, with felt textures and chunky drop shadows. But no area of computing has so thoroughly gone for it more than audio software. The first Billboard #1 single that was recorded to a hard drive instead of tape was "Livin' La Vida Loca" in 1999; 18 years later, in 2017, most audio software still looks like the designers attempted to replicate physical equipment piece for piece on a computer screen. Faders, switches, knobs, needles twitching between numbers on a volume meter -- they're all there. Except you have to control them with a mouse. Winamp may have been Patient Zero in this gaudy epidemic, but it has spread far and wide. I spend a lot of my time mixing and editing audio, and that often involves having multiple audio plugins (essentially applications that run inside the main audio program) from multiple vendors running simultaneously. But all audio software, for what I suppose are historical reasons, features the most egregious skeuomorphic design in all of software. Alone, each plugin is hideous in its own unique way. A panel of 3D knobs here, a pixelated oscilloscope there.
Do you really expect audio producers to have to learn a whole new interface that has nothing to do with the physical equipment it's digitally emulating? That makes no sense. If you sit someone down who has produced audio on professional (physical) equipment, and they have a choice between one that has familiar controls in a familiar arrangement, and one that has some totally different interface (for arguments sake, let's say it's all number entry boxes and drop-down menus, like it's MS Office or something) that doesn't have the 'feel' of what they're used to, which do you think they'll pick? TFA sounds like it was written by someone who has never used real audio equipment in his life.
/thread.
It makes perfect sense as soon as you remember that MIDI control surfaces exist
Except you have to control them with a mouse.
No, you fools.
High end audio software ties into physical knobs and sliders and shit on your high end boards. You control the digital knob with an actual knob.
All other software apes the high end software, but most of it can't tie into actual hardware dealies and even the mid end packages that can often don't because the low end users don't have such hardware.
Musicians and enthusiasts who use music creation software usually know very well why their software tools have an interface that depicts music hardware, so I'm a bit puzzled why it's a mystery to the author of TFA.
The reason is that hardware controls like knobs, sliders, percussion pads, 2-axis touchpads, multi-axis RF field interfaces, breath controllers and many others kinds are extremely interactive and immediate in their effect, and so their use comes naturally to music creators. All of these controllers are commonly provided with a MIDI interface today. This has been so for many decades, either baseband MIDI or today commonly carried over USB. Through MIDI, these hardware interfaces are bound by the musician to any desired control points in the software tools, and the result is extremely expressive and a pleasure to use.
The author complains that controlling the s/w elements with a mouse is pretty awful, and indeed it is, but nobody with any sense does that except before they've set up their MIDI control gear. There are literally hundreds of thousands of different kinds of MIDI controllers around, often costing very little, so it's a bit unusual to find a music maker who is not aware of them and of their purpose.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The latter is a matter of documentation, not UX
Only slightly less bad than a command line is a UI where you have to read documentation.
He complains that you have to control the knobs with a mouse... as opposed to what, real knobs?
Knobs don't belong in UIs, full stop. Use sliders instead. They convey the same information, but are natural to use with the mouse.
UIs should look like what other UIs on the same OS look like. Clarity and high contrast beats wood paneling.
Now if you are a live performance musician or soundboard operator, you want everything you normally tweak to be in a known location so your muscle memory can get you there.
Muscle memory won't carry over from a physical panel to a mouse. That's just not what muscle memory is. Awkward controls won't make things better.
Putting the controls in about the same place on the screen as they are on the physical panel? Sure, that part makes sense. But knobs on a screen is just exasperating in its stupidity.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.