[dylan604]

One of the early DAWs (long forgot the name of it) had an interface that recreated the look of a flatbed with animated reels. It ran on an old monochrome green/black monitor. I saw this in the mid-90s and was already used to seeing a waveform in timelines, so this thing really felt ancient. Apparently, the makers felt sound editors would be unable to grasp a new interface???

[FarmerPotato]

Isn't it a thing for DAW developers to strive for a real-world-looking interface? What I hate is knob re-creations!

[ErroneousBosh]

Interesting thing though, in some pretty extensive testing I've found that two versions of the same plugin[1] get very different opinions on sound quality depending on whether or not I use the skeupmorphic interface or a "flat" one drawn with normal toolkit graphics (I don't have a screenshot but think in terms of Ableton's vector graphics knobs).

Almost everyone seems to think the one with "real-looking" knobs and front panel "sounds better", "sounds more like the real synth", "has better filters" and so on than the flat design one, even though the DSP code and control ranges are identical between the two.

If you don't want to use knobs, what would you use instead?

[1] https://gjcp.net/plugins/peacock/

[FarmerPotato]

Funny! Users see knobs and think that it sounds better!

Like @walrah says, knobs don't obviously fit mouse movements. I could imagine a touch screen version that makes sense. Sliders match more closely. Little up/down arrows are too small. Utilizing the scroll wheel could make sense.

Finally, a digital number would be easier to read at a glance.

Still, I like analog knobs (sliders are ok). I bought a little Arturia keyboard with ten knobs. Which I haven't figured out how to assign...

I remember researching X11 Input Extensions, when KNOB was a device category. Used those on a VAX.

[wolrah]

> Almost everyone seems to think the one with "real-looking" knobs and front panel "sounds better", "sounds more like the real synth", "has better filters" and so on than the flat design one, even though the DSP code and control ranges are identical between the two.

I mean, you know that objectively there is no difference, so to me this would seem like a good filter for what part of your userbase isn't worth listening to their opinions on sound quality. Sort of like "audiophiles" who insist that their $4000 gold plated power cables make things sound better. If you're just trying to shamelessly sell them something you dive in full force, if you actually care about making an objectively better product you give their opinion the lack of respect it deserves.

> If you don't want to use knobs, what would you use instead?

Sliders. Spinners. Anything that can be cleanly interacted with using the inputs available on a computer. Knobs are wonderful in the real world. Virtual knobs I'm operating with a mouse or touch input (screen or pad) suck.

I love all the knobs on my eurorack gear but I hate having to interact with the virtual knobs on the emulated forms of them in VCV Rack. Especially if they don't have clear markers on them indicating position. I own multiple MIDI controllers that are more or less just a bank of knobs specifically to make these things usable.

[ErroneousBosh]

When I got into developing audio plugins a while ago (wow, what, 20 years ago) the library I used had rotary knobs that needed a rotary mouse motion to control them, although it had the nice feature that if you clicked on the knob the further you dragged away the slower the knob moved.

Since then I've switched to a library where even with rotary knobs you drag up and down to adjust them, which seems easier for most folk.

The advantage that rotary knob widgets have is that they are compact and you can see instantly what the value is set to.

I wouldn't even consider a spinner. They're utterly contentless.

[dylan604]

This didn't look real. It looks like what we'd consider a TUI today

[asimovDev]

don't knobs also serve a practical purpose since otherwise you'd have a ton of horizontal sliders, which would quickly crowd the interface?

[wolrah]

Spinner controls have been around ~forever in GUIs.

They take up about the same space in a UI as a virtual knob, but they clearly display the current setting and are much easier to interact with.