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Skeuomorphic interfaces mimicking products I've never seen
It occurred to me the absurdity of how a lot of audio software has skeuomorphic interfaces mimicking hardware that I, having never set foot in a real music studio, will never see or lay hands on. It feels pretty weird when I read that a plugin has the 'familiar interface of an XJ34.1 smurgulator' when I will never get within a mile of an XJ nor smurgulate anything with it.
I'm wondering how true this is for other people - how much of the hardware these things are supposed to mimic have you actually laid hands on?
Or am I like those gen-Z types the first time they see a floppy disk and ask why someone would make a physical model of the save icon...
Comments
@mangecoeur Im personally not a fan of skeuomorphic interfaces…
I have laid hands on Moog model D, and emulations of that interface are fun to play with, its a legendary instrument. The fact thst Moog is behind one of the emulations available on iOS makes the GUI special. A similar scenario for the Korg emulations. Never touched them but the emulations are Korg products and that makes them special to me.
So emulations by the original makers work for me, the GUI makes sense given the work put into emulation of the sound. Beyond that, GUIs that attempt to look like an imaginary hardware tool leave me cold, including attempts to emulate cables on modular synths. Don't get me wrong i will use these regardless.
The colors and fancy renderings seem a waste of processing power and memory
I'm a big fan of skeuomorphic interfaces on instruments that are emulating real hardware. It makes a lot of sense. The artwork can look amazing.
I don't blame skeuomorphic interfaces for my frustration with an app... I blame the fact that I can turn
a knob, push and button or yell at my iPad and nothing changes in the resulting audio output.
Now, some developers give me audio differences with the smallest input in the UI... those are the apps
I tend to live inside. AUM, Riffer, most reverbs/delays are prime examples of apps that just seem to unfold as a series of joyous surprises.
Most of the skeuomorphic DDMF applications add audio benefits just by launching them with an audio
source... they improve the sound just by their internal DSP qualities based on circuit emulation of classic,
coveted studio gear. They also inspire me to learn a bit more and stop being such a rude physical child
with such beautifully crafted "instruments" of audio persuasion.
I don't see why something being skeuomorphic or not even matters, unless the UI gets in the way of usability. After providing functionality, a UI is there to create a mood. That mood can be many things, but one is to project the personality of the app. Why not project a vibe of using a vintage piece of equipment? Why does it matter if some people have never seen and don't care about the hardware? What is wrong with that? What other paradigm would be better? Who makes the call over what is the best kind of abstracted interface?
If usability is compromised for the sake of skeuomorphic design, then I get it. The silly level meters that serve almost no purpose and take up so much screen real estate on 4Pockets apps come to mind. But short of that, unless its just plain butt-ugly I really don't care about the design as long as it works well.
The developer is also a factor, not just the user. Developing an app is an expression of art in a way. A developer may get added satisfaction from creating his app by extending that vibe. More power to them (as long as it functions well).
Also, UI design is really, really difficult. Basing a design to look like hardware can be a way around having to be artistic in ways that a developer may not be talented. I'd rather have a decent skeuomorphic design than an embarrassingly designed custom UI. I'd also rather have skeuomorphic design over stuff just designed to be cute or different. But that's just me.
I love a good UI, be it skeuomorphic, flat, or whatnot. The only way skeuomorphism gets in the way for me is storage space. I crave mixbox, dig amplitube, etc. But most IK's apps take too much space with graphics. My 64gb ipad is full as it is
I feel your pain. I'm going to fix my storage problem soon and load all my apps at the same time.
I just hope 1TB will last for a couple years.... I should get the 2TB, right? Better to be safe and make
a shit ton of AudioLayer instruments of all my IAA apps that will stop working in 5 years.
I love skeuomorphic design, if done well. Model D and Mixbox are two of my favs
Others like PSP wreck mine eyes
Skeuomorphic interfaces often don’t go far enough. For the ultimate modular experience, just get a bunch of real patch cables and lay them over your iPad screen so you have to keep shuffling cables out of the way to get to the knobs.
😂
I guess I don't mind the skeumorphic design per se, what I find funny is that I'm working with simulations of things I will never actually use in reality - so I do wonder what's the point, since I suspect it's try of most people.
The first iOS synth I bought was iMS-20, which pleased me a lot as it reminded me of the little trio I used to own (MS10/MS20/SQ10) but had to sell in the early years of the 21st century. In fact the SQ in iMS-20 is even better – 16 steps instead of only 12 in the real thing.
Much more recently I bought Korg’s MonoPoly, and a few years before that I sold my real MonoPoly. I was disappointed to see Korg’s app represented a dirty dusty grotty synth, whereas my real one was quite pristine!
most of the first filters, filterbanks, oscillators, oscillographs, etc. were used in science and in the military. They had to be funktional and easy to operate. Important parameters had larger knobs and labels, the user interface had to be clear and logical. Early sound engineers were wearing lab coats, and early sound equipment followed the clear interface paradigm.
Personally I don’t mind a modern flat user interface, as long as it is clearly labelled with logical, understandeable words or abbreviations, and logical functionality.
Recently I needed to compress a signal, loaded a modern compressor into the signal chain, and had trouble to dial the right settings. I’m sure it is a good compressor, but in that case I had not the time to study the manual. Instead, I loaded a demo of a compressor with traditional layout, and immediately found the right setting. And immediately spent the 5 bucks IAP. Because this is the compressor I will use from now on.
You CAN keep a device with good collection of apps removed from the store
and only them
@Phil999 It's true that generally classic hardware had interfaces that had to be functional. On the other hand, they were also limited by the need to use physical knobs and dials and fit things into boxes. So while 'modern' UI design can be pointlessly complicated or cryptic, I do think it's a shame not to take use the specific advantages of high res touch screens. I think BLEASS apps do this very well for example.
Perhaps some of the appreciation for old hardware gear is a kind of survivor-bias: people remember the stuff that was actually good, no one remembers the stuff that got thrown away in anger
A lot of (now called „vintage“) production gear was extraordinarily expensive and originated from broadcast. As the latter played an important part in propaganda during „cold war“ times, there was no financial limit for the designs, they were government financed...
I‘m only familiar with German gear, but British and US designs were probably similiar.
A broadcast console had a modular design (somewhat like AP500), but each module was transformer balanced on both input and output with a ground free circuitry in between and hot-swappable.
A regular powersupply (N624) delivered 100W of 24V DC with ripple of less than 0.5 mV under full load. The voltage control part had it‘s own supply power separated from the power to be delivered to the modules. In case of failure it could automatically switch to a backup unit.
To have a (say) Scarlett or UR interface and throw some Telefunken V76 emulation on to the data is a joke at best, because you simply lack resolution and definition of the original.
A somewhat working approach is UAD‘s strategy with extremely clean preamp stages and high quality DSP code, but I don‘t think you could emulate a full analog console in good condition.
(which is fairly pointless anyway, as those units are even rarer than single modules and start around $20k for 10 channels)
My suspect is based on a private mod using input modules as headphone drivers.
It may be sub in technical terms (compared to the well regarded monitoring section of my Audient ID22), but I don‘t mind because the sound is so much more vivid.
ps: sorry, got a bit distracted from the topic... imho most of the screen graphics are simply suggestive to pretend something, the software does not deliver.
„Designed like...“ is a very, very wide terrain...
This definitely needs a thread on it's own.
Could you explain what you are actually doing here?
Are you taking the gain stage of mixer input modules and using those?
That sounds like fun.
It‘s actually an extremely short affair:
The Audient ID22 instrument input is highly respected (someone called it „better“ than the Motu M2’s) and I‘ve used it extensively in particular with amp sims on iPad.
Long before the ID22 I bought a broadcast impedance converter (TAB V357), a rather obscure „broadcast module“ just out of curiosity. 3 MegOhm input impedance and 20 dB gain, 4 unbalanced inputs into 2 balanced outputs. The standard output of such modules is a transformer with about 30Ohm impedance, so I assumed it could drive headphones.
Which it in fact did... in a mindblowing way.
The difference is stunning - completely different dimension of tone, but of course that‘s comparing Apples to Oranges: it‘s a plain analog path. String hit to ear at the speed of light.
The ID22 simply could neither replicate this impression nor did it capture the full spectrum as perceived in „live mode“... and that’s actually the base of my assumption above that an analog console of that time can‘t be fully replicated by plugins.
As the V357 module is built of pluggable submodules inside (like most modules) it was easy to unplug the impedance converter section and simply bridge the orphaned pins from input to output.
I‘m really pleased with the sound, but it was quite some consideration to give up the extremely unflattering response of the ID22, which is of course still an option if required.
Atm I weigh the joy of listening a bit higher
btw I‘ve done countless A/B comparisons with these devices over seveal years, so it‘s not a „wow, found something new“ effect.
As always, there’s a grain of salt: these modules are usually age 50 and above. You have to recap them and it‘s hard to source matching electrolytic caps because today 90% are radial types, while the old circuits featured axial ones.
(in most cases it‘s a just a visual flaw, but these devices today represent a significant value if in perfect condition)
And another hint: the output transformers of such modules must be loaded with 100-300 Ohm.
Directly connecting them to an interface line input will (greately) spoil the sound.