Suggested UI improvements
1. Gadget suffers from this same ugly problem: knobs placed at the edge of the screen. There's no point because you can't apply modulation if you're moving your hand up and down nudging a knob up. This is present on the keyboard screen and it's not effective.
My solution: take out the macro knobs on the keyboard screen. Just make it keys. Add the sidebar for navigation on the keyboard screen to rapidly go back and fourth from keys to any other area of the app.
2. The controls on the right hand side of the performance pad area should be moved into the sidebar where the velocity controls are, the same as in BM2. In the bank menu on pad performance mode add the pad selector menu exactly the same as used in the effects sidebar. Selecting the individual pad will allow you to set the scales, chords and perhaps even load a sample or some kind of pad preset.
The goal of consolidating controls into the sidebar is to make additional room to make the pads larger as per BM2 and for BM3 for iPhone.
The controls at the bottom are essentially superfluous at this point. Setting 16/64 pads can be done from the bank menu in the sidebar. Scene controls like copy and delete should also be done by drag/drop of patterns from the sidebar.
(One other point on scenes, pad muting should be kept to scenes, if a pattern in scene 1 has a mute on a pad that is duplicated and copied to pad 2 and unmuted, those changes ought to somehow be remembered.)
3. Scenes: touching a scene should toggle play on and off instead of retriggering.
4. This one is probably considered crazy but the pattern selecting window has always bothered me. It makes a little more sense in my opinion to access pattern modes as a sub menu in the bank menu. If patterns are able to be saved as part of banks anyway it makes logical sense in my view that all pattern management be controlled in the bank menu. It would also be a lot less distracting and more consistent with the rest of the app UI design.
My solution: take out the macro knobs on the keyboard screen. Just make it keys. Add the sidebar for navigation on the keyboard screen to rapidly go back and fourth from keys to any other area of the app.
2. The controls on the right hand side of the performance pad area should be moved into the sidebar where the velocity controls are, the same as in BM2. In the bank menu on pad performance mode add the pad selector menu exactly the same as used in the effects sidebar. Selecting the individual pad will allow you to set the scales, chords and perhaps even load a sample or some kind of pad preset.
The goal of consolidating controls into the sidebar is to make additional room to make the pads larger as per BM2 and for BM3 for iPhone.
The controls at the bottom are essentially superfluous at this point. Setting 16/64 pads can be done from the bank menu in the sidebar. Scene controls like copy and delete should also be done by drag/drop of patterns from the sidebar.
(One other point on scenes, pad muting should be kept to scenes, if a pattern in scene 1 has a mute on a pad that is duplicated and copied to pad 2 and unmuted, those changes ought to somehow be remembered.)
3. Scenes: touching a scene should toggle play on and off instead of retriggering.
4. This one is probably considered crazy but the pattern selecting window has always bothered me. It makes a little more sense in my opinion to access pattern modes as a sub menu in the bank menu. If patterns are able to be saved as part of banks anyway it makes logical sense in my view that all pattern management be controlled in the bank menu. It would also be a lot less distracting and more consistent with the rest of the app UI design.
Comments
1 I agree, but a lot of people want everything on one screen or things to slide in/appear here and there, personally i agree that things on their own page is way more ergonomic, vs an extra button press to reach that page.
3 Scenes should have iser definable trigger options.
Atm there are only a handful of config options in settings. And hardly any that apply to workflow or UI. In Sonar/Reaper etc there are pages and pages of options in those areas... And that's on top of those programs having the advantage of mouse/big screen for ui/keyboard shortcuts/midi keyboard set up permanently on most studio daws... Etc.
For ipad (standalone) to ever really compete for workflow and be fully streamlined for a bunch of people with a bunch of different requirements the devs need to start making things waaaay more configurable...
I think the only way they could get everything working how everybody wants is to include a theming engine, but i doubt that is commervially viable and may not rven be possible on IOS.
I've got Sketch and a few other design tools. I'm tempted to throw in some graphical suggestions at some point in the coming weeks, not to say veto concepts, but just to put the itch to bed... some kind of consolidated UI suggestions thread with a predefined format and requirements list? A community effort, Anyone else up for something like that?
The problem is one persons strength is another persons weakness.
There is no hard and fast rules with UI/X design outside of the basics, a lot of UI designers will convince you there is, but that is nearly always current trend or simply their own personal preference.
So we nearly always have to settle and deal with what is in front of ys, unless there is a complex theming engine (very rare)