Suggestion re the two-line displays

[cornutt]

In the Sonic State NAMM video, John mentioned the issue of the parameters on the two-line displays, and how to inform the user as to which line is being edited by the knobs at any given moment. The obvious idea is LEDs next to or in the selection buttons, but that adds hardware. I'm thinking something that uses the display itself. A couple of thoughts:

1. Reverse video to identify the active line. Kind of an old-school idea. t works, and I've used it / seen it used a lot in the past. On the other hand, I kind of think reverse video is obnoxious.

2. Putting some kind of indication on the line that is active, like askterists between the parameters. Back in the day, Emacs used to do this, but it might be all that noticeable, and it takes up space in the display.

3. Put a box around the active line. I don't know if the display is large enough to accommodate it.

4. Swap the two lines, such that the active line is always the one closest to the knobs. I think that, as a user, after getting used to this it would seem quite intuitive. But at first it would be confusing, I'll admit.

5. Putting the active line in some kind of different font, like an italic font. Neat idea in theory, but it might not work well with the display resolution.

I think my preference would be #3, followed by #1 and then #4.

[John Bowen]

Cornutt,

Thanks for the suggestions! The inverse video text idea has been mentioned several times now, and actually we had toyed with it last year, as well as a couple of the other suggestions. BOLD, or blinking, or [brackets], etc.

I'll be back in Germany soon, working on the production prototype, and we'll have another look at the inverse video option. Some of the others have a problem because of the character spacing and so on....

cheers,
john

[Tiitu]

There are push buttons with a LED built in. See, for example:

http://www.01xray.com/hardware/close_up.html

http://www.yamaha-europe.com/picture_ar ... gh_jpg.jpg

http://pictures.yamaha-europe.com/pictu ... gh_jpg.jpg

http://moogmusic.com/manuals/Moog_nightlight_4_rgb.jpg

Please, click the images to zoom in.

The rocker switches of Minimoog are most simple and quite nice, because you can feel their position even, if you are not able to see. Otherwise, I prefer the LED buttons of Tyros-2. With a two-color LED, you can indicate 3 positions, if it is needed.

Cheers,
Tiitu.

[ThreeFingersOfLove]

1. Reverse video to identify the active line. Kind of an old-school idea. t works, and I've used it / seen it used a lot in the past. On the other hand, I kind of think reverse video is obnoxious.

That's a cool idea but I don't think it will work in a 2 line display. Given the fact that one line will always be the "current" line (i.e. the editing line) the text will always be in reverse video, scrolling up or down to reveal other pages means that the reverse video stays. It would be a very good idea if it was 3 lines, 2 normal 1 for editing so the user can instantly spot the difference (the active line in reverse video).

2. Putting some kind of indication on the line that is active, like askterists between the parameters. Back in the day, Emacs used to do this, but it might be all that noticeable, and it takes up space in the display.

An asterisk in front of a parameter usually signifies that the parameter now has a different value from the value stored in memory. How about a blinking asterisk placed to the front of the line? Or a blinking arrow? It's easy to implement, it doesn't take much space, and it istn't distracting (as opposed to the whole line blinking). Just some suggestions.

Yannis

[John Bowen]

How about a blinking asterisk placed to the front of the line? Or a blinking arrow? It's easy to implement, it doesn't take much space, and it istn't distracting (as opposed to the whole line blinking). Just some suggestions.Yannis

We discussed the blinking idea before, and I brought it up again with all the guys at Zimmer's studio yesterday. I have to say, the vote was 5-0 against....not one of them liked the idea of anything blinking at them! And these are all guys with many years of experience working with synths, so I will probably not use blinking.

There was the suggestion to indicate the current editing parameter in reverse video, since we can do that to the block of just 8 characters above the knobs. You will want to know what the currently selected editing parameter is, because the data entry (keypad, alpha knob, inc/dec) will affect it as well as the local knob underneath it.

john b.

[stardust]

blinking is for toys indeed. I vote against.

[ThreeFingersOfLove]

There was the suggestion to indicate the current editing parameter in reverse video, since we can do that to the block of just 8 characters above the knobs.

I am sure that at *some point*, the user will get used to the idea that the editing line is the line directly above the knobs. Maybe you are right about the blinking, now that I think about it... if you have 6 blinking characters (one for each display) it would put you to some kind of ... panic mode?

[stardust]

[matocaster]

Three hours of John Bowen and Hans Zimmer. Wow! What a meeting of serious synth geeks. Would love to be a fly on the wall during those moments! John I think it was fate that you'd end up getting input from one the most heavy synthesists on the planet for this giant leap forward in hardware synths. Are you considering any of those sound designers you met with for the Solaris?

[John Bowen]

Do you mean, considering them for preset making? I'd love that, but seeing their schedules here, I highly doubt they would have time for such things!

-john b.

[matocaster]

Do you mean, considering them for preset making? I'd love that, but seeing their schedules here, I highly doubt they would have time for such things!

-john b.

Yes, that's what I meant. But then I just remembered that you made some of my favorite presets ever, so no worries.

mat

[Howard]

Do you mean, considering them for preset making? I'd love that, but seeing their schedules here, I highly doubt they would have time for such things!
-john b.

Er... hi John! (back home today, jetlagged)

[John Bowen]

Hi,

I thought I'd give an update to my latest thinking here.

Concerning the 'current parameter' issue - there's actually 2 issues involved.

1) from the video interview, to be aware of which line is currently active for the knobs
2) Which parameter in that active line is currently active for data input from the numeric keypad, alpha knob, inc/dec.

The ideas of reverse video or blinking had to do with #2, but what I was probably talking about in the video was #1, which currently uses black pointers (like triangles on their sides) next to each parameter to indicate the current line.

From my use of the interface now for several months, and from the extra feedback with Zimmer's group, I've decided to reduce the number of parameters per display page, using soft labels for each parameter on the top line, and have the knobs primarily work with the bottom line. However, this does increase the number of 'sub-pages' needed to get through all the parameters quite a bit, so for all the modulation paths, we can still use the top line/bottom line functionality, by using push button knobs to select top or bottom line, with the black triangles pointing to the current active choice (as was discussed back in the beginning by me and the Sonic Core guys). The functions which are currently designed for the push knobs can be put in an additional sub-page, and in fact, opens up possibilities for more flexible modulation options.

I could also leave the text displays as they are, and use push knobs for every knob in the UI, but I think if I just rearrange parameters and make it simpler, there will be less 'push button activity' needed, which would be a good thing. One of the things that bothered me using the cursor controls to move from top to bottom was the constant lateral movement required when you were trying to adjust parameters top to bottom. This extra physical movement impairs the experience of ease-of-use, in my mind, and putting the line movement under the push of the knob allows for single control of things without this lateral movement.

Another issue of the UI solved by using soft labels for the parameters is that now anything that was not 'explained' by the silkscreened labels (such as Oscillator Type or Waveshape Select) can be clearly labeled. Also, for future use, soft labels can change as needed whenever new algorithms are implemented. (And another interesting point was, with the darker panel, not all the printed labels were easily readable, and I noticed Hans himself was looking for labels in the displays, although certainly this could be improved by using light or white print for all printed labels.)

I don't think they'll be able to have all the parameter lines re-coded in time for the Frankfurt Messe, but I hope some of them will be done (like the filter section), and I expect it will prove to be a lot more intuitive to use this way.

Of course, none of this addresses issue #2, which we've still got to decide. I hope to try the 'inverse video' option next, to see how it looks.

cheers,
john b.

In the Sonic State NAMM video, John mentioned the issue of the parameters on the two-line displays, and how to inform the user as to which line is being edited by the knobs at any given moment. The obvious idea is LEDs next to or in the selection buttons, but that adds hardware. I'm thinking something that uses the display itself. A couple of thoughts:

1. Reverse video to identify the active line. Kind of an old-school idea. t works, and I've used it / seen it used a lot in the past. On the other hand, I kind of think reverse video is obnoxious.

2. Putting some kind of indication on the line that is active, like askterists between the parameters. Back in the day, Emacs used to do this, but it might be all that noticeable, and it takes up space in the display.

3. Put a box around the active line. I don't know if the display is large enough to accommodate it.

4. Swap the two lines, such that the active line is always the one closest to the knobs. I think that, as a user, after getting used to this it would seem quite intuitive. But at first it would be confusing, I'll admit.

5. Putting the active line in some kind of different font, like an italic font. Neat idea in theory, but it might not work well with the display resolution.

I think my preference would be #3, followed by #1 and then #4.

[Tiitu]

John, about #2: Why not to use a marker , like > or * , in front of the active row? It just takes one character.

>Hmm?

*Hmm?

>Here is still an other suggestiong for the active row.<

* Here is still an other suggestiong for the active row. *

[Here is still an other suggestiong for the active row.]

@ Here is still an other suggestiong for the active row.

etc.

Best wishes,
Tiitu.

[John Bowen]

Tiitu,

Currently, the solaris shows the active line like this (filter section as example):

>StateVariable >HP 2 >LFO1 >EG1 >AT
5000 hz 79% +32 +63 +11

The front panel printed labels below these read as follows:

Cutoff Res Mod1 Mod2 Mod3

With an LED indicating Pg 1 next to the labels. (Sorry, I can't figure how to put in the proper spacing here in HTML!)

Below these labels, there's a second row of labels, in a color matching the color used for Pg 2 text. When you change the page, you change both lines of the display to different parameters.

there's also a cursor button next to the left of the display. this moves the > from the top line to the bottom, etc.

This is actually the button (pair in the proto) I'd like to remove.
But we still will use something like the > to indicate current parameter being accessed.

The question is really for when you need the Solaris computer to know, which parameter will also be edited by the keypad, inc/dec, or alpha knob, in addition to the panel knob directly below it.

-john b.