Topic: Preview 2.24: Embedded plugin editors in the rack

@LiquidProj3ct wrote:

Before this update I never used zPEQ, now that it’s my default EQ I found something very confusing: the colours. When you mix diferent filters (parametric, LP, BP…) the colours doesn’t help at all: They difficult my vision. If you think this is ok, please consider this small change:

The one on the right is how zPEQ appeared previously. I’ve changed it to try to make it clearer to what extent the EQ is changing the sound. With the introduction of the embedded EQ in the mixer strips, you suddenly can have a lot of EQ curves on screen, and if they all would have half their display filled with the curve, even when there are no EQ bands enabled, it would be difficult to glance over the EQs to see what they did to the sound.

@thcilnnahoj wrote:

@Conquistador wrote:

@ Frits

Could you please detach the colour settings for the Editor Profile bar buttons from the Mixers Show / Hide buttons (Top left of Mixer) as any change a user makes to the colours affects both sets of buttons.

The problem here is when a button is selected in the Editor Profile bar, white text appears. If you have a dark colour that is great and works well but…now the Show / Hide buttons above the zoom button are barely legible.

Switch to a much lighter colour to see the show hide button text properly and now you can barely make out the text on any of the Editor Profile buttons when selected.

Removing the link between the colour settings for the Editor Profile Bar and the Mixers Show / Hide buttons should solve that problem.

Yeah, I mentioned this too, I believe, though with a different solution. It doesn’t only affect the mixer buttons but almost all icons. 🙁
Try the track select buttons in the rack for an example how it’s done right!

Most of the icons in Podium have issues with dark backgrounds, and so the new mixer options buttons also don’t agree with my dark selection colors.
An exception are the nicely done track select buttons in the rack. I hope that some day, the rest of the icons will be able to follow suit. O:)

The problem is that some of the icons are photographic images with multiple color shades, meaning that they cannot easily be filled with the current text color in the color scheme. It’s gonna require some work, but I’ll try experimenting with dyeing the images.

@Conquistador wrote:

Please post/email a screenshot showing the problem. Note that the fonts used in Podium will be anti-aliased if you have the ClearType option enabled in Windows.

That was it. ClearType. =D> I had Samplitude and Reapers Mixers up and tested with Clear type on and off and it made no difference to the mixer inserts in those hosts. None. The text remained quite sharp.

Podium…it was easily clear the difference it made. The absence of font smoothing in Podium matched the other two hosts for clarity. The other two apps text (for inserts) made the text appear clearer and sharper as there is no font smoothing. Font smoothing really does not appear to work well with very small text but when switched off one can easily make out even a very small font size in Podiums mixer. (Inserts in this case).

The “small font” option was made permanent when the new smaller buttons were implemented in 2.23. The normal font is too big for the smaller buttons. I had a look at screenshots of mixers in other hosts, and from what I can see it is quite common to use a small font in mixer effect slots.

Indeed the fonts used in Samplitude and Reapers mixer inserts is AFAICT exactly the same size as Podium

So is there a solution or halfway house here? Well I don’t think enlarging the text will help as there is probably no need, I don’t think you need to sharpen the text either but…Samplitude and Reaper appear to disable font smoothing for their Mixer inserts perhaps to avoid the problem I had with smaller text not really benefiting from it and losing some degree of definition.

So can you please add an option to disable font smoothing / aliasing for the track and mixer inserts as well as source and input text in the mixer and tracks? That would solve the problem completely, having tested Podium with ClearType on (Tracks and Mixer inserts + Source, Input text) and comparing with it off.

Can you please add this option? 🙂

I’m surprised that you think the aliased font looks clearer than the anti-aliased font. I have the opposite perception. Maybe it looks different on Windows 7. Please post a screenshot, or compare with my earlier screenshot on page2.

I’ve seen screenshots of Reaper skins that use anti-aliased fonts, so maybe it depends on whether the default fonts used in Reaper does not support anti-aliasing. Or is there an option for this in the Reaper preferences?

Anyone else has an opinion on this?

@thcilnnahoj wrote:

Question: Since the selected embedded parameters remain the same across different arrangements, I assume they stored within the project (or the device definitions) then. If so, would it be possible (without too much trouble on your end) to export such a parameter list setup to reuse in other projects?

The two flags for rack/mixer embedding are stored in the properties of the parameter object. I could add two check-boxes to the parameter properties dialog, but I don’t think that is necessary. If you save a track template then the flags will be included. The embedded flags will be recalled if you load the template into another project, unless that project already has a definition for the plugin.

@kingtubby wrote:

The default dial position of the pitch control in zPitch is wrong when enabled in the mixer. When ctrl-clicking on it to set it to the default position (0 cents) it goes to -1200 cents. In fact it’s the same with all the controls in zReverb too. It seems that in the mixer, all the enabled controls default to the extreme left when using ctrl+click.

Mart.

Unfortunately there is no way in the VST spec to request the default value of parameters, but I’ve now shared the code from the zPlugin editors so that the generic mixer editors at least sets the proper default values for the Zynewave plugins.