Re: User model/expectations of software synths.
Re: User model/expectations of software synths.
- Subject: Re: User model/expectations of software synths.
- From: William Stewart <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 15:35:27 -0700
On May 8, 2009, at 12:50 PM, Ian Kemmish wrote:
Having gone to the effort of writing a completely multi-timbral
software synth, you can imagine my disappointment at learning that
the commonest scenario is that the host app creates one instance of
the AU for each track on which it is used, and always talks to it on
Group 0 :-)
For a long time, the only reason this bothered me was because it
would lead to increased cache thrashing during rendering, something
I've expended elbow grease on avoiding.
But I've just had another thought, about what behaviour the user
expects. Supposing the user edits a voice in one particular
instance's user interface - and by editing a voice here I
specifically mean changing a property, not changing a parameter (for
example, adding a module to a voice in a modular synth). Does he
expect that edit to be reflected in all the other instances
immediately,
No - the other instances are distinct, and there shouldn't be any
cross talk between them. At least, that is the general principle.
I think if you were going to violate that principle, then your UI
would / must reflect that notion - that you are really dealing with
one general rendering synth, one collection of voices, that then have
a shared use through the various instances instantiated at a given
time. I'm not a UI guy, but my head hurts trying to figure out what
that means (particularly if you go to open the view on two different
audio units, on two different tracks) - but that said, doesn't mean
you can't figure something useful out.
or the next time he saves the edited voice, or the next time he
starts the host app?
I can think of arguments in favour of all of these, but at the
moment I'm leaning towards "immediately" which I guess requires some
kind of shared voice memory between different instances of the same
AU.
Does Apple have any official guidance on this? It's possible the AU
Preset mechanism already has stuff to handle this, but I don't
recall reading anything about it in the documentation.
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Ian Kemmish 18 Durham Close, Biggleswade, Beds
SG18 8HZ
email@hidden Tel: +44 1767 601361 Mob: +44 7952
854387
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