Just an fyi to anyone making or thinking of making one of these:

Turning a knob with a mouse is the worst interface I can think of. I don't know why audio apps/DAWs fall so hard on skeuomorphism here when the interface just doesn't make sense in the context.

I use knobs everyday in my audio tools (with my track pad) and they're perfectly fine as long as they have three features:

1. Drag up/down to change value. 2. A modifier key to slow the drag for finer resolution changes when dragging. 3. The ability to double-click the knob and type in precise values when I know exactly what I want.

The problem with knobs on a GUI is when designers stay with them when there is a faster option. Like an opportunity to combine three knobs.

For example, the EQ on any SSL channel strip is a nightmare because they slavishly stick with a skeumorphic design of the original hardware. The hardware required mixers to use two hands to adjust gain and frequency at the same time, and then dial in Q on a third knob. Very tedious when you have a mouse.

When this is done right, you get something like FabFilter's Pro-Q graphic EQ. The gain and frequency controls are instead an X/Y slider that you can easily drag across a representation of the frequency spectrum. In addition you can use a modifier key to narrow/widen your Q. All with a single click and drag of your band.

Good morning. An expanding plethora of buttons, tabs, menus requires geometrical memory that may have nothing directly to do with the function in question. The first GUIs were designed that functions be "discoverable," however the size of haystacks in which these discoverable functions hide has grown exponentially, adding cognitive overhead, and increasing the length of apprenticeship needed to master the application.

A slick-looking GUI is a kind of ad for the app. As author of an accessible, terminal-based DAW app, I contrast remembering an incantation like 'add-track' or 'list-buses' with hunting around. These incantations can have shorter abbreviations, such 'lb' for list buses, and 'help bus' or 'h bus' to be sufficiently discoverable, easier for both implementer and user. And then to have hotkeys to bump plugin parameters +/- 1/10/100 etc. Probably I'm pissing into the wind to think the majority of users will ever choose this -- and GUIs do provide amazing facilities for many purposes -- but we do have a huge array of choices on linux, including this plethora of music creation and production apps. That is a big success, IMO.

A 20 pixel knob has considerably greater resolution than a 20 pixel slider with its max resolution of 20. I don't think I have come across a digital knob that you have to turn with the mouse since the previous century, just drag up or down or left or right.

Unless the implementation is really bad, you actually have more control over these knobs than you would have over sliders. You could technically remove the knob completely, replace it with just textual number you click on and move your mouse, but the knob is easier to read.

It allows for dense controls and everyone's used to them. I don't find them to be a problem, they aren't intuitive in that you might think you're supposed to grab the knob and "turn" it with a circular cursor motion or something, but once you learn to drag linearly, they're an easy to use and consistent interface. And as giancarlostoro mentioned, you can map them to a MIDI device if you want to twiddle knobs while playing/recording live.

> Turning a knob with a mouse is the worst interface I can think of.

I'm racking my brain thinking of what a better interface would be for selecting a number between a range of values, where the number is a point on a continuum and not any specific value, and can't think of one. The equivalent "traditional" UX for webapps would be a slider control, but that's functionally the same and you'd be going against many years of domain-specific common understanding for not much benefit.

It works great though, what's the alternative? It's visually small, so you can fit a lot of controls in a small space. You can glance at it and know the current setting and where it falls within the range of possible values. By making the mouse control modal when you click on a knob (so you start dragging and can drag over a much larger area than you could for say a slider, which isn't modal) you have immensely precise control over the value in realtime, while still being able to quickly make big changes. This is essential for performance. Combining this with some gentle mouse acceleration for the rate of change of the control when dragging gives you even more precise control. This isn't possible with a slider either.

I would say the opposite, it's basically the perfect interface for a very specific scenario with requirements that don't really occur in much other computer software.

If not using hardware, you just click and move horizontally or vertically; not sure what a better interface would be? Though I do like it when the numeric value shows when changing. I really don't know what other UI would work well here. Usually there are so many knobs it makes sense to be compact. Though really it makes sense as well to match the visualization of the knobs on my midi controller anyway.

Also they are horrifically broken if you use OS-level magnifier (ctrl+scroll etc). I don't know if this is the application devs' fault or not; I haven't investigated OS mouse warping APIs. Warping the mouse back to the center of the knob goes in a feedback loop with the magnifier and spams crazy mouse events such that every knob will immediately go to min or max. Really shameful accessibility fail that no one cares about.

I can't think of the last time I used a knob with a mouse; you usually map it to a knob on a MIDI device and the GUI just gives you visual feedback

most daws allow you to map hardware to the dials so u dont need to tweak by mouse. that being said, good automations are a fair replacement depending on your style of music. lfos, adsrs and pattern tools for automation lanes aswell as ability to record automations (to keep em consistent, modify manually etc ), and ofc humanization algorithms that u can apply to automation lanes.

i never use 'hardware', totally happy doin what i do. (thats music i think. enjoying your craft). most ppl i know using similar tools do have midi controllers to have more of an instrumental interface. theres tons of options. no need to discourage anyone...

Isn't the entire idea that you hook it up to physical hardware?

The amount of time it takes to have 1 debate about the choice is more time than I'll spend in my entire life figuring out how all the specific "knobs" I'll ever touch work. It's just not a real problem.

Reaper has a standard UI for controlling plugins you can use instead of the VST UIs, other DAWs probably do too. It's an awful, lifeless sea of sliders and check boxes that hurts to look at, and instantly drains one of all creativity.

Are you experienced with DAWs as a composer or producer?

Many if not most professional producers use MIDI controllers with knobs/sliders/buttons MIDI mapped to DAW controls. As such the skeuomorphism actually plays a valuable role in ensuring that the physical instrument experience maps to their workflows. Secondarily, during production/mastering, producers are generally using automation lanes and envelopes to program parameters into the timeline, and the piano roll to polish the actual notes.

When I've historically done working sessions, the composition phase of what I'm doing tends to involve very little interaction with the keyboard, and is almost entirely driven by my interaction with the MIDI controller.

Conversely, when I'm at the production phase, I am generally not futzing with around with either knobs or the controller, and I am entirely interacting with the DAW through automation lanes or drawing in notes through the piano roll. So I don't really ever use the knob through a mouse and I've never really encountered any professional or even hobbyist musicians who do except for throwaway experimentation purposes.

On the other hand turning a knob with a mouse wheel is the best interface I can think of.