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Bearing in mind that many (most??) users are gradually moving towards total Virtual Instrument based setups - with maybe just one keyboard as a controller, It would be sensiblle to at least allow a mode option where irrelevant MIDI options can be hidden. Things like hidin channel and port info where none are in use - simplifying the popup menu in the arranger window, so that instead just the DP Virtual instrument names OR audio inputs are presented - ALONG with hierarchical choice lists of the patches available for the selected Virtual instrument.

I really dont want to have to keep on opening up a VI window- JUST in order to browse through patches. we already have the means to set up patch lists for external instruments - but these are less and less popular- and yet -

DP developers should also do what Cubase does - and have a seperate area in the channel strip area displaying the currently selected patch for that instrument - and allowing the patch to be changed simply by clicking on it and choosing from a pop-up list. hardly a challenging programming task. bu extremely helpful for our workflow.

We also need to see something similar to that wonderful Garageband Instrument dialog box- where we can so easily choose our instrument + channel strip settings in one go.
I think Garageband very much points the way towards how we would like to use VIs - ie in a musician friendly way. Picking sound generators/ effects by hierarchical category and name- rather than by port/instrument/instrument numbers etc.

And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - can we have a UNIFORM mechanism for allowing our keyboard controllers to step up and down through the VI patch list for the currently selected instrument.

VIs are the way of the future - the DP user interface should reflect this.

<small>[ May 05, 2005, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: dstenning ]</small>

DP developers should also do what Cubase does - and have a seperate area in the channel strip area displaying the currently selected patch for that instrument - and allowing the patch to be changed simply by clicking on it and choosing from a pop-up list. hardly a challenging programming task. bu extremely helpful for our workflow.

I think this is more challenging than you realize, considering how so many VI's use so many different preset handling methods. Maybe once the AU spec gets more mature, there will be a more uniform way of working with presets. As it is now it's a mess.

disagree. If GarageBand manages to read and display AU patchlists perfectly well , as well as Logic style plugins, there should be no reason why other AU compatiible apps cant do the same. I have nearly ALL of the Native Instruments AUs and GB manages to retrieve the patches with no problems.

Try loading anything from Arturia, or GMedia into GB. You'll find that their AU's use a preset scheme that isn't usable in the way you describe. Yes, N.I. works, and of course the Logic stuff works, but there are a lot of third party products that don't use the same method. I couldn't get GB to show presets from the Arturia MMV to save my life. That's not a limitation of GB, it's the way the AU was designed. If I'm doing it wrong, maybe someone could fill me in, I'm not a heavy GB user.

fair enough, but bearing in mind a huge nr of people use NI products, it would be a boon in itself if DP managed at least to
display patch lists for NI and Steinberg stuff, as well as of course their own VIs. Then hopefully the other VI vendors would fall into line once it became clear that other vendors VIS had advantages over them when it came to integration within DP.

My guess is that if NI can get it right ( as they clearly have in GB ) then theyre clearly keeping in line with the Apple AU API in ways that the others arent.

Have to say DP isnt alone in this - Logic amazingly doesnt allow display and selection of patchlists from its vertsion of the tracklist - the Arrange window - either. beats the hell out of me - People keep slagging off Cubase as being the "toy" but in this issue - which clearly speeds up the workflow, Cubase wins hands down.

Maybe their VST API re patchlists is better worked out than the AU version - but I was under the impression that AU was supposed to be a much better thought out API than VST.

Unfortunately DP doesn't do a great job of handling Virtual
Instrument presets.
Filterscape by Urs Heckman is a pretty good example.
He had to design a preset menu specifically because DP
could not access presets any other way.
When I've used Filterscape in Logic, no such problem exists.

<small>[ May 03, 2005, 09:53 AM: Message edited by: sdfalk ]</small>

Originally posted by dstenning:


Maybe their VST API re patchlists is better worked out than the AU version - but I was under the impression that AU was supposed to be a much better thought out API than VST.

Maybe someday, but not yet.