Vertical Mixconsole in left zone (custom track headers+inserts/sends)

Are you familiar with Studio1?

Plugins of each track are organized in tabs. So if you want to edit multiple tracks at the same time, you have 1 plugin window per track and can navigate through tabs to each plugin. Instead of having to open each plugin window on each track one by one and then close it again.
This approach is much more organized and is familiar to internet browsing. Imagine browsing the internet and having multiple single windows all over the place :blush: :open_mouth:

https://img.wavescdn.com/1lib/images/videos/preview/mixing-vocals-with-waves-plugins-studio-one-eq.jpg

Oh I’m not really that familiar with Studio One. I checked it out once. It was made by some people who left the Steinberg/Cubase team right? I haven’t looked much into it but that does seem nice!

I think this is a great idea, and even better is to have it on the Track Headers in my opinion (with faders that pop up when you hit the value, like Pro Tools does), so you can leave the left panel open for immediate use of other things. Either idea is great – for me, whatever amounts to the least amount of clicks and mousing about is best, and to put these smartly in the Track Headers (see Pro Tools, Reaper, and most other DAWs) is the best for that. The advantage there is that you barely need to move your mouse when working quickly – with your idea here you would always need to mouse all the way over to the left, so there is a speed and efficiency advantage to having this stuff in the regular track headers.

But your idea definitely has its own advantages, too. I would be very happy to have it.

Thanks for your post Stereo!

I agree with what you said, and its obviously nice to have everything in reach, but the main reason I put them on the left was:
I do all my fader+knob moves with the mousewheel or strg+mousewheel, it just works so well and all better designed plugins do it the same way. But I am also moving fast around the project view and the last thing I would want, would be unintentional volume/pan fader moves I dont even notice, so I rather have them not directly near the project view or in the track panel.

But maybe im a bit too concerned about that, maybe thats a non issue? (never worked in PT, just tried reaper where I was missing the mousewheel fader movement on the track panel).
If we could choose the position of those faders, that would be really nice, so we could try it for ourselves and decide whats better/worse.

At the end of the day I would just be happy to have those controls on my project view, where exactly and how thats a non issue for me at the moment (as long as there is an option to control them with the mousewheel :laughing: ). Heavy usage of those features would show whats good/bad :slight_smile:

+1

Could also work really well in conjunction with this idea from this thread (about customizable track panels):

nice work

It’s a nice details request feature :wink:
I like the visual access off all track without searching/switching console window all the time to adjust control
+1

Sorry Tj99, iam little off topic :

2 topic for about the same request…
The same as for exemple if Steinberg make a new pool with request feature like

  1. Vertical Mixconsole / costumizable track panels
  2. More track controls directly on the track headers. Computer für Audioanwendungen - WaveLab - Steinberg Forums
    The result would be loosing in rank result.

I don’t know if those 2 topics could be merge into an “official name feature request” that could be use later for a next poll.
I had the similar feeling with midi feature request in the last poll.

Anyway those request about – Mixconsole : costumizable track panels/track control – make more sens since the “old” mixconsole can’t be on top anymore, witch is a pain… Too topic that could resolve problem access.

My main idea was to somehow show people which are using the mixconsole, that a vertical mixconsole in the project window could be a good idea (to have everything in one window.) I am not using the “original” mixconsole now for bread&butter mixing, but instead I am working in the project view with the inspector. Because when mixing, I dont only fiddle around with with plugins/volume and pan, but I also move/cut/try out things in the project view.

I would like to use the mixconsole though, it gives you access to everything you need, you immediately see all your plugins and settings at first sight. There is only one problem, you constantly have to switch between that view and the project view.
The lower zone in the project window is no real solution to that, because it cannot show everything like the mixconsole and in addition to that it is 90°rotated to my track view, which just does not make any sense at all to me. Its just not that intuitive. I am convinced if Steinberg would manage to implement an “all in one”/“from left to right”- view they would set a new standard.

If you could put volume/pan on the trackpanels, that would be really great (please implement that Steinberg!), but then please also think about inserts/sends. Thats why I tried to put together both things in one feature request. If one of both things won’t get implemented, you would still need the separated/current mixconsole.

Nice concept.

New to the party!

I think the horizontal layout is a great idea to get some quick mixing done… I tried some variations, and this is what I came up with (focus is on quick mixing):

The animation will loop (if some slides are to fast, it will repeat). Click on the link below the animation for a full width version or download individual slides in the ZIP file attachment. If you want to play around with the original Photoshop file, let me know and I will send it to you (send me a message).

Same animation put in full width (1070 px): https://www.avviano.com/01_Cubase-Horizontal-Mixer_Animated-GIF_Final.gif

Cheers

Cubase Horizontal Mixer HiRes Slides.zip (1.45 MB)

1 Like

Very good job and very good idea!!

I’m sure your idea would be useful and perfect for a lot of users.

Personally, I would prefer more flexibility to customize the controls on screen in every situation.
I mean that in some cases I could want fader and pre-gain in the view, and nothing else.
In other moments I could want fader and sends, etcetera…
So I would vote for your design of “Quick Mix” but with an opened configuration of tabs and controls.

Because there are a lot of kind of users, and a lot of different needings depending of the status of a production , I think the best solution is that Steinberg give to us a very opened configuration of controls view in the project window, with shortcuts for all them.

All the ideas we are giving in this forum are compatible and all them can be implemented by Steinberg, if they understand and agree that is a good goal to work more comfortably in the project window, and visit and stay less time in the mixconsole window.

But of course it can happen that Steinberg consider that all these ideas are not interesting… We will see how much receptive they are…

Wow, nice work avviano! That actually looks like it came from Steinberg :smiley:
How long did you work on these graphics? :open_mouth:

As regards functionality I have to agree with jordict though, why only using it for “quick mixing” and not using it to its full potential and adding also inserts? In the end every user should be able to display what they want, cause workflows are all different. I i.e. would not work with the PRE tab, also CUES would not be that important to me here, I set them up once and then leave them as they are. How would you display things if tracks are shrinked to their minimal height?

But I can see how other people could work flawlessly with that approach! Thanks for your contribution, its really great that many people write down their ideas here and put a lot of time into that. All that could contribute to a better feature in the end for everybody.

+1

The idea was, to show how tabs could accommodate multiple features without crowding up to much real estate. I guess what you put into them, is up to popular demand & the dev team.

Regarding Insert: My assumption was, that when you work with Inserts, you’re probably already deep in the mix and hence focusing on a specific track anyway, in which case you would work within the Inspector or MixConsole anyway. Steinberg might be reluctant to create too many “double” features. I might be wrong.

It’s a thin line between simplicity and customizability. Inserts are currently present in the inspector, the strip and the mix console btw. This would actually be the fourth implementation of inserts. It might also be challenging to fit 16 insert slots horizontally and I’m not so sure, if a drop-down menu could really solve the problem adequately (this would allow selection, but probably not plugin activation & deactivation). If there are no performance issue and Steinberg can make the UI work, then the “Insert tab” could be added in between the fader and sends tab.

Well, when I am deep in the mix I am working on multiple tracks AND in the project window at the same time.
Seeing inserts/sends on multiple tracks immediately, without changing windows would make everything so much easier. I am working with the inspector now, but you have to click on each track first and you have no real “overview”. As we discussed earlier there could be just a toggle key command to SHOW/HIDE the inserts/sends on the left. Now if you want to have an overview, just hit the key command and it could show you your inserts/sends. It does not really matter if it takes a lot of space relatively, cause if I need to work on my events on the project view again, I just hit the key command again and the inserts/sends will be hidden. The main point is, both views could correlate so much better with each other, if they would be in line and not 90 degrees rotated.

I like this idea a lot! Really good and overall probably the least cluttered implementation of the vertical mixer.
If you could switch between the tabs via hot keys, that would make for some fast access.
I am not a big fan of horizontal sliders in general, though (don’t know why, but I somehow dislike the movement). But that’s just me.

Agreed – horizontal faders are weird for me, too, which is why a number box with a pop-up fader (totally brilliant in Pro Tools, Reaper and others) would be perfect and save tons of needed space. No mod key necessary, just hit and hold the number in the box and the fader pops up immediately then disappears as soon as you let go of the mouse button.

Also, the way PT (especially) and Reaper do it, you have the main fader, pan, inserts, and sends available in the track header, all very tidy without taking up too much space. If something like that were implemented in this new Quick Mix idea, without having to hit tabs for different things, it would be in the same league as those two as far as the least amount of clicks and mousing about.

Its nice to get a birds-eye view of all faders like in the mix console, like a quick glance to see how the tracks are in relation to each other. That’s the only downside when you’re looking at numbers. Maybe there is a way of combining the compactness of pop-up faders, with a more visual representation of faders?

Everything might change in a couple of years from now, when the first consumer grade augmented reality HUDs project our user interfaces into the real world around us. You can then do pretty much anything with little effort (remember “Minority Report”?) … and one finger!

Some tools like the MS HoloLense 2 look very promising. With the Vuforia engine, developers and UX designers can already create projected 3D interfaces (that work in conjunction with HoloLense and other devices). Technology is ready. The music industry is a little slower in adopting this new technology, but when it does, that’s when we’ll see an explosion of customizability in UIs, as there is a lot more room in 3D space (back, front, left, far left, right, far right, top, bottom aso). You can then build a virtual studio with an awesome overview of all instruments, tracks, mixing desks aso, all projected into 3D space. No screen, just glasses. Who knows, just as analog desks are modeled sonically today, 3D representations of the actual desks might return into the virtual studio, complimenting the already modeled sounds. Cool things coming our way, that’s for sure.

Until then, UX designers still need to fit everything onto one or more screens. Pop-up faders sound like a good solution, but at the expense of a visual representation of the whole enchilada (=mix).

A visual representation of the colored meters is indeed nice and you quickly see how loud a track is, or if it is clipping. But the position of a fader does not really tell you how loud a certain track is, its the meter which tells you that. So a small box with numbers with a colored meter next to it would be just fine, no need for faders imho.

I recently tried out reaper and found a similar approach to this request here. It shows perfectly how inserts and sends can be managed on the arrange window. If you want to try it out yourself, it is called FXList, as an additional Userplugin in Reaper. Here a screenshot how it looks like:


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When the track is minimized you see the 1. plugin and send, the more you expand it, the more you see. Add some key commands to your workflow which toggle track height and its very fast as well!