As an aside, when looking for Qt alternatives a few months ago I stumbled upon JUCE.[0] Prior to that I had no idea there were general purpose UI libraries with such heavy emphasis towards music creation. Granted, the cross-platform support was quite lacking, but perhaps things have improved since.
Complex and inventive, yes. I would also add that most of the time (for me at least) it goes too far. For example, there are a fair number of synth UIs modeled after (or inspired by) real analog synths, and for people who are familiar with the real-world counterparts, I suppose that makes the software more approachable. For someone unfamiliar with that hardware, however, the UIs just feel like over-the-top skeuomorphic eye candy with little functional advantage in pixel form.
Then there's an infinite array of virtual instruments, synths, effects, etc. that don't have any real-world counterpart, and they're styled to look like super-advanced alien sci-fi machines... I mean, the UIs certainly look cool (at least in the context of visual art), but they're a frustratingly convoluted mess to actually work with using a mouse and keyboard[1].
I've never quite understood why pro audio software is so strongly coupled with that design aesthetic. If it's truly driven by functional necessity, I guess I wasn't born with the necessary set of alien tentacles to take advantage of it.
[1] As I understand, certain controls in these UIs are often linked to knobs, sliders, and buttons on real audio gear, but that still doesn't answer the question. The on-screen representation undoubtedly looks nothing like the real gear, and the heavily-stylized form doesn't exactly seem to serve a purpose beyond what could be achieved with a more conservative aesthetic.
On one end is the skeumorphic approach with interfaces that directly resemble audio hardware. At the other end is total flexibility only achieved using path markers / bands. Product designers often choose one of these extremes to maximize approachability or flexibility.
Also, non-skeumorphic doesn't have to maximize flexibility. It could just as well be designed for ease-of-use.
I think you're right that significantly improving the status quo is really hard, but I think that there is room for small improvements that seem to be overlooked.
Stuff that seems to be taken for granted, like tooltips, cursor changes for functionality, identifiable buttons/controls, could all go a long way. The difference between something like Lightroom and many of the premier synthesizers is pretty staggering. Not that they're perfectly comparable, but that's another topic.
This is a way to simultaneously interface multiple linear controls without having to point and click or even look at the screen. Some of this was inspired by Englebarts key cord in his 1968 demo and keyboard based Raskin style quasi modes as described in the Humane Interface.
Go to http://9ol.es/input.html on a desktop.
Hold down any combination of the 1, 2, 3, and 4 keys on the keyboard with one hand.
With the other hand, move the mouse either up or down.
You will see that by pressing down the key, you've selected one or more sets of the numbers, indicated by them turning bold.
Then the mouse moving will affect only the selected "controls".
This cognitively frees the user from the task switching of engaging with the interface while composing.
It also detaches the layout on the screen from the interfacing of the computer and presents a new generic paradigm of using the computer.
There's an additional demo I have that changes the background color to indicate a mode so that a bank of keys can be assigned to setting traditional modes on top of the quasi modal interface.
The objective is to have a system that can be modified quickly and simultaneously with minimal active cognition that distracts one from the artistic task.
Easy to use and easy to learn are distinct things. Usually the latter is done at the expense of the former.
In the long term, I am making this a virtual midi device that can be interfaced into any music software that accepts midi devices.
Source: Tracktion developer since 2005.
Just arrange your windows and for each window choose a window type you want to see. And ofcourse the ability to save this.
I think this is a big plus as a UI because every person and project is different.
Viewport tools and interactive graph visualizations aside, 3D is mostly just text fields and sliders editing values. With music, there's all manner of knobs and dials. Each VSTi plugin tends to have its own wildly different interface. Case in point: