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.
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.
True though I would put this very much in the "feature, not a bug" bucket. These tools are for people who have worked with the original hardware and want a very faithful emulation, including the look and feel. In the digital world with a modern PC there's not much purpose of a channel strip plugin in the first place, so the only people using one are doing so with intention.
It's a bit like saying that manual transmission cars could be controlled more easily if they were automatic transmission; it's completely true, but if you're buying a manual you want that experience.
Pro-Q is a great example of a digital-first tool (the automatic transmission equivalent), with lots of great visual feedback and a lot of thought put into a mouse+kb workflow. All of Fabfilter's stuff is like this actually, though sometimes to its detriment; the Fabfilter automation and LFO system feels very different from basically every other plugin. It's actually a more efficient workflow when you get used to it, but due to how different it is from everything else most people I talk to dislike it unless they've really bought into the Fabfilter suite.
Which kind of goes back to the original point: VSTs use knobs because it's what people are used to, and using something different might be a negative even if it's better!
Sure it mismatches the GUI, but it gives users the option when they don't want to do a click/drag for freq, then gain, then freq, then gain, then Q. You know?
That tediousness is what keeps me from using the SSL channel strip altogether.
Re: channel strip plugins: The advantage to using them in DAWs is speed and economy. Having everything in one window (ala the Scheps Omni Channel) saves me a lot of clicks vs. when I have multiple plugins in different slots.
I do absolutely everything in the box with a laptop keyboard and track pad. My primary motive is being quick and precise, and the less plugin window management I have to do the better. The channel strip keeps the tools compact and my movements minimal.
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.
Edit: was comparing nama to ecasound there, not the more common graphical DAWs.
And 20 pixels wide on a modern screen is so tiny you would have trouble seeing it, so the whole premise of a "20 px knob" is blown. A slider with 100 pixels width would also be pretty small. The smallest I'd make it to work on a modern screen is at least 250 pixels wide. And that's plenty of resolution for most things. If a slider is more important, make it bigger, and you get more resolution.
Arguing about a 20 pixel knob or slider is kind of stupid considering how small that actually is in screen real estate. If the knob or slider is 20 pixels in any direction then you have other UX problems.
Doing things like 6 pixels of movement on the screen equal 1 pixel on the slider can cause problems with display scaling and will mean if you have sliders near the edge of the screen you will not be able to use jump on click and even then can be a headache.
It is an interesting topic and far from solved.
But the layout of these buttons, while certainly not standard, is generally familiar across various filters, etc. So if you are dealing with a complex interface the skeumorphism absolutely helps to make the input more familiar and easily accessible.
This is what skeumorphism is for and this is a great place to use it.
Imagine if the symbols for "play" "pause" and "stop" were changed simply because it no longer made sense to follow the conventions of a VCR, then multiply that by an order of magnitude.
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.
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.
In fact, if it was all MIDI controlled, it's just a matter of mapping the mouse scroll wheel to a midi channel.
I don't play flight sims but I imagine most flight surfaces require small adjustments and the effect of those adjustments on the aircraft is naturally smoothed out by the dynamics of the plane (you're adjusting an acceleration).
I imagine the scroll wheel is not suitable for dogfighting.
I would also assume there are detent free mousewheels with a far greater number of steps, there used to be. The scroll ring on my trackball is detent free and quite fine but it is also ~2" in diameter, considerably larger than the wheel on any mouse.
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.
Probably not, a lot of musicians develop on the go (planes etc) so they're dealing with built-in trackpads pretty often. You can still scroll but it's not as ergonomic.
Ultimately I see two problems though,
1. sometimes the number doesn't matter or make sense at all. A good example is a macro knob. The value is somewhere between "0" or "1", and synths do let you set it manually (since this is how recorded automation works), but a macro slider doesn't make too much sense IMO.
2. lots of controls deal with logarithmic values. Anything that corresponds to a frequency is going to need finer control when you're tweaking values below 500Hz vs changing a value between 10000Hz and 10500Hz. Knobs mask this pretty well. I'm sure you could build a slider that dealt with this, but a number box would be very weird since you'd want the scroll step to be much smaller at lower values.
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.
Some people like Reason for instance, but I find that its UI innovations just get in my way.
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...
double-clicking usually lets one type the value... really good interfaces let one scroll seamless independent of screen borders; the perfect pair with a trackball or a long surface/desk for sliding the mouse
Knobs are confusing when converted to a mouse paradigm because there can be a few strategies to control them (click+drag up/down, click+drag right/left, weird rotational things, etc), and you have to guess since each FX studio and software may implement it just a little different.