Old 06-28-2020, 11:46 AM   #1
Naji
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Default With or without plugin gui?

I remember the days when I started to use a daw, believe it or not, I used the plugin with its gui. That was pretty stupid, to watch the gain reduction or looking at the frequency spectrum instead of listening to the music or instrument. Of course music and even more mixing is not something visual.
I like using Reaper' s UI with its grey color and sliders.
You even use less cpu without gui.

When will developers start offering plugins without a gui! I mean it's 2020, guis were yesterday
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Old 06-28-2020, 11:50 AM   #2
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Originally Posted by Naji View Post

When will developers start offering plugins without a gui! I mean it's 2020, guis were yesterday

You should look up "Air Windows plugins".
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Old 06-28-2020, 12:01 PM   #3
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Ok thanks, but you can use every plugin without gui, I mean it's about music, not a catwalk. The worst guis ever seen by Acustica Audio, also their homepage and plugin descriptions are a mess...

Last edited by Naji; 06-28-2020 at 12:17 PM.
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Old 06-29-2020, 10:17 PM   #4
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Rarely have i seen a more brilliant question!! It makes me wonder why my hardware processors have gauges, meters, and readouts, etc. After all, it IS June 2020! And tomorrow, it'll be SO yesterday!!!

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Old 06-29-2020, 10:40 PM   #5
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It´s about using your ears and not eyes when mixing and with Reaper you have a great option not to use the gui!
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Old 06-29-2020, 11:15 PM   #6
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Reaper: Naji edition - chews tape once in a while, has crackly faders and is preferably controlled by shouting loud commands in Esperanto.
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Old 06-29-2020, 11:27 PM   #7
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Btw when were voice commands invented? 20 years ago?
I wonder why no daw still has not integrated this option?
You say: record arm track 5 and then start recording track 5. And maybe delete last recorded item of track 5. Go to marker 3 and so on. Would that be so hard to do? I want to use my hands for my instruments only...
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Old 06-29-2020, 11:54 PM   #8
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Software houses wouldn't even have a viable business model if they didn't bother with arguably the most important element of a virtual instrument after the sound - and frankly from a marketing perspective more important than the sound.

A GUI with a well designed layout aids memory and thus productivity, it also helps create a pleasing working environment. Far easier and more human to have distinct design per plugin rather than staring at masses of identical sliders.

Methinks Naj likes to word things in a way designed to rub people the wrong way, provoke a reaction. Let me try the style:
Can you believe I was once so robotic and soulless that I used to use the daw without the VST GUIs just to save an absolutely minuscule amount of CPU cycles. I was so out of touch I thought other people would like to buy all their plugins like this, but that we could further improve profitability by removing the greatest benefit of digital by adding artificial permanent ageing to the plugins!!!.

See original post:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Naji View Post
I remember the days when I started to use a daw, believe it or not, I used the plugin with its gui. That was pretty stupid, to watch the gain reduction or looking at the frequency spectrum instead of listening to the music or instrument. Of course music and even more mixing is not something visual.
I like using Reaper' s UI with its grey color and sliders.
You even use less cpu without gui.

When will developers start offering plugins without a gui! I mean it's 2020, guis were yesterday

Last edited by Softsynth; 06-30-2020 at 12:14 AM. Reason: Add original post.
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Old 06-30-2020, 12:10 AM   #9
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No kidding, I always have issues with Softube plugins, either they crash Reaper or some issues with iLok or the gui gets completely black, black screen on plugin .
Frankly speaking I like some of their plugins.
Last time I wanted to add their comp to the guitar buss, just adding about 35% with mix knob will make some nice glue.
Gui was black, I did not want to choose a different comp, because this is the only that works well on nylon guitars.
So I used Reaper's UI without seeing the plugin's gui. Do you know what, I listened to the music, the instrument and what the plugin does to the instrument much more than I would do with plugin s gui. With plugin s gui I would look, where the threshold is set to, how much gain reduction, do I have to compensate gain when I see there is 2 dB of gain reduction etc., my focus would be way more on the plugin than on the instrument and the comp effecting the instrument. I do not use plugin s gui at all any more.
The music I posted here, yesterday is old music, more than 5 years ago.
I only re mastered it on mix file, still not very good quality. I mention this, because someone could say, my mixes start sound even worse without plugin gui.

It is proven that the look of a plugin is important for someone's decision to buy.
Now ask yourself, isn't that stupid!

Last edited by Naji; 06-30-2020 at 12:28 AM.
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Old 06-30-2020, 12:28 AM   #10
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For my taste Softube have gone too far down the skeuomorphic design route.
I don't mind an element of that but there is a better balance to be found.
I prefer the design not to look like a cardboard cutout of hardware with pasted on digital controls. They go even so far as to show a bit of the table below their Tsar 1 plugin for instance.
Tokyo Dawn Labs has a much better balance, skeuomorphic design elements blended seamlessly, not faux brushed aluminium with faux wear and tear (Kazrog True Iron has a little of this, but thankfully only a little).

What I found with the Softube plugins the VST3 versions were inexplicably much more CPU hungry - just swapping to standard VST solved the apparent bugs. Maybe this is solved now?
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Old 06-30-2020, 12:33 AM   #11
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I do not care about gui any more, if you use Reaper's UI, every plugin looks the same.
I am talking about using more your ears
than your eyes. A gui distracts, that is what I have found out. Softube's saturation knob is a must on every bass for me btw. TSAR is almost the only reverb I use, have saved a lot of presets.
I hate Softube for crashing Reaper and using iLok.

Tokyo dawns plugins look like hardware, too imo. I do not see a big difference between their gui and eg Softube's summit compressor.
We all have different taste, but if you asked me what guis I dislike
it's acustica audio (and their homepage is horror, way too nuch information) and IK multimedia.
The best homepage, because a good homepage is also important, for me has Waves. I see the plugin and price, have all infirmation I need, if I need more I get it or I can look in manual or video tutorials. Everything easy to find
I remember Sonnox Oxford homepage. I could not even find price or download link immediately. The worst thing is when you do not find system requirements immediately , that happens very often.
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Old 06-30-2020, 12:49 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Naji View Post
I do not care about gui any more, if you use Reaper's UI, every plugin looks the same.
I am talking about using more your ears
than your eyes. A gui distracts, that is what I have found out. Softube's saturation kbob is a must on every bass for me btw.
Sighted people buy with their eyes first.
Good looking people get better jobs and do better in jury trials, studies show other people assume they are more kind and intelligent than the more physically challenged amongst us. People willingly spend many thousands more for a pretty chassis car despite the fact that they cannot see that from the inside where they spend most of their time. Packaging is make or break for supermarket sales. Call it shallow but this is the reality.

I'm sure we all know what you are saying and there is some sympathy for this viewpoint obviously. Certainly it's not batshit crazy unlike the deteriorating (without a user option to switch it off) concept.

However as I said before a nice layout aids productivity and makes products more memorable.
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Old 06-30-2020, 03:51 AM   #13
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I can comprehend that when you play music in your daw and you see all the leds flashing and needles moving, then we also like watching our music.
But with cars it is even more strange. Some buy a car because they like the look,
the color, the shape or whatever, of course it is also important the speed etc.
But when you sit in your car and you drive it you can not even see it from outside haha There should be a camera installed outside and a screen inside that you can watch your car while driving for visual enjoyment haha
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Old 06-30-2020, 05:40 AM   #14
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Originally Posted by Softsynth View Post
. People willingly spend many thousands more for a pretty chassis car despite the fact that they cannot see that from the inside where they spend most of their time. . Call it shallow but this is the reality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Naji View Post
I can comprehend that when you play music in your daw and you see all the leds flashing and needles moving, then we also like watching our music.
But with cars it is even more strange. Some buy a car because they like the look,
the color, the shape or whatever, of course it is also important the speed etc.
But when you sit in your car and you drive it you can not even see it from outside haha There should be a camera installed outside and a screen inside that you can watch your car while driving for visual enjoyment haha
Regarding the cars the difference to consider is that you don't park your VSTs on your drive for your neighbours to see (status symbol), and I suppose it could be likened to a nice tailored suit that you want to be seen in. I suppose even expensive VST owners/users feel they have some bragging rights, even if it is with strangers on the net. People like to list them on their websites along with flashy looking hardware, much of which would be proven obsolete in blind test comparisons with software equivalents.

Obviously you don't spend the entire time listening to your tracks eyeballing the VST GUIs, just as you don't spend your listening time just admiring the build of your Hi-fi components when listening to music.
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Old 06-30-2020, 05:47 AM   #15
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we have kinda status symbols as for plugins, too e.g. UAD or Pro Tools (I know it´s a daw!)
A lot of people who use and show them want to show they are IN the business!
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Old 06-30-2020, 06:38 PM   #16
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Depends on the plugin. To me the graphical interface is just to provide theater for the mind to help the user hear the changes. You can take the gui off the effect, tweak the same controls, and sometimes, changes don’t sound the same as if the GUI is turned on. Feeling like you are turning a physical knob that looks like a knob can sound differently than just moving a plain slider to increase or decrease the parameter. It’s just mind theater.
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Old 06-30-2020, 06:44 PM   #17
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Quote:
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Ok thanks, but you can use every plugin without gui, I mean it's about music, not a catwalk. The worst guis ever seen by Acustica Audio, also their homepage and plugin descriptions are a mess...
Most of my plugin use is Acustica. I love the ugly gui
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Old 06-30-2020, 07:14 PM   #18
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Feh. You can have your non-gui of the plugins with 20 sliders stacked vertically as you stare at it for 10 seconds to come up with how the ones that interact with each other are set. Any good gui and it takes one second to mentally summarize what the 20 parameters are doing.

It's great that you want to fight against something that most others don't fight with. Knock yourself out.
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Old 06-30-2020, 07:21 PM   #19
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Believe it or not, but I use this power tool not many know of these days:

The off-switch of my monitor, so I just listen and am not distracted during that time...
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Old 06-30-2020, 10:45 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bjorn.LaSanche View Post
Depends on the plugin. To me the graphical interface is just to provide theater for the mind to help the user hear the changes. You can take the gui off the effect, tweak the same controls, and sometimes, changes don’t sound the same as if the GUI is turned on. Feeling like you are turning a physical knob that looks like a knob can sound differently than just moving a plain slider to increase or decrease the parameter. It’s just mind theater.
Indeed a musical placebo! ;

If you feel better about a plugin maybe you try harder with it and consequently get better results.
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Old 06-30-2020, 10:48 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Meo-Ada Mespotine View Post
Believe it or not, but I use this power tool not many know of these days:

The off-switch of my monitor, so I just listen and am not distracted during that time...
I use that a lot, especially since I mix on a flatscreen TV that has a remote. And it helps to have a control surface to make level adjustments with it off, too.
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Old 07-01-2020, 01:09 AM   #22
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Originally Posted by Softsynth View Post
Indeed a musical placebo! ;

If you feel better about a plugin maybe you try harder with it and consequently get better results.
It works in places. I know that I’ll use a clinical looking compressor or eq to do surgical eq subtraction or controlling signal volume fluctuation that have minimal GUI like the Cockos plugins, but when I feel I want the plugin to add some sort of analog type artifacts, the plugins I use for those always seem to be laid out similar to hardware prettied up with cool graphic GUI or with controls that work similar to analog gear. For some reason I tell myself I can hear something and it’s pleasing. Now whether I’m drinking the koolaid about this I really can’t quantify if it’s reality, or just my reality. Either way it keeps me interested in why I’m doing and having fun at it.
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Old 07-01-2020, 04:16 PM   #23
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fruitful conversation, isn't it?
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