Improve MIDI track insert instrument dropdown menu

[sound8]

When you go to insert a MIDI track you can select from the available instrument plugins that you have installed on your system. This is provided in the form of a single column dropdown menu that is a list of your available instruments.

Issue with this is that many instruments offer multiple instances of themselves as well as if user has many instruments installed that this list becomes very long and can be more difficult to find what you are looking for.

Maybe this dropdown can at some point be looked at and addressed to maybe be able to provide a solution for this?

Maybe some kind of ability to type in name with some kind of filter can help.

I do not think something like this is going to be addressed so I have not overly thought about solutions, but if any other users agree with this then maybe it can be given more thought.

Also if any other users have any ideas on how this can be improved, please share.

Thank You

[DHealey]

I think after the track has been added it should just open the plugin window with the instrument filter enabled and get rid of the dropdown.

[SpotlightKid]

I frickin’ hate that drop-down.

If nothing else, let’s have a one-click (with shortcut) option to insert no instrument plugin.

[prokoudine (Alexandre Prokoudine)]

I, on the other hand, love it and use it all the time But if it defaults to ‘-none-’, that will work for me and likely work for you. So why would you need another option?

[SpotlightKid]

The default is “General MIDI Synth” here, at least in fresh session. If there is an option to change that, I haven’t found it yet.

This means I have to use the mouse to open the drop-down (or Tab two times), then Home, to set it to ‘-none-’. Then I have to Tab several times more to focus the “Add and Close” button again, so I can hit Return. This would be faster with a checkbox with an Alt+ keyboard shortcut.

And as for the drop-down itself, why doesn’t it react to keyboard input, as drop-downs usually do, by scrolling to the first matching entry? The list is five pages of entries long here. Would be nice to have an option to select from among favourites too.

[prokoudine (Alexandre Prokoudine)]

@SpotlightKid

The default is “General MIDI Synth” here, at least in fresh session.

“But if it defaults to ‘-none-’, that will work for me and likely work for you.” really means this:

“If the Ardour developers make the drop-down list default to -none- which is already an item in the drop-down list, it will likely work for both you and me.”

I hope this clears up the confusion

@SpotlightKid

And as for the drop-down itself, why doesn’t it react to keyboard input, as drop-downs usually do

Since this is a custom widget, not a GTK one, I expect that it simply doesn’t have a bunch of things that widgets in other toolkits have?

[DHealey]

If it defaults to none the next step will be open the plugin browser to choose an instrument. So why not just do this automatically.

[x42 (Robin Gareus)]

@prokoudine

“If the Ardour developers make the drop-down list default to -none- which is already an item in the drop-down list, it will likely work for both you and me.”

That will bring back the days of newbie complaints “I cannot hear MIDI”, which is why Ardour devs spent time time to away from DAW development and write some synth plugins.

I suppose there could be a preference for this (or default synth) though.

–

@DHealey

If it defaults to none the next step will be open the plugin browser to choose an instrument. So why not just do this automatically.

Right, so you can just leave the default synth, and then load another one, which will (ask to) replace the existing one.

Besides, looking over user’s shoulders not everyone uses the plugin selector. Most right-click and pick from the dropdown.

[DHealey]

@x42

Right, so you can just leave the default synth, and then load another one, which will (ask to) replace the existing one.

Besides, looking over user’s shoulders not everyone uses the plugin selector. Most right-click and pick from the dropdown.

Sounds good to me. I guess the auto-open plugin browser when adding a MIDI track could be a user selectable preference?

[prokoudine (Alexandre Prokoudine)]

@x42

Besides, looking over user’s shoulders not everyone uses the plugin selector. Most right-click and pick from the dropdown.

I can tell you exactly why I barely use the browser. Unlike the right-click menu, it does not have plugin categorization, only a basic filter.

Anyway, supposing there is indeed a preference for a default virtual instrument and it defaults to General MIDI Synth.

• Users who never even visited the Prefs page get sound by default when they create a MIDI track
• Users who don’t feel like scrolling through a long list can set it to -none- and choose whatever they like whenever they want
• Users who always want the same non-default virtual instrument can set it

Sounds like the all around best solution to me.

[DHealey]

@prokoudine

it does not have plugin categorization

Yeah categories would be nice. Maybe in a side-column like the Reaper plugin browser, but I think the filters and tag systems in Ardour are more sophisticated.

[x42 (Robin Gareus)]

@prokoudine

only a basic filter.

It is far from basic though. You can search for categories and get immediate response while typing. That was motivated mostly by Harrison Windows users who have thousands of plugins.

Personally, I never use the context menu and I was genuinely surprised that other (mosty Linux users) prefer them for anything but the favorites, particularly since categorization is not great there.

[SpotlightKid]

@DHealey

If it defaults to none the next step will be open the plugin browser to choose an instrument.

It seems that some of you forget that there are still hardware MIDI instruments as well. For me that is the more common use for MIDI tracks.