The real beauty of writing software like this, is that you can do whatever you like.
Your stuff sounds good too. I don’t use it as much as I could though, because I have some nice hardware DSP’s just begging to be used…
@stratojaune - I hope what was intended to be a light hearted remark didn’t seem like a criticism of the way you choose to work - I actually agree with most of what has been said here, its certainly true about looks / sound - but I hope that my plugins provide both good sound and something nice to look at too. I just wanted to highlight the fact that some people find the GUI more intuitive (that’s the way I prefer to work which is why I created them) but there’s nothing wrong with LADSPA or LV2 as such. I just find it hard to cope with (for example) a LADSPA multiband EQ where its difficult to identify the controls quickly… .but then I’m easilly confused 
Wow wow wow Linuxdsp !
You’re right everyone can use different ways to obtain the same result, that’s -fortunately- how computing works…
Don’t want to start a flaming troll here, and have to say that I use your reverb as an insert in Ardour bus, it sounds nice and not so much CPUs’ eater, as I have said to you sometimes ago !!
Just said, that I use the kbd for popup settings in Ardour plugins, and this have nothing in common with editing XML file, come on… ;o))
On another hand, I think devs time is more efficient on MIDI stuff than producing GUIs, cause there’s out of Ardour some real cool guys like you who are doing a great job with nice GUIs…
Are we in phase now ?
I agree++ with peder. Some of the existing LV2 plugins clearly show the way towards the next generation of audio plugins for Linux.
And I agree ++++ about looks vs. sound.
Best,
dp
What about adding some LADSPA customizability into Ardour? Per-plugin vertical/horizontal layout, knobs/sliders and maybe background color and the label size (Now the word “Presets” is far more readable, than the name of the plugin). It’s true, that it can get messy very quickly with all plugins looking the same. Or do you think LV2 is going to completely replace LADSPA in the future, so it doesn’t pay off to spend time on it?
who would “customize” the plugin GUIs ? the authors? the users?
@stratojaune: Ah, I see where I’ve been going wrong I’ll have to do some versions of my plugins without a GUI at all, and you can intuitively control them by manually editing the XML file containing the settings…
@peder: I see the point, and I suppose you’re right that the customer who buys the CD doesn’t care what the compressor LOOKED like, but then again the customer who buys the CD doesn’t care what the compressor sounded like either - just as long as the end result is ok.
Everyone has different ways of working, I find a GUI easier to work with than rows of identical sliders in an abitrary order with equally arbitrary units as per the LADSPA plugins. Just my opinion (I am going to be slightly biased of course…) and I will concede that operating rotary controls with a mouse can be a bit clumsy but I’ve tied to make my plugins so you just click on the control and drag the mouse up to increase or down to decrease which I find works quite well.
I agree with Peder, in the sense I prefer to double click on the value in the popup settings windows, and type the amount I like/try on the kbd…
PLEASE, Ardour devs, what we really need is MIDI, not fancy GUI for a plugin that we have to manipulate, say 5 minutes for a song, if somebody rings the phone at this moment…
No agression here, just my opinion about what is important or not !
I really don’t see the point in jumping through hoops to wrangle Ardour into displaying LADSPA in a pretty-GUI fashion when we have LV2. If you’re so deperate for work why not port your favorite LADSPA to LV2?
And when using a mouse it’s much easier and more intuitive to adjust a slider than a knob.
Also I’d rather have people improving the sound of the effect than the looks. The customer who buys the CD doesn’t give a damn what the compressor looked like.
I think this could be a good idea. Give the possibility to ardour to customize LADSPA gui´s, the devs or plugin writers can then make a standard ¨look¨, which the user can change to taste… Doesn´t sound awkward to me…
I would love to see MIDI in Ardour!
Another perspective … For the purchased DAW products, the development environment is very closed, which is a constant complaint. … but … the closed environment lets the GUI of an effect be one of the selling points of the 3rd party plugin people. The choice between a slider and a rotary knob is a critical one. While it is true that the sound on the mp3 distro is all that the consumer cares about, if the producer can’t deal with sliders, then he or she will choose another effect (and there are always plenty) This evolutionary pressure makes it so that the GUI most decidedly becomes part of the effectiveness of a plugin.
Paul’s rhetorical question on the source of the customization (user vs. dev) always devolves in my experience to a user-custom framework with a “generic surface” that has movable primitives and plugin control plane mappings. You bet! I’m saying that the good GUI dev knows better than the user what will speed up setting and reduce errors in changes in the user’s workflow. The control surface of a live-sound console is now losing out to the mouse with a screen for all except the faders, punches and EQs. I personally can’t wait until color Kindle technology allows a screen that doesn’t wash out at an open-air festival.
I really think that the discussion of the sound quality trumping the GUI is a red herring. I appreciate that LV2 solves some developers’ problems in interfacing. Even as late as run-time in the perfect world - with the user. But … the only user-customizable GUI worth anything IMO has already been proven out in the Winamp model … The skinning system rocks. That will not port to the DAW effects plugin world simply because the skin method assumes a fixed guts whereas FX guts are as variable as the weather, effect-to-effect.
I hope that we all settle on LV2 over LADSPA, the interface is much more robust (at first glance.) I have to dig deeper, though. But good looks and ergonomics can’t be dismissed.