My aux send proposal, feel free to tell me STFU

[pipelineaudio]

Me and sonusman were talking and came up with some ideas

as in this thread http://www.cockos.com/forum/showthread.php?t=273 there are a few different aux send paradigms that each have their own pitfalls

I don't know how feasible this is, but it would sure solve a lot of issues people can never agree on. This could also concievably be the basis for the output routing problems so many apps have. Ive never seen an implementation like this, but hopefully it could suit things well

I propose a "plugin" accessed by the "open track fx window " button. I'll tentatively call this "the send operations dialog"

At the top left of this plugin would be a text box with a drop down arrow next to it to choose which text is displayed. Here you would chose which aux send OR buss send you would like to deal with. All available aux sends and buss sends could be chosen here.

Underneath this box would be a switch or maybe mutually exclusive radio buttons, and this tentatively I'll call the "send behaviour chooser". Here you will find options;

button 1: Send follows channel fader pan
Button 2: Send is pre fader/pre pan
Button 3: Independant pan. Beneath button three will be a pan control

Maybe in user preferences you could choose which of these buttons would be chosen by default, probably button 1 so that new users could jump right in with what theyll likely be used to

Now the send behaviour chooser will be locked to its aux send, that is, you chose a different behaviour for each send and it remembers them all


The channel fader will ALWAYS go to the buss it is part of or to the master buss

If the channel is a buss, it can either be set to go to the master buss OR it can become a hardware output buss. Once a hardware output is used for a hardware output bus, it is no longer available to any other buss

Now a new contol would be exposed to the GUI and track header. The "send control". This could either be a right click from the volume control, or pan control as vegas does, or could be its own fader. Whatever the case, right clicking it should allow you to chose which send it is now controlling, and at all times a text in the gui should let you know which send is being messed with.

[Justin]

There are things in here which I feel won't happen, just because I don't think they will be terribly, err, sensible. I can address many of your points, with what I'm thinking:

I am planning on adding pre-fader sends, possibly even sends with their own faders. It will be done with UI similar to what is there now, though (not from the FX list).

There will be the ability to send any track (not just busses) to any hardware output, and multiple tracks to the same hardware (it will be mixed to that hardware). When rendering to disk, or when the hardware is not available (i.e. if you switch from ASIO 8 outputs to WaveOut with only a stereo output), those channels will go into the main mix.


What think yee?

-Justin

[pipelineaudio]

I've been mulling it over for a while, and I think there are some hard and heavy things that should be dealt with

Fact 1: The aux sends will need level adjustments. For once in my life I don't think I'll get too much disagreement

Fact 2: Sometimes the sends will need to be prefader (headphones, control signals, enhancers with compression on them, etc...). Sometimes the sends will need to be post fader (reverbs, flangers, delays, etc.) Sometimes different channels will have different pre/post needs for the same aux send ( normal drums send post to reverb, but special extra cymbal track needs to be reverbed prefader even though its dry portion fades out of the signal)

Fact 3: Due to the stereo locked nature of DX/VST inputs, and the fact that they can ONLY EVER be accesed by one stereo aux send, some sort of * OPTIONAL* independant pan control needs to be available for an aux send in many cases. No app to my knowledge has ever dealt with this correctly. Let me give an example off the top of my noggin:

You want a kick drum to duck a bass guitar. Kick drum is going happily out to the master, or drum buss as it should be. Bass guitar gets panned HARD right and *ASSIGNED* (not aux sent) to a buss with a compressor on it, and following the compressor, some sort of stereo mixer plug like GPAN set so that ONLY the right side of the compressor will reach the output.

Now you need to get the kick drum signal, without disturbing its path to the master buss or drum buss, to the buss the bass guitar is being sent to. Worse....

You need to be sure the kick drum send ONLY reaches the left side of the compressor

You could copy the track and pan it hard left and assign it to the buss the bass guitar is going to, but this seems a TERRIBLE waste of CPU, and is unfortunately how most of use are doing it at this point

or

You could have an independant pan control to allow the kick to aux send ONLY to the left side

The reason I propesed the "send operations dialog" the way I did, was to adress these three points and a fourth one. Fourth being that the GUI could quickly get VERY nastily cluttered by allowing all these options

With someting like this, the deal could be defaulted to "send follows pan and fader" without the user even knowing or worrying about it, and not seeing any exposed gui in normal operation.

In fact, it wouldnt need to be in the track fx whatever, it could just as easily be a right click track properties thing

But of course there are other ways to do it

You could maybe right click on the fader send itself and pull up any of these options. Simple enough. Right click and chose "post fader post pan", "prefader prepan(dual mono send)", or "independant pan send"

Next to the fader then would have to be a "send identifier" that you could click on to choose which send exactly you were dealing with

Kudos to you if you can find a weal to deal with this

This problem here has been near the top of many Grumplestiltzken lists in many app forums for a very long time

[sonusman]

Originally Posted by pipelineaudio

I've been mulling it over for a while, and I think there are some hard and heavy things that should be dealt with

Fact 1: The aux sends will need level adjustments. For once in my life I don't think I'll get too much disagreement

Fact 2: Sometimes the sends will need to be prefader (headphones, control signals, enhancers with compression on them, etc...). Sometimes the sends will need to be post fader (reverbs, flangers, delays, etc.) Sometimes different channels will have different pre/post needs for the same aux send ( normal drums send post to reverb, but special extra cymbal track needs to be reverbed prefader even though its dry portion fades out of the signal)

Fact 3: Due to the stereo locked nature of DX/VST inputs, and the fact that they can ONLY EVER be accesed by one stereo aux send, some sort of * OPTIONAL* independant pan control needs to be available for an aux send in many cases. No app to my knowledge has ever dealt with this correctly. Let me give an example off the top of my noggin:

You want a kick drum to duck a bass guitar. Kick drum is going happily out to the master, or drum buss as it should be. Bass guitar gets panned HARD right and *ASSIGNED* (not aux sent) to a buss with a compressor on it, and following the compressor, some sort of stereo mixer plug like GPAN set so that ONLY the right side of the compressor will reach the output.

Now you need to get the kick drum signal, without disturbing its path to the master buss or drum buss, to the buss the bass guitar is being sent to. Worse....

You need to be sure the kick drum send ONLY reaches the left side of the compressor

You could copy the track and pan it hard left and assign it to the buss the bass guitar is going to, but this seems a TERRIBLE waste of CPU, and is unfortunately how most of use are doing it at this point

or

You could have an independant pan control to allow the kick to aux send ONLY to the left side

The reason I propesed the "send operations dialog" the way I did, was to adress these three points and a fourth one. Fourth being that the GUI could quickly get VERY nastily cluttered by allowing all these options

With someting like this, the deal could be defaulted to "send follows pan and fader" without the user even knowing or worrying about it, and not seeing any exposed gui in normal operation.

In fact, it wouldnt need to be in the track fx whatever, it could just as easily be a right click track properties thing

But of course there are other ways to do it

You could maybe right click on the fader send itself and pull up any of these options. Simple enough. Right click and chose "post fader post pan", "prefader prepan(dual mono send)", or "independant pan send"

Next to the fader then would have to be a "send identifier" that you could click on to choose which send exactly you were dealing with

Kudos to you if you can find a weal to deal with this

This problem here has been near the top of many Grumplestiltzken lists in many app forums for a very long time

I agree.

I would also like to see Mono busses/subgroups that are pannable to the master buss, just like a real console!

Aux sends should not only be selectable between pre/post fader, but in prefader, you should have a pre/post insert too! There are times when I want the effected sound to go down the buss, but not be burdened with any automation on the channel fader!

[pipelineaudio]

Originally Posted by sonusman

I agree.

IAux sends should not only be selectable between pre/post fader, but in prefader, you should have a pre/post insert too! There are times when I want the effected sound to go down the buss, but not be burdened with any automation on the channel fader!

Thats where I got the idea to stick the aux send thing in the plugin path. It would allow you to tell where you wanted it in relation to the other fx, but I think that first way would be more trouble than its worth. Trying to think of a way to do this in a GUI that doesnt turn all Cubendo-ey

[pipelineaudio]

0.49 interesting way to implement direct outs!

It becomes pretty important now, then to be able to send either to a stereo pair as it is now OR to a *single* output of a stereo pair. AFAIK nuendo is the only one that can pull this off and cannot pull it off in parallel

Now more than ever I think an optional independant pan for the individual aux sends *per track*, and certainly level sends per aux per track become vitally important

[Justin]

Originally Posted by pipelineaudio

0.49 interesting way to implement direct outs!

It becomes pretty important now, then to be able to send either to a stereo pair as it is now OR to a *single* output of a stereo pair. AFAIK nuendo is the only one that can pull this off and cannot pull it off in parallel

Now more than ever I think an optional independant pan for the individual aux sends *per track*, and certainly level sends per aux per track become vitally important

I'll definitely do the mono hardware output modes.. easy enough to do.. as far as level/pan settings per aux send, I still need to figure out a good UI for it... your suggestions have not quite made peace in my mind

-Justin

[pipelineaudio]

Originally Posted by Justin

I'll definitely do the mono hardware output modes.. easy enough to do.. as far as level/pan settings per aux send, I still need to figure out a good UI for it... your suggestions have not quite made peace in my mind

-Justin

I agree the UI should be the way it is now, completely uncumbersome. I do have some ideas, but Im afraid my hand drawn images may crack the glass

[pipelineaudio]

ok....this is scary stuff, NOT handy with a pic editor!

This is what I think would work well for when you right click the volume fader handle

Unfoirtunately my thinking didnt go far enough to figure out how you would choose WHICH aux send you were mesing with

[pipelineaudio]

this is what you would get when you right click the pan

[malcolmj]

Hi Pipeline,

The volume graphic looks like it would work, but the terminology in the aux graphic is confusing to me. Not sure what would work though.

Cheers,

Malcolm.

[pipelineaudio]

Originally Posted by malcolmj

Hi Pipeline,

The volume graphic looks like it would work, but the terminology in the aux graphic is confusing to me. Not sure what would work though.

Cheers,

Malcolm.

For right clicking the volume control you get three choices

1: Left click on "channel volume" and the fader controls the channel volume as it does now.

2: Left click on "Aux send level ( pre )" and that channel fader now becomes an aux send level control. In this case the level will be independant of the channel volume and in fact will still send when the channel volume is all the way at -inf. It will NOT send when the channel is muted however. This mode would be VERY useful for headphone sends, "sidechain" routing and general output routing

3. Left click on "Aux send level ( post )" and that channel fader now becomes an aux send level control. In this case the level will be dependant of the channel volume. It also will NOT send when the channel is muted. With the channel fader at 0dB, this control would function the same as "Aux send level (pre)". HOWEVER any change in the channel fader level will added or subtracted to the aux send level. Also this mode the aux send level would be following any channel volume automation. This mode would be useful as a traditional fx send for reverbs and delays and such

************************************************** *************

When you right click the pan control you get four choices

1: Channel pan. This control functions as it does now, and simply pans the output of the channel left or right

2: Aux follows pan. This choice shows you a grayed out pan control, which intuitively shows you the exact same pan position as the channel pan. However you cannot change this grayed out pan control. This simply modifies the behaviour of the aux send to send the same relative porportions left and right as the channel pan is sending to the channel output. This mode would also follow any channel pan automation. This mode would be useful say if you had a drumkit with the toms panned where you wanted them and the aux send was going to a reverb. This way each instrument will recieve the same stereo position going into the reverb as the channel pan sends to the channel output

3. Aux Dual mono. This choice shows you a grayed out pan control that intuitively is centered. In this mode, regardless of channel pan setting, the aux send sends an equal signal both to the left and right sides. This is the same as panning is in Vegas 5 and Vegas 6

4. Finally, Aux Pan mode: Here is the mostly unimplemented mode when it comes to DAWS but an extremely useful one. In this mode the pan control changes to an Aux pan control. Regardless of how the channel is panned, the aux send will send its porportions left or right depending on how the aux pan control is set. This mode will give you the ability to go to ONLY one side of a hardware or aux if you wish, or even go to the opposite side than the channel pan is sending to. This is a fully independant aux panning control and does NOT follow channel pan automation

[pipelineaudio]

a REALLY nifty trick would be for the pan and fader handles to change to the color of the aux send envelope you are modifying!

[Justin]

I think I have a good UI for controlling the aux sends, one that at least makes me happy.. I'll do it later today..

-J

[Justin]

So I have a separate fader/pan control, and pre-fader and post-fader options working per aux send, but doing pre-fx aux sends is going to prove to be a bitch, since the fx may end up buffering, etc. I should just get over it and do it anyway, right?

-Justin

[pipelineaudio]

Originally Posted by Justin

So I have a separate fader/pan control, and pre-fader and post-fader options working per aux send, but doing pre-fx aux sends is going to prove to be a bitch, since the fx may end up buffering, etc. I should just get over it and do it anyway, right?

-Justin

thats where the thing as a plugin may have come in handy, but really, Im not sure too many people will care about a pre insert fx aux send

Sonusman does, but he's weird

[Justin]

Well I think I got it working good now. yay code

[Justin]

OK v0.50 is up. Let me know if this suffices for now

[pipelineaudio]

game over! Thats the most comprehensive set of aux routing Ive ever been privvy to

There will be a point when people will want an aux fader exposed in the header Im sure.

This is about exactly perfect

[malcolmj]

Originally Posted by Justin

OK v0.50 is up. Let me know if this suffices for now

That's a pretty cool way of doing the aux sends

I kept thinking of the traditional rotary controllers, but this way is much faster and provides an overview of all the settings from the one screen.

Is is possible to add automation to these?

Cheers,

Malcolm.

[Justin]

Originally Posted by malcolmj

That's a pretty cool way of doing the aux sends

I kept thinking of the traditional rotary controllers, but this way is much faster and provides an overview of all the settings from the one screen.

Is is possible to add automation to these?

Cheers,

Malcolm.

I'll do it when I do fx parameter automation, I suppose... should be pretty easy, once I get around to it...

-Justin

[malcolmj]

Originally Posted by Justin

I'll do it when I do fx parameter automation, I suppose... should be pretty easy, once I get around to it...

-Justin

Great. At the rate you work I expect we'll see it tomorrow ....

Cheers,

Malcolm.

[Justin]

Originally Posted by malcolmj

Great. At the rate you work I expect we'll see it tomorrow ....

Cheers,

Malcolm.

Unfortunately I've been putting off the fx automation for a while, and it will still be a bit.. it'll be some work, lots of complexity there And I'm on the verge of wearing myself out too much too, gotta back off a little haha.

-J