Ahornberg wrote:The thing that bothers me when using the Reason Rack as a modular synth is that the cables are on the back side.
My suggestion for modular RE developers is to mirror the knobs on the back side of the module.
I’ve heard this suggestion since REs were introduced, and still no one has done this. I have a few ideas why this is the case, but it’s pure speculation on my part since I’ve not discussed this with other RE devs to date.
For fun I’ve done some mockups in the past to see what this concept would look like. One issue I ran into was that the front panels will be somewhat restricted in size to accommodate the space for the jacks on the back (to keep a 1:1 relationship between the panels). This is because you need to leave additional space on the front for where the jacks will appear on the back. Options are to put an LED on the front where the jack would be, and use that LED to indicate the presence (and CV level) of cables on the back panel.
Another issue was the front pane includes the rack ears and the back does not. This wouldn’t affect those who totally ignore the ears, but many REs use this space for anything from graphics to labels (including the tape strip) which cannot be duplicated on the back.
Finally, there are other restrictions I can not go into here that further limit the space on the back panel compared to the front, even further restricting the ability to create a 1:1 relationship between the front and back panels.
Between these issues you loose a good bit of useable space on a panel that is already restricted in size due to the “rack paradigm” imposed on all REs, if you want to keep the panels in “sync” with regards to scale and placement.
Otherwise, at least on the early versions of the SDK there is no restriction on duplicating a front panel control on the back (I do this with Selig ReMark, for example).
I’m not 100% sure because I’ve not specifically looked into this (and am away from my computer today), but there may or may not be restrictions on the newer features of the SDK as per duplicating them on the back panel, speculating about custom displays and switchable panels here.
For for a simple analog style module with knobs, sliders, switches, and buttons, this is entirely possible within the limitations I’ve mentioned above (and maybe others I’ve overlooked). Maybe another dev with more experience can chime in and clarify, correct, or add to this.
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