Focus mode & drop-down

[PhillipOrdonez]

Hallo, Reason Studios

Here's an idea related to workflow that would significantly improve the reason experience especially at the later stages of the song creating process.

Focus mode: press a key or combination of keys and the selected rack device goes into focus mode. The device along with every device it is connected to via audio and or cv pops up, becomes enlarged and the background grays out a bit. All the devices connected to it appear under or to either side depending on whether they are a direct audio connection (below or above) or a cv connection (to one side) or a parallel or indirect audio connection (to the other side). Even if the devices are at opposite ends of the rack they would show up next to each other here and can be interacted with.

This would allow for easy access to quickly modify parameters and connections on every device in the chain, saving precious time from scrolling around and guessing which device is connected to what and where, making the process of mixing a large project a lot more manageable within the software.

Bonus: copy live routing method of having two drop-downs to select which device to connect to and to which input/output and the cables follow these instructions. This would speed up the process of wiring up. Wouldn't replace the old way of manually plugging and unplugging.

Thoughts?

[selig]

I love the concept, like Spill mode for the rack (spill will hide all mixer channels not feeding the track you click on, so you “spill” the drum bus and only the drum channels are shown on screen - don’t remember why it’s called spill, comes from live mixers IIRC). Basically a way to visually “solo” a group of devices. You could link it to the solo button such that of you add a modifier key when soloing you can also solo the visuals (or JUST the visuals and not the audio). Linking the two “solo” concepts would seem to make sense to me, with options for just audio, just visual, both.

There would be a bit to figure out with regards to how to cover all variables. Like, do you keep the relative spacial relationships or just bunch everything together however it will fit? How do you deal with devices that wont fit on screen when selecting a large collection of devices? Where do you draw the line when deciding what is connected, since technically ALL devices are connected to the master bus/channel at some point? Does the selected device get enlarged even if it pushed connected devices off screen or does it shrink to fit? What if you just wanted to “solo” one device in the chain, like making a synth “full screen” but not the rest of the chain?

But 100% despite the issues to resolve, this is the type of thing that would make sense, be helpful, and speed things up overall IMO, so a big +1 from me on this!

[PhillipOrdonez]

Thanks for your questions @Selig, I will try to answer the way I would do it, of course someone with UX experience would probably make it work in a more elegant way, but here goes my idea:

do you keep the relative spacial relationships or just bunch everything together however it will fit?

Two sizes. The device in focus is larger in the middle, and its connected devices are smaller. When you click one of the smaller devices, it becomes larger and turns into the focus, and the connected devices around it shuffle according to their connection hyerarchy. the closer the connection, the closer it is to the device.


How do you deal with devices that wont fit on screen when selecting a large collection of devices?

You scroll a bit, or perhaps there can be more than two sizes (above) and the farther the connection, the smaller the device gets. :shrugs:

Where do you draw the line when deciding what is connected, since technically ALL devices are connected to the master bus/channel at some point?

Obviously the connections are only downstream under the mixer. Mixer level can be ignored cause you can just go to the mixer to make adjustments, only the mixer channels directly related to a track or device would be shown, either from the same device or parallells. You could place above mixer channels, below effects, CV to one side, parallells and their chans on the other side? IDK for sure, but the idea is for the rack and, like I said, downstream from there.
an example of the order Instrument (centre and large) -> effect -> next effect and so on. Click on the effect and it becomes larger now, the instrument is smaller above, above that the mix channel, etc.

Does the selected device get enlarged even if it pushed connected devices off screen or does it shrink to fit? What if you just wanted to “solo” one device in the chain, like making a synth “full screen” but not the rest of the chain?

I think this is already answered above with the device in focus being larger than the rest. No idea if only one could be shown I thin kthat would not be the purpose of the function but could be added somehow. IDK

Hope that helps? Glad you like the idea

[selig]

Yea, things can get pretty gnarly with a ReDrum connected to 10 mix channels w/ some FX patched between ReDrum outs and Mix Channel inputs with other FX patched in the Mix Channel insert, all channels feeding a drum bus, plus a parallel drum bus, plus a parallel connection from the kick to side chain the bass, plus maybe a CV from an LFO to pan the high hat back and forth in the SSL, plus a few send FX on specific channels, plus some FX on the bus and parallel bus.
So lets say I click on the ReDrum above, and what happens next? How would I navigate around? Would I be able to see the SSL EQ/Dyn, or only if I used the RE version? Would there be a “cut off” at some point to limit what is considered “connected”, and if so where? If not, how does it work once you get down to the master bus?

This little puzzle has my brain all in a tizzy (in a good way)…

[PhillipOrdonez]

Yea, things can get pretty gnarly with a ReDrum connected to 10 mix channels w/ some FX patched between ReDrum outs and Mix Channel inputs with other FX patched in the Mix Channel insert, all channels feeding a drum bus, plus a parallel drum bus, plus a parallel connection from the kick to side chain the bass, plus maybe a CV from an LFO to pan the high hat back and forth in the SSL, plus a few send FX on specific channels, plus some FX on the bus and parallel bus.
So lets say I click on the ReDrum above, and what happens next? How would I navigate around? Would I be able to see the SSL EQ/Dyn, or only if I used the RE version? Would there be a “cut off” at some point to limit what is considered “connected”, and if so where? If not, how does it work once you get down to the master bus?

This little puzzle has my brain all in a tizzy (in a good way)…

let's see:

Here is a mockup covering your scenario. the redrum channels to their own mix channel would be considered parallells like the bass sidechain and should appear on the list there to the left of the nstrument. I added a reverb to show where the insert effects would appear. To the right is the lfo that is doing the hi hat pan, and at the bottom of the list (that you can scroll down as I show with the white scroll bar) would be more devices, including the compressor doing the bass ducking. Hope that makes a little more sense. Of course with sick graphics pro designers and UI experts this would rock. Kinda like roledex of devices but a few at a time and you scroll down if there are too many like on this case that there are 10 parallell tracks, and the order of these could be by based on hyerarchy so track 1 goes first and so on. I do not know those precise intricacies but are simple desicions for a team of experts, I am just one guy with an idea. Now imagine you do click on that bass sidechain compressor, now that one becomes the device focus and the redrum would be at the left side, smaller like the other devices that would now populate that area. the bass instrument itself would be placed above the compressor, and if clicked on it would become the focus and so on... Makes sense?

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/omarqef2 ... zkbbt&dl=0

EDIT: forgot to mention the mix channel is above the instrument here as you can see. cause it is an instrument. Say if there was a player on top, that could be there above it and above that player you would find the mix channel.

[PhillipOrdonez]

Did that clarify your doubts, Selig?