Help Wanted: Anyone who likes gui design like to help with making these modules look better?

[Strum]

Is there anyone out that enjoys designing GUIs that wants to help redesign the look of the modules?

I find it tedious myself and would rather focus on functionality.

[ghost]

i could come up with another design for your modules. What colors do you prefer? should it be in a yellow theme like your current one?

[Strum]

Whatever you fancy, just try and keep them as small as possible.

I kind of liked the idea of have the backgrounds a bit transparent though.

[Strum]

Looks good by the way, and thanks for the offer.

Some consistency of style and colour scheme across the set is also somewhat important, but I'm not a graphic artist and I'm open minded to anything that looks better than what i've done which was very much a rush job and not a high priority for me with this project yet..

[ghost]

if you didnt already see my modules... i plan also to keep the color sheme to all my upcoming modules. I will do that with your modules too. so all will have the same colors in it. I shurely can make them transparent a bit.

btw i was wondering why none of your modules have screws.

[Strum]

I left the screws out to save space basically, they aren't necessary, just there for the look.

I also wanted them to look different from everyone else's, hence the transparency , but mostly I was just trying to make everything as small as possible.

Which modules are yours?

I'd orginally hoped to add some nice paisley patterns as an over lay on the background but haven't worked out how to deal with bitmap patterns in the vector format or found any good vector patterns yet.

[ghost]

yea that makes sense. i just found it very nice to have the modules look like the real deal somehow :D

mine are the ms-modules.

i can try to add some paisley pattern on the background.

[Strum]

I hadn't looked at your modules yet, they look nice, a bit of a style. I'll have a play with them.

You've gone for a blue based colour palette in yours, if you use oranges, yellows, browns and reds for mine that should help differentiate them. Perhaps you could round the corners of the rectangles behind the ins and outs as well to make them different.

How are you getting everything to line up? that's the thing that was taking all the time.

Oh and feel free to move the interface elements around a bit or change the types of sockets, lights and knobs if you want, just try and keep things about the same size, a little bit bigger is ok but not much, screen space is valuable.

[Strum]

A bit of transparency on the coloured rectangles so you can see the background pattern through them would be nice also.

[ghost]

I tried to include pattern. I could do it but somehow rack doesnt show them. But Andrew mentioned some time ago that not all features of the SVG´s will be working.

Well, I could include my inputs/output svg´s into your modules which are a bit smaller than the regulars from rack. But I definitely wont change the sizes of your modules. I also like this size.

Ok, I will send you what I did so far later tonight.

[Strum]

cool, look forward to seeing what you have done.

[ghost]

sadly i didnt have enought time to play around with your svg´s but i think this one looks quite nice..

[ghost]

if you like it i will make all other modules the same way.

[Strum]

Getting there, but can you change the background colour to more like the original orange and I don't like the font much.

I liked the lilyUPC font i used originally.

made a few changes to the code tonight so you might want to update

[ghost]

okidoki ;)

will make the changes you suggest. do you mean the very light yellow-ish which is in your orginial backgrounds images?

[ghost]

reverted back to the lilyupc font ;) ajusted the color of the background a bit.. still not quite there.. will get the correct color out of your orginial background..

[Strum]

Yeah, really nice, i like it.

if you upload them somewhere i'll put them in the repo.

[ghost]

ok perfect. i will use the same color sheme on all of your modules and send you a dropbox link to download it...

[Strum]

Awesome, thanks so much, it will make them look a lot more professional.

Perhaps we can work together on interface design for new modules and I'd be happy to help you with coding your modules if you want.

Brainstorming concepts for modules designs might also yield some interesting results, I'd be interested to hear what ideas you might have for new modules.

[Strum]

Have you changed any of the code to reposition things and change the knobs and jacks? or have you only modified the .svg files?

I'll need to either merge your changes, which will be another first for me, or add them myself.

perhaps if you move something or change the look of a knob jack or switch you could make a note that the code needs to be changed to suit

[Strum]

You may find this useful.

https://github.com/VCVRack/Rack/issues/261#issuecomment-337953776

i'll try it myself when i get time

[ghost]

yea in the A/B Switches module I mad small ajustments to the buttons. to place them more centered between the inputs. the new inputs/outputs are svg´s but a tiny code need to be added to the mental.hpp file. which i will send you so that you can just use the one I altered or to look at it and make the changes to your currect one. The code I used to do that comes from rack´s components.hpp. which can be found under rack/include/...

Right now I m trying to figure out a way to change the cartesian sequencer to look better. because there is alot of empty space in the module. Even with the color sheme and style it doesnt look very good. (at least I dont like it) :D Maybe I will use bigger knobs instead. If this is ok with you. Therefor its possible that the size of the module changes.

About your offer to work together: for sure. I like graphical stuff. And I m fairly new to coding as my modules are the first time I even wrote c++.

[Strum]

I agree about the cartesian module it doesn't look balanced that small.

try using the way andrew has described in the issue above and place the knobs how you think looks best use whatever knobs you feel suit best.

[dBiz]

Hi, first of all, thx for the great job u made! Here's my attempt to make modules more suitable to me!

I've also started making my component library, just for fun ;) Plan to upload everything later.

[Strum]

wow thanks @dBiz, I've sort of settled on the look the @Phal-anx has been working on.

I like what you've done but i wanted a consistent style and colour scheme across the modules and keeping them small was a major consideration in my original layouts.

Feel free to make them how you like and distribute them if you want though.

[ghost]

wow @dBiz :) very nice!!

i really like the knobs and lights on the cartesian squencer. also the idea of the arrows instead of written words is quite nice. I will add some of your ideas into the backgrounds if thats ok for you.

[Strum]

Awesome @Phal-anx, that's that way to collaborate.

[dBiz]

No prob @Phal-anx , I've made a repo with my stuff ;) I've also started a stereo mixer prototype, based on StrumMixer, it works but for sure I've done something wrong with the code;...

[ghost]

so here is a little update ;) the cartesian sequencer cost me like 2 hours to place everything properly :D but the rest of the modules will be finished fast, because i already finished the new button, knobs and outputs.

[dBiz]

Cool!

[Strum]

looks great.

good work.

[dBiz]

p.s. seems the x and y cv input on cartesian have some issue... i suggest adding also a trimpot as attenuator... trying to fix it ;)

[Strum]

yes i could and there is space in the interface for it i guess, I had thought about it, but many modules don't have them, you just have to run the control signal through an attenuator first.

i thin k there is something funny going on with the round off and scaling in the module code as well, now you mention it i did have some issues when building it.

I'll try and sort something out with it this week, i was having similar problems with the 4 way multiplexor as well.

[Strum]

Oh and btw the way I see your re-skinning of my modules got a post on switched on rack but he didn't mention that they were mine reskinned, nor has he made a single comment about my modules when he has posted every other 3rd party module.

Hmmm.

[dBiz]

I'm sorry for that! in my repo and wiki I clearly say that apart for the stereo mixer ( i'm working on and is based on yours) the rest are just reskinned version on yours... btw I personally know the owner of the forum and if he doesn't I'll write an article on your modules ;) For cartesian instead, I've also tried with an attenuator first but the x and y cv in remain glitchy ;) I'll try to understand why today

[Strum]

@dBiz, yeah I saw you had credited me, and Autodafe has emailed me about it so it's no drama,

Will try and have a look at the CV in with the cartesian this week, i might need to tune the scaling of the input signal, but it jumps around unpredictably for no apparent reason.

[Strum]

@Phal-anx

Any progress?

[jonheal]

Design such as this is highly subjective, of course, but honestly, I like the pale, translucent yellow. I don't really understand how to use the Chord unit, but here is my crack at its face. Not too different ...

[jonheal]

One thing's for sure: overlapping the rails with jacks or buttons is somewhat naughty.

[jonheal]

A/B Switches. Now I will stop poking into what is probably already a done deal.

[Strum]

Thanks @jonheal, they look really good.

No word from @Phal-anx in over a week so no progress with the reskinning yet. Definitely not a done deal yet, I'll use the first complete set that I don't have to recode to apply.

I've been planning to do a readme for each module describing how to use it but i've been too busy just making them and using them myself so far.

Briefly, the chord module takes a root pitch at the pitch in then builds a chord from it based on the various logic inputs.

The default chord is a major 7th. The notes appear at the 1,3,5,7 outputs in closed root position voicing and at the voicing outputs in various orders and octaves depending on the inversion and voicing knobs and cvs. The inversion knob chooses between root, 1st, 2nd and 3rd inversions and the voicing knob selects from closed position, drop 2, drop 3, drop 2 and 4 and spread voicings.

The quality of the chord is changed by the b3, b5 and b7 inputs which allow for dom7 mi7 and half diminished chords. The other logic inputs allow for substituting notes of the chord for higher extensions or suspensions. sus 2 sus 4 and add 6 substitute 2 for 1, 4 for 3, 6 for 5 respectively, the remaining inputs allow adjustment of the suspensions and extensions of the chord to create more complex chords in 4 voices, combining the root position outs and the voicing outs can enable chords with more than 4 voices.

chord progressions that follow a scale can be achieved by applying logic to the inputs that switches when the root note changes using a sequencer or other means.

I'm working on a patch that randomly changes chords and keeps them diatonic to the scale using logic without using any sequencers which i will upload to the demo patches folder when i get it finished so people can see how i use the chord module.

I've already found one other person using it in an interesting way that I hadn't imagined here.

https://patchstorage.com/easy-listening-for-robots/

Have a look and see what you can learn, play around and see what you can get out of it , you might also find ways of using it i haven't thought of.

[jonheal]

To be honest, those were nothing more than Photoshop mock ups. I guess if I were to really have a go at it, I'd need to download Inkscape and learn how to use it. I'd also have to figure out how these SVGs are used in the modules.

Fact is, I learned about Rack only four days ago.

But I'm glad you liked them. :-)

-- Jon Heal http://www.theheals.org/ Have a nice day!

On Oct 30, 2017, at 7:00 PM, Strum notifications@github.com wrote:

Thanks @jonheal, they look really good.

No word from @Phal-anx in over a week so no progress with the reskinning yet. Definitely not a done deal yet, I'll use the first complete set that I don't have to recode to apply.

I've been planning to do a readme for each module describing how to use it but i've been too busy just making them and using them myself so far.

Briefly, the chord module takes a root pitch at the pitch in then builds a chord from it based on the various logic inputs.

The default chord is a major 7th. The notes appear at the 1,3,5,7 outputs in closed root position voicing and at the voicing outputs in various orders and octaves depending on the inversion and voicing knobs and cvs. The inversion knob chooses between root, 1st, 2nd and 3rd inversions and the voicing knob selects from closed position, drop 2, drop 3, drop 2 and 4 and spread voicings.

The quality of the chord is changed by the b3, b5 and b7 inputs which allow for dom7 mi7 and half diminished chords. The other logic inputs allow for substituting notes of the chord for higher extensions or suspensions. sus 2 sus 4 and add 6 substitute 2 for 1, 4 for 3, 6 for 5 repsectively, the other inputs allow adjustment of the suspensions and extensions of the chord to create more complex chords in 4 voices, combining the root position outs and the voicing outs can enable chords with more than 4 voices.

chord progressions that follow a scale can be achieved by applying logic to the inputs that switches when the root note changes using a sequencer or other means.

I'm working on a patch that randomly changes chords and keep them diatonic to the scalle using logic without using any sequencers which i will uplaod to the demo patches folder when i get it finished so people can see how i sue the chord module.

I've already found one other person using it in an interesting way that I hadn't imagined here.

https://patchstorage.com/easy-listening-for-robots/

Have a look and see what you can learn, play around and see what you can get out of it , you might also find ways of using it i haven't thought of.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[jonheal]

Let me ask you a question, Strum, based on your explanation above, with this simple patch, should I be hearing a root note and third above note in my two speakers?

[Strum]

@jonheal

the bottom section of the code creates the gui, elements are positioned by coordinates

it's pretty simple really, have a play. look at the tutorial code, take an existing background and edit it, see what happens.

inkscape is free and easy to use

[Strum]

@jonheal

the chord module outputs pitch control voltages not actual sounds.

you plug the outputs into the 1v/oct inputs of oscillators to control their pitches.

[Strum]

@jonheal

have a look at the demo patches

[jonheal]

Got it. Sorry for the stupidity. I learned just 20 minutes ago what a patch file was and how to load it. 😊

-- Jon Heal Have a nice day!

From: Strum Sent: Monday, October 30, 2017 7:35 PM To: Strum/Strums_Mental_VCV_Modules Cc: Jon Heal; Mention Subject: Re: [Strum/Strums_Mental_VCV_Modules] Help Wanted: Anyone who likesgui design like to help with making these modules look better? (#5)

@jonheal have a look at the demo patches — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[Strum]

@jonheal No worries, if you are new to modular synthesis it can be pretty confusing at first.

one the things i really like about Rack is that you can learn about modular without having to have one and so if and when you get one, or get access to one, you'll know what to do with it.

[jonheal]

Strum,

Well, I would like to complete some UIs for you, but I'm not sure I can do it in a timely manner given my current situation. You are pretty prolific. You have a lot of modules. Furthermore, I don't think I want to get myself in the position where I spend a lot of time and nearly complete them and then have @Phal-anx come out of nowhere with a complete set, which you accept. @Phal-anx may feel the same way.

What I may do, as time allows, is draw some/all up for my own use — assuming it is possible to replace the current SVGs in use locally with my own copies. If this is possible, and if I do end up completing the entire set at some point, then I would submit them to you and you could decide whether you want to use them or not.

-- Jon

[Strum]

@jonheal

No worries, understandable.

No word from @Phal-anx now for nearly 2 weeks so I expect he has given up on it.

As you have kept the look almost unchanged I could use your backgrounds without them looking out of place in the set, upload what you have done already somewhere and I can make the changes to the code needed.

[jonheal]

I will do those two up proper, including the code for you to copy and paste into you .cpp files. Although I wonder if my rearrangement of the jacks on the Chord module does not make sense given that I still don’t really understand very well what some of those inputs do. I’m not a chord expert and I don’t play guitar. For instance, I have no idea what “1 for 7” means, and whether my “1/7” abbreviation makes sense.

But over the next several days, I will try to get these two items to you. If @Phal-anx reemerges in the meantime, no biggee. Feel free to use his stuff instead.

-- Jon Heal Have a nice day!

From: Strum Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2017 9:31 PM To: Strum/Strums_Mental_VCV_Modules Cc: Jon Heal; Mention Subject: Re: [Strum/Strums_Mental_VCV_Modules] Help Wanted: Anyone who likesgui design like to help with making these modules look better? (#5)

@jonheal No worries, understandable. No word from @Phal-anx now for nearly 2 weeks so I expect he has given up on it. As you have kept the look almost unchanged I could use your backgrounds without them looking out of place in the set, upload what you have done already somewhere and I can make the changes to the code needed. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.