KEVIN PERRY: Radical Redesign For Modern Digital Audio Software

Kevin Perry proposes a radical redesign for modern digital audio software as we know it...

Computers are not mixing desks. Nor are they multitrack recorders, nor multi‑effects units, even though with modern digital audio workstation (DAW) software we put them to all of these uses. Why then do software houses strive to make their audio software mimic traditional hardware units ever more closely? Why do many DAW users complain that they find the software hard to use? Why do many musicians and engineers struggle to use the same working methodologies with DAWs that they always did with 'real' mixers and recorders? I believe that answers to all of these problems stem from the same root, and it's all to do with cowpaths...

"Cowpaths?", I hear you utter in astonishment. Hear me out... Consider the UK road system. It was built (literally) upon the cowpaths which meandered from village to village during the Middle Ages — cows aren't known for their ability to walk in straight lines. As a result, the UK road system is not suited to today's level of traffic or vehicles. Compare that with the USA where, essentially, there was a clean slate to build on: the roads are straight and wide, and therefore far better suited to modern usage. UK roads are OK if you want to look at the countryside, but if you're after a quick and easy journey, they don't compete.

Unfortunately, DAW software at present is in the same state as the UK road system: it's got lots of nice scenery, but if you want to go from A to B, you have to be prepared for traffic jams.

Many plug‑ins show a very attractive graphical interface that is clearly based on the front panel of an equivalent piece of hardware, complete with virtual knobs. It doesn't take much common sense to realise that, whereas a knob is a rotary device, mice are linear therefore making adjustment of a virtual knob far more tedious than the adjustment of a slider. Furthermore, a row or column of aligned sliders gives the user far more information at a glance than a group of small knobs, especially given the screen arrangement and often psychedelic colour schemes used!

The timeline in DAWs, as well as everything else which we in the Western world are used to, goes from left to right (horizontally). So why are the channels in virtual consoles and meters in most, if not all, DAWs arranged vertically, thus requiring a mental rotation for the track and channels to match up? Could it perhaps be because hardware mixers have vertically aligned channels?

Consider the virtual mixer as a prime example of what you wouldn't design if you were building a DAW from scratch. Not only are mouse and keyboard not ideal tools for controlling a multi‑widget device but, on refelection, the mixer is only there because of the physical equivalent. The positions of faders and knobs show a snapshot of what's going on (which is clearly all that even an automated hardware mixer can do). A two‑dimensional vector on a computer screen shows infinitely more information, since it incorporates an extra dimension (time)! Yet even though vectors have been included in DAWs for some time now, we are still ridiculously saddled with virtual mixers emulating the interface of their real equivalent.

So, what do I think needs to be done about this sorry state of affairs, for I would be as guilty as the software manufacturers if I wasn't ready to propose some solutions? I'm not necessarily going to offer any specific design features, but rather some broad goals that anyone who is prepared to look forwards should have no difficulty in fleshing out.

In an ideal world, the design of a DAW would start with a blank piece of paper, no legacy baggage, and no hardware paradigm to work from (or at least no preconceptions of a hardware paradigm to work from!). Usability would be a paramount design goal, as would clarity and consistency of the interface. However, manufacturers seem to confuse features with functionality and physical attractiveness with a well‑designed interface. Unfortunately, looks sell in the DAW market as much as in any other, and the majority of users are seduced by a 'sexy' interface which is often slow and painful to use! Remember that the majority of DAW's sales will come from the amateur bedroom recordist, rather than the professional who uses these tools to earn a living, and we do live in a market‑driven world. Consistency is important to reduce the learning curve and, again, to improve efficiency.

The clear provision of information is, likewise, a key ingredient: one of the advantages of digital audio — whether on a DAW or not — is repeatability and predictability, so it is essential that the actual numerical values for parameters are available (if not immediately visible), and that the units of these values are suitably chosen. Information must be shown in a variety of different formats: for example, a row of sliders may show coarsely the relationship between values, but it must also be possible to see the same relationship in gory numerical detail. Applications should be task‑focused, but using the new interface to make these tasks easier and quicker.

Finally, the sooner that recorded material is considered as data rather than audio, the better. By continually falling back into the audio mindset, we are being hampered by limiting our vision. Compare the difference between MIDI and musical notation: if we treated MIDI information as a digital representation of conventional notation, we would never have had software arpeggiators, auto‑accompaniment tools such as Band In A Box, NTOnyx's Style Enhancer or Cubase's IPS, automatic layering, and groove quantising.

So, try to forget how you work with old, physical equipment, learn the new tools available rather than relying on the virtual equivalents of what you've been used to and forget that you're dealing with audio and think in terms of moving data around. And remember, don't touch that dial!

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Sounding Off, Sound On Sound, Media House, Trafalgar Way, Bar Hill, Cambridge, CB3 8SQ.

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E soundingoff@soundonsound.com