Dragonfly Hall Reverb

[Michael Willis]

Thanks Paul! You are one of the most thorough testers of this project, always finding these really sneaky bugs.

You are right, I did not implement shift-click on the sliders. I don't think it will be too terribly hard. Yes, I also forgot to bump the version number in the help text.

The change in signal processing should be immediate when you adjust the parameters, despite how long it takes to render the spectrogram. Does it seem like there is a delay to you? Or is it mostly a matter of user perception? It is possible that I'm completely wrong here, I'm just trying to understand. Either way, I could make the question mark icon a solution to this, I would just have to prevent the spectrogram from reappearing when the parameters are adjusted.

[Paul Battersby]

(10-31-2018, 12:30 AM)Michael Willis Wrote: Thanks Paul! You are one of the most thorough testers of this project, always finding these really sneaky bugs.

I figure I owe you for all the work you did in testing my sample library.

(10-31-2018, 12:30 AM)Michael Willis Wrote: The change in signal processing should be immediate when you adjust the parameters, despite how long it takes to render the spectrogram.
[...]  Does it seem like there is a delay to you? Or is it mostly a matter of user perception?

You are right. It's only my perception. I went back and tortured the spectrogram display with rapid changes to the parameters and there is no actual use interface delay. The display is properly interrupted by each change and waits to redraw until there is idle time.

I suspect people will think there is a delay as they might feel they have to wait for the display to update before doing anything else, although I doubt it would take long to realize that isn't the case, so leaving it as is shouldn't be much or a problem.

I suppose an option, if it's possible, is to buffer the redraw of the display, so instead of showing the spectrogram as it updates in real time, draw it in the background and only update the display when it's finished. It's an old programming trick from the days of slow computers to avoid display flicker. Have a visual and a virtual display and simply swap them once the virtual display has been updated in the background, so instead of watching something as it updates, you only see the complete update suddenly appear.

I noticed that if I press the question mark to display the credits and version number, I can then adjust the parameters (dials and sliders) without the spectrogram appearing. If I click outside the dials/sliders or select a different room/hall, the spectrogram re-appears. This isn't any kind of problem. Just an observation.

One more thought I had, and I imagine the last thing you want as you try to release this is more work, but some built in help information to explain the parameters and the use of the spectrogram display might be useful. It's intuitive enough to select a type of room and adjust the dials but it will require google research to know what effect each dial is supposed to have on the sound. As I swing the dials from one extreme to another, my ear is not sensitive enough to the sound of reverb for me to perceive any difference in sound.

[Michael Willis]

(10-31-2018, 01:11 PM)Paul Battersby Wrote: I figure I owe you for all the work you did in testing my sample library.

You owe me nothing! You're the one that spent months putting together a sample library that I regularly use now. I just hope that other people find this reverb plugin handy.

(10-31-2018, 01:11 PM)Paul Battersby Wrote: I suppose an option, if it's possible, is to buffer the redraw of the display, so instead of showing the spectrogram as it updates in real time, draw it in the background and only update the display when it's finished.

If I remember correctly, I did try that in a previous revision, but I considered that people might like the more immediate update that slides in as it renders. I think I'll try the way you suggest again and then decide which one to keep.

(10-31-2018, 01:11 PM)Paul Battersby Wrote: I can then adjust the parameters (dials and sliders) without the spectrogram appearing.

Ha, so it already does what I was thinking of. I can't even remember all of the details of my own project.

(10-31-2018, 01:11 PM)Paul Battersby Wrote: One more thought I had, and I imagine the last thing you want as you try to release this is more work, but some built in help information to explain the parameters and the use of the spectrogram display might be useful. It's intuitive enough to select a type of room and adjust the dials but it will require google research to know what effect each dial is supposed to have on the sound. As I swing the dials from one extreme to another, my ear is not sensitive enough to the sound of reverb for me to perceive any difference in sound.

Yes indeed, there should be a helpful description of each parameter. Some of them only have audible effects for specific types of sound; specifically diffuse, spin, and wander aren't immediately obvious, and for many sounds they don't really matter too much, but in some circumstances they can be adjusted to make the reverb tail sound much better. Somebody suggested that while the credit text is shown, a brief description could pop up for each dial that the cursor hovers over.

[Michael Willis]

I've had some other people report that they prefer to separate their dry signal and wet signals into separate busses, so they always run the reverb plugin 0% dry. The problem is that all of the presets have the dry gain anywhere from 70% to 90%, so as they are trying out different presets, they keep having to adjust the sliders over and over again. There have been a number of suggestions of ways to "lock" the sliders in place, but I'm considering a different solution:

Make the presets not control the sliders at all.

The plugin could start with some sensible default, like 80% dry / 10% early / 20% late. Let's say somebody wants 0% dry, 50% early, and 100% late, all to be mixed in with the dry sound elsewhere in their signal processing. They can set the sliders once, and then quickly navigate around the presets without having to mess around with the sliders every time.

Paul and/or anybody else, what opinions do you have about this? It would be way more simple to make than any other ideas people have proposed, and less code means less bugs.

[Paul Battersby]

(10-31-2018, 10:20 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: [...] Make the presets not control the sliders at all.

The plugin could start with some sensible default, like 80% dry / 10% early / 20% late. Let's say somebody wants 0% dry, 50% early, and 100% late, all to be mixed in with the dry sound elsewhere in their signal processing. They can set the sliders once, and then quickly navigate around the presets without having to mess around with the sliders every time.

I can appreciate the need to set the sliders and keep them constant, not a bad idea, but if you do what you are suggesting, how would someone return to the sensible default set by the preset? What if someone has experimented with the sliders but wants to select a different room and start with the default set by that room?

[Michael Willis]

(11-01-2018, 01:52 AM)Paul Battersby Wrote: What if someone has experimented with the sliders but wants to select a different room and start with the default set by that room?

Hmm. That is a good point. I was thinking of it like the presets wouldn't have settings for the sliders, there would just be a global default of 80/10/20, and maybe shift-click would restore that global default, but picking a new preset wouldn't change the sliders.

The other possibility would be to make some piece of the user interface to lock any given slider (and maybe any dial as well), but that has the added expense of more complication in the user interface, and I was trying to keep it as simple as possible.

Blah, user interface design is hard. Getting feedback on an open source project is hard.

[Paul Battersby]

(11-01-2018, 02:15 AM)Michael Willis Wrote: Blah, user interface design is hard. Getting feedback on an open source project is hard.

One approach to take is that you are creating the reverb that you want to use and you are choosing to share it. Considering suggestions from other people is a nice bonus for other people, but there is no obligation to implement any suggestion that isn't quite what you want.

[Michael Willis]

Right, I need to learn to say "no" when an idea doesn't fit my vision... kind of like somebody I know who released a sample library without a marimba that I wanted so much.

[Paul Battersby]

(11-01-2018, 05:11 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: kind of like somebody I know who released a sample library without a marimba that I wanted so much.

Was that me? Did I say no to a Marimba? I know I don't have one. I recently added a few more instruments to the library. I should have included a Marimba while I was doing that. At least a Marimba doesn't have extra articulations and doesn't need to be looped. At this point, I think looping any more samples could take years off my life.

[Michael Willis]

Sorry, I was mostly being silly. I don't remember if I ever mentioned that would like a marimba in VPO. It's possible that knowing you had already worked so hard, I didn't feel like you needed yet another feature request. Honestly I can find a sampled marimba if I even get around to making an arrangement that needs it.