[LAD] panning thoughts

[Remon Sijrier]

On Sunday, November 14, 2010 01:01:17 am fons at kokkinizita.net wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 11:43:53PM +0100, Philipp Überbacher wrote:
> > It seems there is no single 0.0 but -0.0 and +0.0 instead, but I'd need
> > to manage to compile the program to test or find the right place in the
> > actual implementation to see what happens. The program in question is
> > traverso: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/traverso.git

'Fixed' that issue in git, thanks for notifying me (again hehe) about this 
issue!

> Let me guess: a combination of a badly designed widget that has no
> central position, and a print format that doesn't show the smallest
> step.

Hmm, you never used Traverso I see ... at least not in the way it should be 
used: there are no widgets in Traverso to control gain/pan values. 

But you are correct that the pan/gain 'indicators' have less precision then 
the actual gain/pan values.

One of the reasons I didn't fix this earlier is due I've no idea how much 
precision is needed. I.e. how small a step value do we want/need for gain and 
pan, and do we actually want to show that in the indicator? E.g. a value of 
-3.05 dB is a bit overkill?
Right now gain increment steps are 0.05 dB for gain, and there are 200 steps 
for pan normalized between -1, 1

I've to admit I didn't read all the panning emails, will do so today, maybe 
there was some conclusion drawn with respect to how panning has to be applied 
and the needed resolution for the pan value ?

Just some thoughts: rotary knob controls are better to control by the human 
then sliders are, probably due the movements of the fingers are much more 
precise?
The use of sliders vs knobs in software imho still is a different issue since 
you have to control those with a mouse, right?
And this mouse movement dictates how good the movement (and precision of that 
movement) can be done in combination with how the knob/slider 'widget' is 
implemented. E.g. the width of the slider is 100 pixels, then you can't use 
more then 100 steps.

Traverso does away with that by using the relative mouse moving distance, 
allowing for mouse movements to be translated in relatively small gain/pan 
adjustements in effect giving the user a much better control over the 
gain/pan/other values. Side effect is that the mouse can be moved physically 
for over long distances without being limited by screen sizes, so no matter if 
you're using a large or small screen, a large or small knob/slider, it always 
feels the same, with much more precision :)
(remember, Traverso does NOT use sliders/knobs to control values those are 
just indicators)

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

Ciao, Remon