Patchbay and others like it.

[funkmuscle]

Hope this is the right place for this:
Anyone find using Patchbay in Carla or as a standalone annoying? I mean say you have Ardour opened with many tracks and you launch patchbay to connect a standalone program or a live instrument to record you're moving all these modules in the patchbay just to find things?
Sorry, this is a rant.
I find myself wasting a lot of time trying to find the connections especially when some of them or off the screen. At least if the capture modules could be on one side and the playback on the other that would make life a lot easier.
That's why I prefer Qjackctl over Cadence. Everything is so neatly arranged in the connections section. Even Qjackctl's patchbay I'd rather use the old connection way. I just open that and connect. I don't have to expand the view or go hunting for what I wanna connect.
Maybe I need 2 monitors so one can be just for the patchbay.
Rui, please don't kill Qjackctl
Well at least until Patchbay's floating connection modules are better organised. Maybe it's me and everyone else likes the Patchbay way because I haven't seen anyone mention this before.
I'm not trying to shoot the dev but many devs are opened to suggestion and was wondering is that was a possibility to have a capture to the left, playback to the right. I love the floating aspect of it.
Again I maybe wrong which I'm use to.

[milo]

I also prefer to old qjackctl way.

And Ardour has the tools to make most (all?) connections without even leaving the DAW. The more I use Ardour, the less I am going to the patchbay to wire things together.

[rncbc]

dunno whether you're referring to QjackCtl Connections or the Graph... just because the Patchbay looks like the Connections thing it is not going to die anytime soon or ever

what i can forecast to die a silent death is that creepy Session thing, but no, anything else is going to stay, promised

cheers

[funkmuscle]

dunno whether you're referring to QjackCtl Connections or the Graph... just because the Patchbay looks like the Connections thing it is not going to die anytime soon or ever

what i can forecast to die a silent death is that creepy Session thing, but no, anything else is going to stay, promised

cheers

It just seemed as if the patchbay will be taking over and I don't mind it if some of the connecting modules are not hidden behind the bigger ones or you have to keep scrolling up and down and sideways to find things.
Your connections section used to be the default but now the default seems to be patchbay. That's why I thought you were slowly phasing out the connections section and replacing it with the patchbay.

[rncbc]

again i believe you confusing Connections with Graph...

yes the later is now shown as the default button on the main widget panel--on new installs that is--but you can get the old Connections button back if you feel more love to it: just turn off Setup > Misc > Buttons > Replace Connections with Graph button, and I'm sure you'll be happier thereafter .

otoh. QjackCtl's Patchbay was never in question though.

cheers

[funkmuscle]

again i believe you confusing Connections with Graph...

yes the later is now shown as the default button on the main widget panel--on new installs that is--but you can get the old Connections button back if you feel more love to it: just turn off Setup > Misc > Buttons > Replace Connections with Graph button, and I'm sure you'll be happier thereafter .

otoh. QjackCtl's Patchbay was never in question though.

cheers

No I'm not confusing them but I may of confused you as I didn't use the name you gave it in Qjackctl qnd your Qjackctl Patchbay is different.. Sorry about that.. The 'Graph' in Qjackctl is like Patchbay in Carla and Cadence.
What I'm saying is I like Qjackctl 'connections' better that 'Graph'. Not just Qjackctl's Graph but (patchage) itself.
Because you made Graph(patchage) the default instead of connections, I was worried.
I call it patchbay because of Carla and Cadence but the all do the same thing. Qjackctl's connections is simple. Graph/patchbay involves too much scrolling around.
Didn't Graph and Carla's Patchbay all come from Patchage? They all look and feel and operate the same unless I'm doing something wrong.
Anyway, you answered what I wanted which was 'you're keeping connections'.
The rest was just me ranting about why Graph/Patchbay/Patchage? It's just my personal take that it's confusing that's all and I'm so happy you're keeping 'connections'!
I hate doing this because I don't want anything changed because I don't like it when others do. This took me months to post.
And thank you so much for showing me how to make 'connections' default. Thank you Rui!

[funkmuscle]

But this thread was about the use of Patchage in all those apps but not the apps themselves. Meaning that Carla, Cadence and Qjackctl uses some form of Patchage. This is about Patchage and why it's so confusing that's all.

Parchage+funkmuscle=messing y'all up more than expected

[merlyn]

I use Catia which is like the patchbay in Carla. Catia looks better IMO -- it has what falkTX calls 'fancy eye-candy' which is rounded corners on the blocks representing plugins and a sort of glow around them. I find the layout where a plugin appears on the input and output side less obvious. With the 'blocks and wires' layout it's like plugging in effects pedals.

It is a bit of a pest when you end up with plugins scattered over a huge area of canvas. If you press 'Home' it brings all the plugins into the visible area and scales them so everything fits on.

[funkmuscle]

I use Catia which is like the patchbay in Carla. Catia looks better IMO -- it has what falkTX calls 'fancy eye-candy' which is rounded corners on the blocks representing plugins and a sort of glow around them. I find the layout where a plugin appears on the input and output side less obvious. With the 'blocks and wires' layout it's like plugging in effects pedals.

It is a bit of a pest when you end up with plugins scattered over a huge area of canvas. If you press 'Home' it brings all the plugins into the visible area and scales them so everything fits on.

Oh I didn't know that.. Thanks!!

[rncbc]

Didn't Graph and Carla's Patchbay all come from Patchage?

nope. QjackCtl Graph may look like Patchage but it's an entire and completely different code-base (not even one line of code is in common);
QjackCtl Graph is mine, all pure C++/Qt, while Patchage/Ganv is a mix of C/C++/gtk/cairo and written by David Robillard.

cheers && thanks

ps. anyway, Connections has been--and still is--there all the time, in the right-click/context-menu.

[Baggypants]

I like njconnect

[WforWoollyMammoth]

Yes. I know what you mean by having to move things around with Patchage-like interfaces and it being annoying. I switched from Patchage to Catia recently, as I think it's just neater (Patchage also used to get started in a very small window on my LXDE / openbox -setup, which is not the case with Catia). Disconnecting I/Os seems to be easier with Catia than with Patchage. I recommend Catia.

Ardour and a patchage-like interfaces do not work that well together, although I've kept using them together, regardless. I think DAWs that create fewer input and output ports by default work better in that context. With Ardour the whole window just gets filled with clutter that you often do not even need to reorganize in any way during the sessions.

Jack / Pulseadio being run at the same time tends to look messy too. For example, all the 12 inputs of my RME Babyface get connected to the 12 surround channels of "PulseAudio JACK Source" by default and the 12 "virtual cables" take up a lot of screen space and make other modules and their connections hard to visualize. Just by starting Jack with the Pulseaudio module makes things look unnecessarily messy.

For establishing the Jack connections that I use most often, I started using scripts a long time ago. I run them by keyboard shortcuts that I've defined for the LXDE / Openbox environment (for example, super+z adds zita_rev1 to the inputs that are attached to my keyboards and DI guitar boxes - quick and easy!).

[funkmuscle]

Nice! I like the script idea. But the connecting on qjackctl is my winner.