On 09 Sep 2005, at 3:54 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
And do you actually think that's a *good* idea?
Well, he wasn't addressing whether it was good or not (it obviously
isn't). He was just showing that your assertion of fact was
COMPLETELY MISTAKEN.
Oh fercrissakes. It was deliberate hyperbole. Yes, FInale isn't
literally the only application to handle panning in such a stupid
way. That doesn't make it less stupid.
Since people don't seem to understand, let me start over.
With a pan pot on a mixing board, or the balance controller on your
stereo, or any similar device, the default position -- zero -- is the
*center*. The dial usually has some kind of tactile feedback to let
you know that you're centered. All values are defined in terms of
derivation from the center. This is true whether you're dealing in
percentages (as you do in all major digital audio editors) or just
rough approximations like "slight left," "hard right" etc. This is
just the natural way to think about placing something in a stereo field.
Finale, on the other hand, does not define pan in terms of derivation
from the center. Instead of center = 0, they use center = 64. 0 is
actually hard right. Now I understand why they are doing that --
it's how the MIDI controller data is actually sent -- but it is
*incredibly confusing and nonstandard* to think of pan that way.
Regardless of whether someone has any experience with a mixing board
or not, they will naturally think of panning in terms of relationship
to the center, and Finale's way of doing things obscures that
relationship. Instead of thinking "Okay, I want Violin I panned far
left, and Violin II panned far right," someone instead has to think,
"Okay, I need to enter a channel value of 19 for Violin I and 109 for
Violin II."
That's ridiculously bad UI.
- Darcy
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Brooklyn, NY
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