Forums › Forums › SQ Forums › SQ feature suggestions › Flashing LED on mix select
This topic contains 45 replies, has 34 voices, and was last updated by 
ioTon 1 year, 5 months ago.
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2020/04/20 at 3:29 pm #91187
@KeithJ A&H
you all are doing a fantastic job with your kit.
perfection is not possible.consider hiring a UI engineer to work with the other specialties.
We had then on jobs I worked with at NASA. although what they ‘required’ tended to be overkill;
so you also need a good SYSTEMS Engineer to find the best overall solution.2021/02/23 at 1:18 am #99125I think this is one of the rare Cases where the signal mut not be a static one.
Blinking or flashing is no good Idea for most normal display Options because it automatically gains attention immediately – just try it out with some Websites – no matter what else is on them, if there is any animated part that absolutely ties your mention at once. That is btw the reason why i never would allow animated commercial banners on my Website – I want to gain my users Atention myself and not hand it over to third parties 😉
So, for most things it is not a good idea to blink, flash or animate because there is no need to get attention.
The absolute single case Blinking, Flashing or animating is a valid and legitimate display method on a good user interface is a Warning. Nothing else.
And that is exactly what we have here: a Warning to the User that the console is not in the intuitive suggested basic Mode of Operation.
So: yes, please blink. As with Mute groups on the Mute buttons (which is also a kind of warning message). Blinking with the LCD Stripes on all Strips that are not in “normal” Operation would be a good Option for that.
The absolute Minimum would be to change the LED of the Select Button to the LCD Color of the Bus Master.
2021/02/23 at 8:29 am #99137I am afraid that A blinking LED is not enough for some users. Maybe the touch screen should change the color scheme to a bright red one and starts to use a pulsating dimmer to signal that user that the current fader mode is not the main mode. 😉
2021/02/23 at 11:39 am #99144it would at least annoy the musicians that walk by monitor world if the console is constantly blinking 😀
2021/02/23 at 11:53 am #99149Well for those Users A&H should offer a Hardware addon containing some Drone that brings up a really big sign right in Front of the Desk…
To get serious again:
In General: “Some Users are too dumb” most of the time is nothing more than a widespread lame Excusion of bad or unmotivated (not only user interface) developers. Not every time, but most of.
So if you say such things, you should try to reflect about your goals.
Do you want to feel good by demonstrating the dumbness of some Users / feel yourself as a “Pro” that is better than all those Amateurs out there? Then go on. You are on the right way.
Or do you want a User Interface that makes work as easy and fast as possible?
What might (more of) your customers want to pay for?
For the concrete Problem “User might work accidentally in wrong Mix Layer” that means:
A single LED is indeed a way too weak signal to get recognized intuitively in that case. Even when it is flashing. That is because the User may be highly focused on changing something special. So the Signalling has to be penetrant enough to gain attention over that for telling he might be in the wrong Mix.
Before we had Channel LCD Stripes, there was a similar Problem with Custom Fader Layers on digital Consoles. It was an important Part of the working solutions not only to place text on them but also to set Background Colors which will change when you switch to another Layer – only that makes the recognition really work for most People. You may just try it out by setting all your LCD Colors to Black or White.
Changing Color of the LED in the Select Buttons may be a good compromise (if that is a RGB LED, dunno). If that disturbs in some use cases, it can be made configurable. If that is impossible because those LEDs are fixed Color ones, Blinking Select LEDs or changing LCD Text Foreground Color might be an Option but you have to beware about Contrast to keep it readable. Maybe something like black = main, dark blue = Group, dark green = Aux, dark red = FX. And for colour-handicapped People it would be good to have that configurable.
2021/02/23 at 1:41 pm #99152To be serious, the best way would really be when the style theme of the touch screen is changed, or when there is a colored rectancle border on the screen to the the user that something is different. that would be far more better than something changed on some LEDs because the user, or at least me, will have the most focus on the main touch screen as the visual center piece of the console. Ok, the dimmer was more or less a joke, but even a steady pulsating dimmer would be a good sign for the user. It should not be a heavy change of the brightness, combined with a fast pulse frequency, because that might lead us to some epileptic issues with some operators.
Again, make it somehow visible on the main touch screen would be for my opinion a good solution. and make it an “opt-in” feature;-)2021/02/23 at 5:05 pm #99161Come on guys! Just a change in the mix select buttons so they flash instead of stay static lit when selected. L/R Mix does not flash, of course. Not that hard.
D.
2021/02/23 at 8:22 pm #99174+1
2021/02/23 at 9:43 pm #99183Just an additional Idea: Option “Mix Buttons behave a little more like talkback”
Short tip on Mix/FX Button -> switch to that mix (and signal that) until another one is tipped or after a configurable time of user inactivity.
Holding of Mix Button -> switch to that Mix but jump Back to main Mix immediately when the Mix/FX Button is released.
Could reduce “Accidents” if the User gets into the habit of just holding the Mix Button for short adjustments.
Combined with optical Signalling that could be a real innovative Concept.
2021/02/27 at 2:43 pm #99318Holding of Mix Button -> switch to that Mix but jump Back to main Mix immediately when the Mix/FX Button is released
I love that idea. Some operations would be so much faster. Might even work for dub effect switching.
2021/02/27 at 2:52 pm #99319Combined with optical Signalling that could be a real innovative Concept.
not really,
we suggested this 2 years ago for the dLive platform already
but guess what… we are still waiting2021/02/27 at 4:06 pm #99324Holding of Mix Button -> switch to that Mix but jump Back to main Mix immediately when the Mix/FX Button is released.
I like that idea as well, it would need to be a selectable option though.
I mix a lot on an Ipad and when in a mix mode the faders are tinted blue, that
helps as a reminder.
The touch and hold a mix button on an iPad would not work too well.2021/02/27 at 8:31 pm #99335The touch and hold a mix button on an iPad would not work too well.
Well, there is no need for identical behaviour of the physical buttons on the Mixer and the virtual ones in the App in that point. Wouldn’t make sense since you have to scroll around in the App but not on the real console (although you could change layers but thats much different haptics).
2021/08/23 at 6:50 pm #103079+1
Short tip on Mix/FX Button -> switch to that mix (and signal that) until another one is tipped or after a configurable time of user inactivity.
Holding of Mix Button -> switch to that Mix but jump Back to main Mix immediately when the Mix/FX Button is released.
2021/09/05 at 9:25 pm #103292I think with the SQ’s, it’s all too easy to accidentally go to adjust a monitor mix, only to find yourself on the main LR by mistake.
If the scribble strips (as colour coded) in the main mix, changed to a uniform colour when the monitor mix was selected (all white, as an example), it would be really very obvious! Can’t understand why A&H don’t implement this (or even just a flashing led!), it would make things a lot clearer to me. -
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