Feature Request: Recommended Cable Colors

[ColinP]

I don't want this discussion to go around in circles generating heat but no light.

We all agree that users should be able to assign whatever color they want to individual cables using the existing mechanism.

This would always override any default choice of color.

What I'm suggesting is that users are offered the option to go further than that if they want to enjoy automated cable coloring.

I personally don't care what the actual colors are, what I care about is ease of use and consistency.

So I'd be very happy with a standardized/standardised color/colour scheme that was used if users engaged the RECOMMENDED button. They would still be able to override colors on a cable by cable basic or simply not engage the button and have the existing setup.

But I accept that many people are not prepared to adopt standardization. I don't understand why as the benefits would be enormous but there you go.

So the next, more complex and less standardized mechanism is to use what I described earlier as a logical coloring system where you can assign your own colors by function. It's more complicated and harder to implement and it would still be confusing when patches are shared as nobody would know what the colors meant but at least we could enjoy automation and internal consistency.

BUT you'd still have default assignments for those logical colors wouldn't you?

So before you made gate signals your preferred color they would be assigned to a default color, right?

Or would any kind of default standardization be so objectionable that you'd want all logical colors to be assigned to the same color, so that color standardization didn't creep in by the back door with many people not being too fussed about what the specifc colors were and leaving the logical colors with their default assignments? Which would lead to a de facto standard wouldn't it?

[Steve W]

The Nord Modular uses a simple scheme that's quite effective.

Yellow = Logic
Blue = Control
Red = Audio

Modules are automatically programmed to colour patch points appropriately, and the cable colours automatically match the signal type. You can of course change the cable colours afterwords, including 3 other colours.

Yeah--this would be nice if we could set up our own list of preferred colors for about two to three dozen most common functions. Would be awful is someone decided the colors for all users.

I don't want this discussion to go around in circles generating heat but no light.

We all agree that users should be able to assign whatever color they want to individual cables using the existing mechanism.

I am not sure if your full post (abbreviated here in the interest of space) was a response to my post. It seems like it was. I was responding to the kind of three-colored system that Nord uses. A few years ago I used soft synth that was patterned after the Nord Editor. Given that as a suggested basis, I much prefer VM's current system.

But I accept that many people are not prepared to adopt standardization. I don't understand why as the benefits would be enormous but there you go.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying the current system and existing mechanism for assigning colors to cables cannot be improved on. However, I think a system of standardization that allows users to make their own choices as to which colors go with a set of standardized functions is better that a system of standardization where the colors are imposed and a system that has just a small set of functions (such as Nord's Logic, Control, Audio) which in the case of VM's architecture does not do justice to VM's flexibility.

[ColinP]

Hi Steve, I was addressing both you and a wider audience.

What confuses me about your posts is that you seem to be saying that you would prefer the existing arrangement than one that included the existing arrangement plus the option of adopting a standard.

But anyway, you've convinced me that a logical color system would be more popular than a simple system. And as I tried to explain such a logical color system would have default color assignments anyway unless one assigned all the initial logical colors to be the same. So such a system would create a de facto standard that people could override by assigning their own colors.

Just to be clear about what I mean by a logical color system is that manufacturers assign a functional id to sockets and this id is then translated via a user alterable database mechanism to actual colors.