Cherry Audio Forums

Color coding of cables is something that I imagine many of you have opinions on.

At the moment the color of cables is determined either by personal choice or randomly.

I would like to propose a simple modification to the Voltage Modular Designer environment so that manufacturers can designate a recommended color for cables connected to each socket of their modules.

Ideally this would be done with a Property in Designer's GUI editor so that it would be easy to select a color from a menu. This would link to a method called something like SetRecommendedCableColor() for individual socket objects.

Users would of course still be able to override this recommended color using the existing mechanism.

To make standardisation more likely to be adopted I would suggest that the property menu includes "preset" colors for Audio, Sync/Clock, Gate/Trigger, Pitch CV and General CV. Other colors choices being available for specialised signals.

A "none" property option being the default or selectable to revert to the current mechanism.

I think this should be reasonably easy to implement by Cherry Audio and an easy modification for third-party developers to retro-fit and would be received very positively by users as it would automatically color code patch cables to an agreed standard by default.

I've posted this here rather than the Designer forum as I hope it will generate positive votes from users and make it more likely that this idea will be taken up by CA.

Decades ago I started using color coding for all kinds of things. Personally, I find it extremely valuable for all sorts of things. Your suggestion sounds good to me as a VM user! If CA decides to implement it (in whole or in part), I hope the implementation would have user flexibility, for example, the ability to not use colors decided by others, the ability to micro-manage personal color choices for CA designated categories, module manufacturer's choices, etc.

Example, for audio cable pairs I use the same color schemes I use for non-virtual cable pairs (probably like many other virtual cable users, I assume). For presets I already have, It would mess me up if either CA's or manufacturer's colors overrode my choices. For new presets, I could choose to keep them or change them to my preferences.

So, cable colors in various categories which show up in preferences as a user map seems like it might work for everyone who wants to systematize cable colors (either CA and module manufacturer defaults or user defaults. (Just so long as it doesn't add CPU load which tends to interfere with audio).

My suggestion is just for the initial choice of color used for a new cable.

It wouldn't change the colors of cables in existing patches and it would be overridable by users just as now.

In the current cable color palette pop-up there are the colors available and a RANDOM button.


What I am suggesting is adding a RECOMMENDED button to this pop-up that if selected would use the color that the module developer recommended to be used by cables plugged into the socket in question.

It wouldn't have any CPU load as it would be just a few lines of code run only once when a new cable was created.

Thanks for the clarification; makes sense. If there were to be a table of built-in recommendations, I wouldn't mind if we could choose our own recommendations. Obviously if each junction is coded with a specific recommendation from the module's designer, there wouldn't be a table of defaults users could edit for themselves.

+1 ! That would be really cool.

That's a great idea but, I'd like to be able to choose my own cable colors

StevenMikel wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 2:08 pm That's a great idea but, I'd like to be able to choose my own cable colors

There are many levels to this debate.

Let's say my recommendation was acted upon. (And CA have told me it's been logged but that just means they are aware of it.)

So you would still be able to do as now and choose your own colors or use the RANDOM function, but you would have the additional option of selecting RECOMMENDED.

What this would mean depends on several things.

At it's simplest selecting RECOMMENDED would mean when you patched from a socket of a module the initial color for the cable would be the color chosen by the module's manufacturer for that particular socket. Now which color that was would be up to the manufacturer but I'm suggesting that CA have a recommended color choice for certain functions that would guide manufactures towards let's say using a particular color for 1 V/Octave pitch CVs.

Let's say we have a debate and even a vote and people decide that green is a good standard color for pitch CV's. And most manufacturers would say OK I think it would be better if it was red or blue or whatever but I will go along with the consensus and use the programming protocol to recommend green for sockets that handle pitch CVs in my modules.

The benefit of this would be that eventually cables carrying pitch signals would usually be green. And tutorials and presets would be easier to understand as green cables would by default indicate a pitch CV signal.

Now I personally would be completely happy with this situation as it would make my life and everybody else's life that bit simpler. I could look at a patch and think OK the green cables are obviously carrying pitch signals and that makes it easier to figure out what all that spaghetti is doing.

BUT. Some people will say F that, I've always used red for pitch cables and nobody is going to force green on me!!!

For such people one option would of course be to not select RECOMMENDED and use the existing setup to customise their own cable colors.

BUT. Some people will say F that. It's not fair that people who think pitch cables should be green have an unfair advantage over me!!!

So we end up either saying it's not worth arguing about the benefits of color standardisation we will just give up and never really know what the hell other people's spaghetti is doing unless we want to trace every single damn cable. Which is essentially where we are now.

OR. To make this last group of people happy we have an additional level of complexity where CA and manufacturers' recommended colors become LOGICAL COLORS rather than actual colors. Then this last group of people can go into some sub-menu and reassign pitch cables to red and say YES!!! finally the world understands my passionate hatred of using green to represent pitch!!!

The problem with this is that it adds a layer of complexity and ambiguity that benefits only those who can't handle the "wrong" color being used. It makes it less likely that the coding effort required will ever be assigned and just by inertia we stay where we are.

Personally I would love to see standardisation with the option for color fetishists to be able to use whatever color they like by not using the RECOMMENDED color option.

Hmmm. I didn't mean this to become a manifesto for cable color standardisation. Sorry!

ColinP wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 3:09 pm

StevenMikel wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 2:08 pm That's a great idea but, I'd like to be able to choose my own cable colors

Hmmm. I didn't mean this to become a manifesto for cable color standardisation. Sorry!

Just chiming in here because I participated in the original discussion. I was comfortable with the reply to my concern back in December, but it looks like there is new discussion here and possibly in other threads.

I don't think its a multiplexed either-or scenario (either manufacturer's recommended colors or CA's standardized colors or user choices, etc.). I think it would be ideal to have flexible color maps that allow for all possible choices based on any of a number of criteria. For example, I might want my own general coloring scheme for audio I/O, MIDI-data types, CV functionality, master-timing controls, etc.), but when inserting and testing new modules I might want to use "recommended" colors (as long as specific colors don't mess up my own preferences--in which case maybe I can change the default recommended color for that manufacturer).

Personally, not having manufacturer recommended colors (or standardized colors) is not a problem for me, but I can understand how having flexible options at some time could benefit module makers and new users.

ColinP wrote: ↑Thu Dec 24, 2020 9:00 am To make standardisation more likely to be adopted I would suggest that the property menu includes "preset" colors for Audio, Sync/Clock, Gate/Trigger, Pitch CV and General CV. Other colors choices being available for specialised signals.

A "none" property option being the default or selectable to revert to the current mechanism.

I think this should be reasonably easy to implement by Cherry Audio and an easy modification for third-party developers to retro-fit and would be received very positively by users as it would automatically color code patch cables to an agreed standard by default.

I've posted this here rather than the Designer forum as I hope it will generate positive votes from users and make it more likely that this idea will be taken up by CA.

I initially took this to mean that you were suggesting that CA have standardized colors (via a properties menu) for use by third-party module developers when they choose third-party manufacturer's recommended colors.

However, in your recent post in the user choice color rotation thread, it seems more like you are advocating the standardized colors as the default for users.

ColinP wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 3:09 pm

StevenMikel wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 2:08 pm That's a great idea but, I'd like to be able to choose my own cable colors

. . . I'm suggesting that CA have a recommended color choice for certain functions that would guide manufactures towards let's say using a particular color for 1 V/Octave pitch CVs.

Again, this is consistent with my original reading of your position.

ColinP wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 3:09 pm

StevenMikel wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 2:08 pm That's a great idea but, I'd like to be able to choose my own cable colors

Personally I would love to see standardisation with the option for color fetishists to be able to use whatever color they like by not using the RECOMMENDED color option.

Now that I see this comment in the context of the user choices for color rotation thread, I think your reference to "color fetishists" and your reference to "RECOMMENDED" show a disrespect for user choices. Your position seems to have changed--at least since it was presented in December. It has changed from wanting standardized colors for the benefit of third-party manufacturers in choosing their recommendations to advocating that those of us who already have preferred color schemes (smart users, not "color fetishists") would have to "opt out" of officially standardized or RECOMMENDED colors.

Again, initially I did not see this matter as an either-or (or a forced-choice) situation.