Good Ideas for Composite

Abstract

From various sources I've been given lots of great ideas about composite. Many of them, I don't have a place to put them. Either they are too raw for the specification, or they belong with the implementation details. This document is a dumping ground for these ideas. They'll be removed once they find an appropriate place.

I'm open to doing this on a Wiki... I just need to find a host for the Wiki site. Gitorious has one... but I'm not sure how many non-coders want to set up a Gitorious account. Google Sites looks OK, but it's not integrated well with the Google Group. Y'all let me know.

UI & GUI

• Audio/Data routing needs to be flexible and un-cumbersome. I'm thinking about abstracting it ("This scene has 2 audio outs and 3 data/midi outs... all with names like main_out_L, main_out_R, synth_out_1, synth_out_2.") When you drop a clip, it pops up and asks which output you want it connected to.
• Routing: consider a matrix as seen in Ardour 3 or on one of the mockups that preceded the implementation: http://thorwil.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/matrix_global_09_b_2.png. (T. Wilms)
• Support for jazz comping (especially reharmonization) would be a bright feature.
• CLI version for people who are vision impaired and fast-machine impaired.
• Good programmers write good code. Great programmers steal great code.
• Input parameters for sequences. Allow sequences to be triggered via MIDI notes. Either trigger or gate mode. Optionally take velocity into account. Map a sequence to a range of notes and transpose accordingly. Think about rows in a piano-roll that can be mapped to notes (continuous, specific scales, drum-kit style), sequences, events.
• Arpeggiator: Interpret the notes in a sequence as slots. Trigger the sequences with a chord. Notes will be replaced by the notes of the chord.

• In matrix view... when screen gets larger the groups re-flow. When smaller, they line up linearly... horizontally. In fact, we should probably only allocate slots when we need them.

  +-------+      +--------+
  |GROUP  |      |GROUP   |
  +=======+ ===> +========|
  |(BLANK)|      |Loop1   |
  +-------+      +--------+
                 |(BLANK) |
                 +--------+
  

  The problem with this scheme is that it makes it really hard to do horizontal grouping because things may need to be "massively" rearranged after dropping a new clip.

• Parameter automation (like volume).
• Define larger port groups. E.g. "Mains" would be 2x audio in, 2x audio out, 1x MIDI in, 1x MIDI out. "Aux" might be user-defined (e.g. 1x MIDI in, 1x MIDI out). When dropping a clip, user selects either "Mains" or "Aux." The clip routes the adio in the "right" way.
• Use radial menus for context menus.

Implementation

• Consider to use the ingen back-end to handle plugins and connections.
• It's possible that Hydrogen and Composite could share a lot of code. Is it possible to bring out those parts and share them in a coordinated way?
• Maybe there could be one module (meant in a very loose sense) that takes care of mapping events to actions (includes doing MIDI bindings). Another module that handles event quantization (like delay playing a loop until the next bar starts).
• Consider to start with only handling either audio or MIDI.
• Consider Ingen, RtAudio, Jack API, Evoral, TSE.
• Consider using GTKmm to utilize the Cairo Vector lib. E.g. Ardour and Firefox.

Misc.