I don’t know the definitive history of RMX or many audio plug-ins, but a funny thing happened along the way. As more and more instruments became virtual, the visual aspect of the software sought to mimic the physicality of the original devices that inspired the software in the first place. More so than any other software product category I can think of. I suppose this is a natural response. Many musicians are dogmatic about the feel and arrangement of their instruments, so I couldn’t image that anyone would want their drum machine to feel any different on a computer display any more than a guitarist would want the strings removed from his guitar (Is that even a valid analogy?).

I guess this is where my particular fascination comes in. Virtual instruments are meant to be a reasonable facsimile of some device real or imagined – but usually the later; however inspired by something real. As an industrial designer, I propose many imagined products with the intent that they will become real. So there is a natural connection between virtual instruments and what I do professionally. These instruments are like interactive design renderings. Cool!

There are arguments amongst instrument designers that propose that we should ignore heritage and move forward with an entirely new interaction model or visual style at least. I think this is great and I wish more virtual instrument interaction designers would push this boundary. But as mentioned above, most of us have ties to some old Roland or Yamaha device stuck in a closet. In fact, this connection is so strong that companies like Mackie and M-Audio have made products to add physicality back to the these software packages with their control surfaces. So we’ve come full circle. We moved all our equipment into the virtual computer space just to get more equipment to interact with it in our physical space again. Of course, this a very simplified view of it all.

Ok… So as a side note, one of the things I love about OS X is that most every application is made-up of what Apple calls packages. They are essentially containers for all the bits of an application. The reason that I like this is because if there is something about an app that I don’t like or would prefer to be different, then it is pretty easy to go edit the bits and change the way things work or look. Changing the fundamental interaction of an application can be more tricky, but not impossible.

So what does this have to do with Spectrasonics Stylus RMX? Well, it happens to be one of my favorite drum modules for Logic. I’ve programmed plenty of beats and rhythms using drum machines (both physical and virtual – oh, and I’m not a drummer, by the way) but RMX makes it fun and it helps me flesh out my ideas quickly. Percussion rhythms are largely about texture and RMX allows me to play with those textures in real time as a whole thought rather than just little pieces strung together.

One thing that troubles me in RMX however, is the GUI. I’m not sure what it is about it; maybe the gratuitous use of purple, or that things aren’t quite centered (yeah, I’m visually obsessive compulsive like that) or what it is, but I always found it bit distracting. Even before I bought it, it bothered me. I bought it anyway…

So I did what any good Mac user/designer would do – I spent a couple days re-skinning the whole application. This is the third music application that I’ve re-skinned for my own personal enjoyment but it also happened to be the most extensive. (I also re-skinned the mixer panel for my RME Fireface 800. RME even references how proud they are of how they lifted the visual style from Cubase – of course it’s Cubase circa 1995 in all its 8-bit glory. Hmmmph.)

When I’m visually reengineering an application, there are inevitably things that I would want to change but can’t because all the “hit” points or interaction areas are hard-coded in the software. As mentioned earlier, everything in RMX is off-center. I think this was intentionally done to make things center-justified to the channel select elements at the bottom, which were pushed to left to make room for the file browser area. But it propagates throughout every screen and it probably annoys me more now than it did before I started (a lesson learned maybe?). But I did the best I could with trying to make everything feel balanced.

One of the things about renderings is that they are meant to be a bit cartoonish in their execution. They are tools to communicate proportion, use of materials, user interaction and so on – so shiny things need to look really shiny, metal should feel metallic, etc… They should be more real than real and not photographic because that’s boring. I’m not sure if it’s all working here, but it was a fun project that took longer than I would have liked. I am satisfied with the result for now and if I don’t like it in the future, I can always change it. Yay!