I can relate to that. I think I’ve maybe tried out 10% of all the plugins, not including the betas.
3 Likes
I must say that I love this initiative @FistfulOfStars 
I can tell you that i use quite a lot the OBXD. This is the first that I remember that is great, it’s in beta and does not have a GUI. I use a couple more that are beta, but do have GUI.
@jesse, any idea?
Yes.
3 Likes
A lot of the GUIs we’re done by our Graphic Designer, I think this was the case for the Calf plugins but I will have to confirm
4 Likes
Tbh, same!
I don’t use beta plugins on any of my boards if I can avoid them. I honestly had no idea which ones were being used regularly or that were safe to install performance-wise lmao
3 Likes
Thanks @FistfulOfStars for the initiative here. I do think that if people enjoy designing the GUIs there is no harm moving forward
In regard to whether there should be a consistent style and if there should be a guideline, maybe I can shed a bit of light
We have a spectrum of users that ranges from tinkerers and developers up to pure guitarists who are borderline technophobic. We have guys who are at home in linux and love to SSH into their device and manually adjust plugin parameter values, and we have guys who are at home on MacOS or even just devices like the HX Stomp and very much want a polished out of the box experience and may even be put off by inconsistent or unexpected interaction
We have to cater to both. If the platform is to grow, it needs to be an easy and clean experience for any user. At the same time, we want to provide for the guys who are keen to dig deeper and for the devs that want the freedom to make what they want to make
The end goal is that there are 2 plugin environments: Official and Labs (currently beta)
For plugins to make it into the Official store, they will have to make it past the scrutiny of the MOD team. This is so that we can ensure a clean, consistent out of the box experiance. So GUIs will have to follow our design guide to make it through. So if the community are to make a GUI for plugin, of course the dev should approve it, but if the intention is for it to be in the offical store, it will need to be approved by MOD at the last stage
I know this is frustrating to hear because we haven’t given a design guide yet so it’s very subjective but it will come soon and in the mean time, we can offer feedback to get it to that point
As for the Labs/Beta environment, you guys can feel free to work with devs to make GUIs for plugins that don’t have one yet. We at MOD will give feedback if it’s wanted
I don’t believe the work would go to waste. Just be sure to keep your working files so that things can be adjusted as time goes on and the guideline takes form. Every new GUI better informs the process and the guideline
13 Likes
Sorry for hijacking this a bit, but: Did you ever had the discussion about the purposes of the design in general?
I see how new and non technical users might be interested in something which reminds one of hardware. But as a user who worked with some node based workflows, the MOD UI feels super bloated. I’d rather have a very simplistic, modern approach which also doesn’t waste much space and takes advantage of actually being software 
Not that extreme like Poly Effects (MaxMSP, PD, vvvv, Reactor, you name it) does because then you don’t have a single clue on what’s going on. More in these directions:
Bitwig Grid
Blender
Resolume Wire
I’m bringing this up here because it might be way easier to create simplistic interfaces like this than having anything “designy”. Perhaps even in an automated way. Perhaps this would actually save you from the task to come up with a comprehensive “design guide”.
10 Likes
The purpose of the design guide is exactly to reduce the amount of wasted space, to make things more control/information dense while still retaining some recognisable resemblance to hardware devices. This is still important for many users, especially guitarists
We indeed have thought about and even discussed here before, having an optional “simple mode” that turns all plugins into nodes that just show the title and labels for their IO
From the Plugin Artwork topic ^
7 Likes
So basically yes! I like the idea and I do think it will be nice if we can do that in the future. It’s already a ticket in our system and I will add your suggestion there as another insight that puts more weight on it. I really like node based editing too!
This will not replace GUIs though. Some people just relate to it much more and want to have access to all controls in context. There is definitely still a need for GUIs
7 Likes
I decided to open a separate topic for that to keep this thread focused: State of the current plugin UI/UX
8 Likes
Hi all, first post here. Background as a graphic designer (though not my current work). Musically I’m a guitarist and tinkerer. I love the faux hardware look of the plugins, and get a lot of my joy when designing my pedalboards just from neatly arranging all my pedals! One of the first things I have to do upon downloading someone else’s pedalboard is neaten everything up! LOL - I think I’m getting OCD!
@Klaustrophil 's screengrabs of other editing environments are interesting. I think a lot of that efficiency and neatness of signal flow could be achieved by simply having some adjustable parameters for the leads. A tension parameter allowing them to sag or tighten would be good for a lot of layouts, as well as a way to select pancake connecters (or even direct attachment like the Bitwig Grid widgets) so pedals can be placed much closer without graphic kludges as the connecters fight for on-topness.
Generally this project is a great thing and I’d love to help out the community in the spirit of open-source.
7 Likes
Back to the original topic @FistfulOfStars
Since I’m learning more about how the forum works, I realised it’s possible to make a post into a “Wiki” which means that anyone can edit it
Meaning we could turn you original post into a Wiki so that anyone can add to a list of beta plugins they would like to have a GUI
9 Likes
Interesting. When I get a chance, hopefully this weekend, I’ll format it and open it up as a wiki.
2 Likes
Ok, I’ve tried to format it in a way that makes sense, created ‘polls’ for the plugins already mentioned, and made it into a ‘wiki-style’ post.
The forum limits polls to 20 items, so I split it into “Calf” and “non-Calf” - I think it’s pretty obvious that a LOT of people want ALL the Calf plugins, so I treated that one as a prioritization indicator.
Another forum limitation means that we can’t edit these polls after 5 minutes, so we can’t add plugins without losing the votes cast. For now I’m leaving it, but we’ll need to find another solution I think.
We’re going to need a way to figure out what the (non-gui) status of these plugins are - i.e. are they ready for release and just need a GUI, or is heavy work required on the plugin itself before it’s stable.
I have not added this to the list.
I looked, and can not see a functional difference between that beta plugin and the “Switchbox 1-2 ST” plugin which is already released and has a GUI. Is there a reason you are using the beta version? Right now it looks to me like it’s just a redundant plugin that needs to be purged from the repository.
MOD team: Is there some way we as the community can help facilitate cleanup of some of these plugins that appear to be redundant, like the switchboxes? Or are these not actually redundant?
5 Likes
These should really be called Airwindows. That is the DSP code, and I was very much confused with this name.
Maybe just link to https://github.com/hannesbraun/airwindows-lv2 as well, to be clear.
1 Like
Just now seeing the poll. the 3 Band EQ already has a GUI, I just never pushed it to the store because the plugin is too simplistic and there are better EQs now.
1 Like
Since polls are uneditable, I don’t think they will work for this task. I’ve changed them to simple tables instead. This is unfortunate, but necessary - though I don’t think most users will understand how to edit the wiki post to add their vote, so it may be fruitless.
Names, URLs, and Authors were all pulled directly from the official plugin store data.
I’ve updated the URLs to the one you suggested, however I am leaving the Author as it was - This is used to identify plugins. For example, if there were two plugins with the name “Parametric EQ” the Author would be the only differentiation. If this information needs to change, it needs to happen on the store end first.
I’ve marked it as deprecated, but 3 people already voted for it. If people are actively using it despite it not even having a GUI, it may be worth reconsideration of whether it deserves a spot in the repo.
5 Likes
The “author” in itself is correct, what is actually missing is the “brand” tag.
The airwindows plugins should have it shown by brand, not by author. The store will show brand if one is set, otherwise fallback to the author name.
It is a mistake assuming that naming is correct for plugins in beta anyway.
5 Likes
I’m not assuming that the beta naming is correct, merely stating that this list needs to reflect what the plugin store indicates (right or wrong) to avoid confusion.
If a user goes to the beta plugin store based on this list looking for “Vibrato” they are going to see two options, neither of which indicate “Airwindows” They will, however be able to find Vibrato by Hannes, because that’s what the store currently shows. When the store’s info changes, this list will reflect that.
7 Likes
Hello guys,
I’m using a single combined Highpass Lowpass EQ called The Pilgrim by Articanaudio I installed some time ago.
You find it in the Modulator section of the Beta Plugin Store.
Some remarks:
- It would be nice for the frequency dial values to show the current value in Hz or kHz.
- Maybe the GUI shown here at kvr would be nice.
Is there alternatively another simple DJ-style stereo high / lowpass available?
Greetings and God bless, Marius
5 Likes
I can actually change the “poll maximum options” and the “poll edit window mins” if that helps
3 Likes