SR Interface polishing and improvements – Sonarworks Support Center

I have just purchased Reference 4 license after some weeks of experimentation. I'm impressed with its capabilities. For now, I'd like to report some interface problems and room for improvements:

1) Systemwide sliders (Dry/Wet, Gain, Bass Boost and Tilt) should work also with finger sliding on touch screens. As for touch inputs, sliders are currently operational only through single touching, what is very imprecise.

2) SW VST plugin does not respond to user's first touch input. The user have to touch twice on the first desired command to have an effective input. This occurs also after playing with sliders and many on/off buttons. Strangely, finger sliding DOES WORK on VST plugin, what does not occur on Systemwide. Also, it would better if VST plugin interface behavior imitates the Systemwide interface on other points like Listening Spot on/off condition without having to open its menu, toggling on/off Predefined Target Curves do not open automatically its menu, Dry/wet through slider rather than dial, raise to limit of profiles on drop-down menu from 3 to 5 (or even more) last opened profiles.

3) As for profile drop-down menu, it would be better to show only headphone or speaker profiles, according to the selected headphone/speaker button.

4) Being the gain slider topped to the maximum safe headroom level, this level should be automatically topped after changing profile, what does currently occurs only when changing to a profile with a lower safe level. Also, disabling Sonarworks SR through on/off button should turn off Safe Headroom. Currently, if the user intends to raise gain to 0db for a SR-off condition, he/she has to remember to turn Safe Headroom button off before turning SR off. Turning SR back on should also turn Safe Headroom back on, for the sake of non momentarily clipping.

5) I think the SR and Safe Headroom on/off conditions, selected profile and Output Gain should be automatically set to its last state for a given audio interface, so the user should not always incur in changing those SR parameters for particular and stable settings of, would say, internal speaker, headphone and external interface.

6) Finally, it would be nice if there would be no audible transient noise (being it filtered through a quick fading out/in transition) when changing calibration profile, output gain, predefined target curves, bass boost/tilt and any other parameter or slider that causes subtle audio changing.

7) A label for the Systemwide position on taskbar (Windows) would be nice. It's currently blank when taskbar labels are not hidden.

Hope I'm not looking too boring for such things. Just like to humbly contribute with this great software.

Kārlis Stenders July 23, 2019 09:20 (Edited February 02, 2023 09:47)

Hi Antonio,

Thanks for the detailed feedback, very much appreciated!

We actually haven't done any development or testing for touch screens yet. I'll make sure the developers get the memo and see what we can do about it. I have also taken note of the IU improvements you're suggesting, although some of those points are there by design. For example, the recently used profile section contains both speaker and headphone profiles to access them with two clicks only. It only contained speaker or headphone profiles respectively, you'd have to click three times to access the desired profile. There are five profile options in that drop-down menu - way more than most of our users need, so it makes sense to us. You're always welcome to convince us otherwise though, we'll have an objective look.

Safe Headroom level - definitely, this is one of the things that haven't been properly automated. But we need to be careful in that regard, the volume logic cannot be compromised - it's essential that the volume doesn't jump up and down when switching between profiles (or turning Systemwide on/off for that matter - all of those need to give smooth experience and also A/B test things in the same volume).

Different settings for different output channels/devices are partly in place already (make sure to update to 4.3.3.58 beta for the smoothest experience - it's available in the installer). We will continue making improvements in the coming months, and you'll see exactly what you're looking for - different user presets and specific settings assigned to specific outputs.

Point taken about the labels too. By the way, in the latest version, there's a new function to the SW icon in the icon tray: press Alt + left mouse click on the SW icon to enable/disable the correction!

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