Disclaimer: I’ve been an LV1 user for a years now and I’ve been here since v10. So I have something to share, but I want to avoid “bad/good” feelings about it. Is the simple elaboration on waves UI.
Some comments with contenct was marked as spam by akismet. I need to wait to add it later.
In fact I love the way Waves handles the design in general, but I have to say that we live in 2023 and something like material design, flat design, easy-to-read high contrast design is something that is on the throne now and I think it will be even simpler and more readable during the time.
So overall “3D simulating design” isn’t something which feels modern and fresh. But we can live with this if it is handled correctly.
In opposite: gray text on a darker gray background is the thing that is very hard to read because of eye issues (if any). I have to say that a good contrast ratio between background and text is something that has to be at the very top place in UI design.
Major issue is the “CPU value” in A B C D view, which is dark gray on a darker gray background.
Fix: Use the white color on the dark gray background for important info like CPU usage.
Same issue with User buttons there is unnecessary gray background under text. Which is simulation “some 3D rubber button” but in fact with the black background only color/bg ratio can be increased very well. And readability will be improved!
The top rack panel is shifted to the right a bit which is strange. It looks like is not aligned with the oher content (red)
Look at the inner content panel for patch. The border is shifted in the opposite way (yellow mark).
I know that it is “3D border design” which has “glare, gloss” emulation but in overall look it looks unaligned if not handled properly.
Fix: Don’t use 3D borders, or align it in the middle axis of the border.
Gray text on a darker gray background is the thing that is very hard to read because of eye issues (if any). I have to say that a good contrast ratio between background and text is something that has to be at the very top place in UI design.
Major issue is the “CPU value” in A B C D view, which is dark gray on a darker gray background.
Fix: Use the white color on the dark gray background for important info like CPU usage.
Same issue with User buttons there is unnecessary gray background under text. Which is simulation “some 3D rubber button” but in fact with the black background only color/bg ratio can be increased very well. And readability will be improved!
The top rack panel is shifted to the right a bit which is strange. It looks like is not aligned with the oher content (red)
Look at the inner content panel for patch. The border is shifted in the opposite way (yellow mark).
I know that it is “3D border design” which has “glare, gloss” emulation but in overall look it looks unaligned if not handled properly.
Fix: Don’t use 3D borders, or align it in the middle axis of the border.
The bottom rack panel border is again “simulating 3D” so it has bright color on the top (simulating glare) and darker color on the bottom. Which from overall perspective looks like the rack isn’t a part of the mixer.
And the Channel strip is not from top to the bottom but is “cuted” in the middle because of this border.
And in my opinion it breaks the good easy to feel/read/see attitude that the channel strip is from top to the bottom… this border isn’t even necessary i think. (yellow)
Fix: do not use the bottom border, or make it the same width and color as the vertical one.
Same as the previous point: The borders middle axis intermediations are not aligned. (red)
This is huge for me. V14 introduced a new layout and Channel labels are now in the middle of the channel strip. I think this is a very bad decision because this position is not fixed - so users’ muscle (eye) memory is broken here.
In the “all mon” view it jumps to a different position… BUT the master fader stays in the same place… This is very weird behavior.
Fix: Put labels at the very bottom of the channel strip. In this position can be the SAME for all faders including channels, masters, dca And in Channel view too. This place never moves…and this adds more margin for the Cue button from the bottom (because label create this margin) and this helps with cue buttons accessible with bigger hands. (buttons at very edge is not accessible well in general)
Keep the eye memory on the same spot, please!
The tap button is placed at the very top of the screen aside the others buttons with similar behavior.
The major issue with the Tap button is that CLR TALK is a “main” action (pink) and is placed at the bigger(top) area of the button. But the TAP button’s main action, the “Tap” actually is placed on the bottom which is smaller and not easy to touch.
The secondary action (blue) for the Tempo is the input value…like settings of the Cue, Talk and i think have to be placed at the bottom place.
Fix Swap TAP and BPM positions.
Note: Yes i know that the bottom button is small to hold all info like 120 BPM and the dot. So my tip is blinking with the whole TAP button to imitate the tempo, and the dot can be removed. And another tip: I think the “bpm” is not significant info because there is no other unit to choose so the whole LV1 is “BPM” only. So every user who knows that LV1 is BPM only has to know that 120 means 120 BPM. Be hones… BPM is everywhere… so everybody who uses any DAW or Console… knows that tempo is BPM 
Note 2: I use a TAP a lot and I have it on the User custom because the placement (top of the screen) is far far away from my hands… I like to have these “quick” buttons as close as possible to my hands (it means at the bottom of the screen). I think the perfect place for this is like an “ALL” button is placed. But if the main action position will be swapped with secondary (like screenshot below) I think it will be time to try to use the factory TAP button, and not the user button patched by myself.
The input patch is visible only for selected mode if you are on A you see “A patch” if you are on B you see the “B patch”. I think there is some spare space to split the select in half and make two selects for A and B side by side to see/patch A/B separately without doing a FLIP. In fact the same size as in the mixer window.
In general this is an uncommon thing. Almost nobody has faders on +10 doesn’t? But if yes the fader hides the peak value.
Fix: swap the fader db info with peak info. In fact you know that your fader is at +10.
If you are changing the fader the value is present, but when you stop the value disappears. This values can be there anytime
.
If you are on a mixer view you don’t have any clue if your cues are input, pre or post.
Fix: You can change the color of the button if you are on input (green), pre (violet), post (orange). Referring to the colors in channel view or patch.
Same issue as Cue.
Fix: I dont know exactly how this can be fixed. Only guessing, maybe the Fader value which is Blue can be changed to orange when is in POST and Violet when is the PRE, but this needed more user testing.
I don’t disagree with any of this but there are usability issues and missing features that have been discussed and requested for years that really need to be addressed before any small UI discrepancies.
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