[Wish] Encoder acceleration

[Dolphinado]

Although I really appreciate just how much fine-grained control the encoders on the front panel of the AM4 give you, as it currently stands, it's not really viable to use them for more coarse-grained changes (e.g. changing a value by >1.5 in one turn of the knob) - you have to really crank that knob over and over again like you're using a ratcheting screwdriver to achieve bigger jumps in value. This feels pretty unnatural and inefficient, both compared to other modelers and analog gear. It's actually far more efficient to type that same greater value into the field in AM4-Edit than it is to crank the encoder that many times, and something about that doesn't feel right to me.

What if the encoders instead took acceleration into account? So the faster you turn the knob, the greater the change in value in that one turn? And the slower you turn the knob, the more fine-grained the change in value?

This would allow the best of both worlds IMO - you'd still have the incredibly fine-grained control we're all used to on Fractal front panels, but with the optional ability to make bigger changes. If this worked I think the trick would be in fine-tuning the acceleration to make it feel natural. I'm pretty sure there are other products with digital encoders that implement something like this, but I can't remember which ones off the top of my head.

 

[laxu]

This would be nice.

The algorithm should also behave differently based on the parameter, because e.g delay or reverb times can range from a few milliseconds to several seconds and that's a huge scale for one knob to handle where you want not only very precise control in the low range, and the ability to get to the larger values easily.

The Quad Cortex has so far been the digital modeler with the most natural feeling acceleration curves to me.

 

[Smittefar]

What if the encoders instead took acceleration into account? So the faster you turn the knob, the greater the change in value in that one turn? And the slower you turn the knob, the more fine-grained the change in value?

They actually do that, but not to a sufficient degree. Even if I turn quickly, I still need several turns to go from 0-10 on the amp gain knob. Especially for adjusting amp front panel parameters the encoders move too little