FabFilter

Just bought Pro-Q 4... Can't believe the hype on the UI. The unnecesarily massive sliding gain/frequency/Q thing on the bottom is IN. THE. WAY. It's an eyesore while i'm trying to observe the bloody spectrum underneath it. Why on earth is it good UI design to put a massive floating UI element anywhere vertically on the exact frequency range I'm EQing? Can you imagine the board meeting while planning this?

Ok, so you know those knobs that control gain, freq, and Q for the node that's currently selected? Instead of keeping them out of the way in a bar at the bottom somewhere, let's uNdOcK tHeM!

Oh ok. Good idea! I think? So is this to make the UI cleaner and more minimal? Clear up space on the plugin window to see more of the frequency, uncluttered? — Nope. We're gonna make the dynamic floaty UI huge and stick it on top of the spectrum area.

So then, is this to let the user choose where to put the floaty UI to suit their own workflow? — No. We'll make the floaty UI slide around dynamically!

Oh ok cool. So it'll get out of your way automatically, and intuitively! So I assume if you're working in the 8k range for example, it'll place itself on the left so it's out of the way? — No. We're gonna put it RIGHT AT 8k! Right on top of the waveform at the exact spectrum you're editing!

Can you move it? Hide it? Maybe have an alternative setting, like go back to docked? Maybe docking on the side? Make it disappear? — Yeah! It will disappear!

Oh phew, you were scaring me for a second. So like, when you go back to editing on that 8k node, it'll stay gone so you can now see the spectrum you were targeting, where the floaty UI was covering up before? Right? — NOPE! It'll come right back the second you try to do that! ◡̈

Do your UI people at Fabfilter use your own products? It's beautiful, but it blows fuses in my head to work with this plugin. No — I'm not going to get used to working at 8k while I can't see 8k. Come on!

Did you demo the product before you purchased?

I've been using the Pro Qs since the very first one. This has always driven me insane and I cannot believe that there is no option to move it. It blows my mind. Improvement after innovation after improvement after innovation, and still that intrusive little panel still follows me around when I'm trying to do surgical work. I don't know how many times I've tried to pinpoint resonances, with the size ALL the way up on my huge monitor, and it's still a pain to see what I'm doing.

I'm not sure what's with Pete's comment above but its fallacious and deflective. As if demoing it or not demoing it first has anything to do with this worthy criticism. The OP is absolutely right.

I will continue supporting Fab Filter, but this one thing continues to boggle my mind, and I fully support anyone who continues to voice concern about it.

It boggles my mind that someone would first purchase a good, and then bitch about it.

After all there's a 30 day free trial. If you don't like it move on. Don't diss something because you didn't do your homework.
It's the OP's fault for not understanding what they purchased.

My comments are not fallacious or deflective. How can that be fallacious or deflective?

If you support expressing ideas, then fully understand that I think you're missing the point you should move on as well, as it appears you are missing an intelligence chromosome.

LMo and Angel, thank you for your feedback. There is indeed no way (currently) to remove the parameter display. However, when using the small ui, it will be hidden automatically.

We never got a whole lot of feedback about this, so we never felt the urge to do something about it. Maybe not the answer you were looking for, but did you try another analyzer scale? When setting a smaller scale the analyzer might give you the visuals you're looking for without the parameter display being in the way.

@Pete easy there, defensive. 😄 My work must be just more demanding on detail than yours as I need to see more of the frequency spectrum. Just trolling ya.

@Ralph, looks like it's the "mini" size that removes it. And yeah, now that's what I'm talking about! Clean UI with nothing in my way. Look at all that beautiful, useful graphical data that is otherwise covered up! It seems that if it's removable by window size, it wouldn't be too hard to toggle it with other sizes. No?

Looks like I'm not the only one who is interested in using this plugin while hoping for this option. And I'm not the only one who is frustrated by this one part of the UI. To most it's not an issue — to me it's glaring. I'm set on using this plugin as many of my colleagues use it, and consistency of plugin usage is a boon to us for a current project. There are a lot of things I love about it. Definitely a feature request for me, and I personally think you might be surprised at user feedback after making it toggleable. Like taking the roof off a convertible. Thanks for responding!

Like Ralph said, you can use the analyzer settings to change the spectrum gain range so the area you're interested in becomes visible above the band controls area. Also, you can click on the background to deselect all bands and hide the band controls temporarily.

Cheers,