Confused by 'Perspectives'

[mnailor]

A "perspective" as used in HW5+ Rank Voicing and Rank Routing is one of four copies of the same rank samples, where each copy can have its own user voicing and routing, but they are all playing from the same samples. The user can ignore them if not specifically needed, since perspective 1 is the only one enabled by default. So perspective 1 is just a pass-through, and 2, 3, and 4 are options for advanced users.

A "perspective" as used by some sampleset producers is a stereo recording from one of several mic positions or directions in surround samplesets, such as Front and Rear, or Direct, Diffuse, Distant, and Rear, or a few other terms. Each speaking stop has a rank for each of these perspectives, with its own samples. These perspectives are sometimes also called "channels", although there's a pair of channels per perspective.

The two uses of the word have nothing to do with each other. Confusingly, each sampleset rank "perspective" can be copied to up to four HW rank "perspectives".

(I also have trouble reading the user guide because I can't remember long, italicized phrases as if they were references to objects -- I need a noun, or a noun with one or two adjectives, to remember what I'm reading about. It's thorough and well-written, but presents me with a learning difficulty I never knew I had before.)

[RichardW]

(I also have trouble reading the user guide because I can't remember long, italicized phrases as if they were references to objects -- I need a noun, or a noun with one or two adjectives, to remember what I'm reading about. It's thorough and well-written, but presents me with a learning difficulty I never knew I had before.)

It's not just me then!

Even worse, if I forget something I find myself having to re-read fifty pages of the manual to refresh my memory! I think I am getting too old.

[vpo-organist]

It's not just me then!

Are you surprised? I suspect that 95% of users feel the same way.
In my multi-channel documentation, I have dealt with multi-channel and the basics of Hauptwerk on over 90 pages. The guide is free and I recommend anyone who has unanswered questions to take a look at it.
I have summarized the necessary knowledge in the chapter "The eight-point roadmap" on page seven.

I also address points that are not optimally solved in Hauptwerk. In particular, the fixed designations behind the perspectives (e.g. front1/main or front2/upper, see page eight) cause additional confusion.

On page six I have shown a conveyor belt to illustrate the audio path:
Rank > Perspective > Bus group or primary bus > Audio output.

You have to approach the topic step by step. If you only look at everything at once, you will lose the overview. I'll be honest - it took me years. I looked at it from time to time, didn't understand it and let it go.

[vpo-organist]

Here is a picture
The upper first row shows the audio path from a rank to sound reproduction for a stereo setup (labeled Front in the picture).
The second row is identical to the first row if the third row is omitted, except that an audio group is connected in between, which has no effect.
An audio group with more than one primary bus is used when more than two front speakers are used (labeled Front1 and Front2 in the picture).

[RichardW]

Are you surprised?

No, I am not surprised!

I have spent my working life in IT and I understand some of the problems. The first problem is that it is not possible to write any instruction manual that will suit everyone. If you write it in such a way that a beginner will understand it then an experienced user will be frustrated by the verbosity when all he wants to find is a particular detail. Similarly, if you just put together a reference manual then a less experienced person will probably not be able to join the dots.

The other issue is that Hauptwerk is a very complex program. Part of that is due to the complexity of pipe organs and all the possible differences between existing pipe organs. Then you multiply that up because people have differing audio requirements. Some are happy with headphones while others want to replicate a real pipe organ in a large space using multiples of speakers.

So, decisions have to be made and, unfortunately for me, Hauptwerk has not chosen my preferred route on many occasions. That is not to say there is anything wrong here just that my preferences are not the same.

I could list quite a number of alternative options but here is probably not the place.

EDIT: I just found some of what I think are your posts on a German forum. The comments there would seem to indicate that many people are having issues. The functionality looks to be OK but the interface is problematic to the extent that it may be putting off potential customers.

[vpo-organist]

I just found some of what I think are your posts on a German forum.

I'm Wolfgang alias montre @ vpo-forum.de. Some people has resolved their problems with my multichannel documentation.

Unless there are specific problems with the sound card, I can probably solve all problems with multichannel when it comes to Hauptwerk configuration (I hope). If there is another use case that I don't know about, I will solve it with Martin Dyde's help.

My goal is to help every German user with the topic of multi-channel. I myself have struggled with it long enough. Many people have problems with English, which makes everything even more complicated. My English is not good either and I have to translate a lot with Deepl.com (that's the reason why some things may sound a bit strange ).

[vpo-organist]

The functionality looks to be OK but the interface is problematic to the extent that it may be putting off potential customers.

You'll see - at some point it will make a big ahaaa and you'll get it. Then suddenly everything is easy, really! I felt the same way. I didn't understand it for a long time and then, thanks to a German video by Tom Mayer, I understood half of it and then it took several small steps until I got it.

I think Tom created the video based on Jerry Martin's video, so a big thank you to Jerry Martin at this point!

[dcaton]

I'm probably over-complicating this, but after many years of using Hauptwerk, the Audio still confuses me.

I know this thread is a bit old. Getting caught up here; between a move and other stuff I haven't been checking the forum in a while. The title of this thread caught my eye, because I too have always been confused by "perspectives". I have a Motu 24ao, 12 monitors plus a sub and it all works, but I really have no idea why it works (or whether the configuration is optimal) and that has always bothered me.

I've been using HW for 5-6 years now. I'm a 30+ year computer programmer and in general, pretty good with technical things. I've been fooling around with audio systems since I was a kid, and I spent 14 years running and maintaining the sound system at my church using a complex sound board, so I understand busses and mixdowns and all that. Yet I have never been able to wrap my head around HW's audio system. And I've tried, many times.

I may very well be wrong, but to my knowledge the term "perspective" is not used in the pipe organ world, nor in the audio world. I understand the use of "perspective" when it comes to sample sets, but I could never reconcile this with HW's use of the term. Now that I understand it I think a much better term could have been chosen, but that's water under the bridge.

Sadly, Hauptwerk is not much for diagrams of any kind and the descriptions of every item seem to be sentences that contain many of the same words and if just one of those words ever changes a beginner has to assume that they are two different things.

This. I hate to criticize HW because it's such a fine piece of software and the documentation is pretty thorough, but for the most part the only visuals are screen shots of dialogs. Flow charts of how the audio system works in different configurations would be worth their weight in gold.

In any case, I feel relieved that I am now among the enlightened.

[vpo-organist]

Diagrams without description and screenshots are not optimal, but maybe it helps someone (from my Multi-Channel manual).

Translation German - English:
Tasten - Keys
Register - Stop / Rank
Primärer Bus - Primary bus
Ausgang - Output
Gruppe - Group
oder - or
Umgehung - Bypassing
möglich - possible

see here: Diagrams

[IainStinson]

It may helpful to think of the perspectives in Hauptwerk as copies of the sound being generated for each pipe. Hauptwerk let’s you route these copies to different output locations in the room. Each of the four copies may be adjusted individually, reverb may be added to each copy if you wish. This allows the sounds to create an acoustic space which better mimics the sound of the instrument in its original location or in which the virtual instrument sounds better.

Iain

[vpo-organist]

Ian, that's a good thought too. The users probably understand all the explanations (Rank->Perspective->Group or Bus->Audio output). Sounds easy and once understood it is.
The real problem is that you go to the Hauptwerk interface with this theoretical knowledge and don't find this mental workflow. That's the reason why some intelligent people don't understand it.

I ignored the subject for years, read through the manual umpteen times, didn't understand it and put it aside again. Now I can use Hauptwerk much better and have turned all stereo sets into multi-channel sample sets by using some IR's and especially the IR parameters efficiently.
I have expanded some 4-channel sets to 6-8 channels. It's all wonderful once you understand the workflow. Good IR parameter settings are crucial for a good sound. Simply using an IR without any further changes rarely leads to good results.

[dcaton]

It may helpful to think of the perspectives in Hauptwerk as copies of the sound being generated for each pipe.

Yep. And in fairness to HW, it does say that in the manual. Yet it didn't register with me (and apparently others) despite repeated readings of the relevant documentation. I think my brain just doesn't want to associate the word "perspective" with this multiple-output thing that HW does with pipe samples.

[mnailor]

I notice nobody has suggested what the better and more intuitive word might be. Suggestions?

[dcaton]

I notice nobody has suggested what the better and more intuitive word might be. Suggestions?

Output. Ranks create, or "output" sound, both virtually and in the real world.

In HW, two or more of these "outputs" can be configured to create multiple "perspectives" in the traditional sense of the word, i.e. front, back, near, far, etc., and that may very well have been the intended use for this feature and thus why the term "perspective" was chosen.

Nevertheless, in the Rank Routing to Audio Mixer Buses/Groups dialog, the sections labeled Rank output perspective 1 through Rank output perspective 4 could simply drop the word "perspective" and be labelled Rank output 1 through Rank output 4, and I think that would remove a lot of confusion.

[mnailor]

All the existing "outputs", such as the audio channel pairs that are outputs from mixer buses, would need a new name, then. At least "perspectives" wasn't used elsewhere in HW. I think "perspective" fits its function well.