[LMMS-devel] ENV/LFO idea...

[Vesa <di...@nb...>]

I suddenly had an idea.

The basic idea comes in two parts:

1. Introduce a new type of native plugin: note effect. These are effects
which work the same as effect plugins, but they get applied for the
note-specific audiostreams. Of course this means they only function on
non-MIDI-based, native multistream instruments (basically, all where the
env/lfo tab currently works).

2. Remove the ENV/LFO tab. And replace it with a "note fx" tab which
provides a separate fx chain for note effects. These get applied before
the actual fx chain effects, which are applied on the mixed audiostream.

Details:

- We would provide the envelope, LFO, filter and filter envelopes which
currently exist in the ENV/LFO tab as note effects. For backwards
compatibility, in old projects these would be added to the note fx chain
in the same order that they are applied in the ENV/LFO tab now.

- The user could mix and match note effects and put them in any order
they want. We could provide different kinds of envelopes (basic ADSR,
drawable graph, vector graph, other?), different kinds of filters,
different kinds of LFOs, effects with envelopes, effects that are aware
of the note frequency, pitch bends, etc.

- Regular effects could be added to the note fx chain, but note fx could
not be added to regular fx chains (for obvious reasons: they need note
data). This would, for example, allow the user apply a phaser, reverb or
something else before applying the volume envelope or filter on the note
- which isn't possible now. This would effectively make every LMMS
instrument into a powerful modular synth.