Cleaning up the UI

I'm about to make a prototype of the UI, and have been cleaning up the grid a bit. This is what it looks like right now:

 

Inspired by the Matrixbrute, I started adding boxes around the related parts. The spacings are way off, but it should give some idea as to how things are grouped:

 

I do have some problems with this though. The vertical slits don't line up, in fact, they make the whole thing look a bit messy. 

I did also make a ready-for-lasercutting mode, that adjusts all line thicknesses and changes pot and button sizes to fit the shafts, ready for prototyping. Here is the left panel again:

 Now, to see if I could do any better, and after looking at the Waldorf Quantum, I came up with the following (crude) version

 It follows a slightly more logical structure, with the sources top left, then the mixer and post-mixer effects. It also groups the LFO and Arp in two separate two-row areas which gives a nice balance. There is not quite enough room for everything, especially the Arp controls, and I've decided to remove the bit crusher level pot as it isn't particularly useful. I do like this quite a bit. 

Then I decided to color the current version too, and to my surprise, I think it looks cleaner than it did with the "real" colors:

I think I can make both versions work. I will prototype the finished version now, and perhaps I'll have time to revisit the second version in the future.

As for the right side - it also needs a bit of cleanup, there is no room for the frame here, and I guess I should redo the filter to work better visually on the 8 row grid if I choose to go with the modified left side. 

 

I also think I'll probably ditch the post-filter bit crusher as that can be done by a general DSP, and maybe I'll make a smaller group of pots and no screen (or small oled screens?) for the DSP part. I have even been thinking about doing per-voice FX, or at least chorus, though that would mean not using the FX send lines. We'll see.