Table of content
Splash screen
Midi ports setup

User interface

Groovyband Live! user interface has been designed to be used both with a mouse and with your fingers on touch screens. Whatever can be done with a mouse can be also done with touch only, and vice versa. Additionally, some commands can be assigned to physical controls (knobs, sliders, buttons, pedals, foot switches, keys, ribbons, mod wheels, joysticks) provided by external midi controllers.

Input devices

Every type of input device (mouse, touch, physical) has strengths and weaknesses that must be known to make the best use of it. Ideally one should have all of them and use what is best for the task at hand. In practice this is not always possible.

Diagram showing the pros and cons of various means of interaction with the program.

Realistically, for practical uses, a touch screen is strongly recommended. You cannot use a mouse when performing, and you have not enough physical controls to assign every command you will need.

For preliminary software evaluation, a desktop with conventional monitor or a non touch laptop can be used, but do not expect any serious playing with only that. Sooner or later it will be a frustrating experience.

So, we take for granted that you have a touch enabled device (desktop computer or laptop with touch screen, tablet). You can augment it with a mouse (maybe when you are “programming” the software) and/or some midi control surface (or keyboard), to assign the most used commands.

But that, although nice to have, is by no means necessary. A single, touch enabled device (typically a tablet, or a “2 in 1” laptop), is perfectly fit for purpose. The covered screen aspect ratios that let you go full-screen are from 3:2 to 16:9.

Groovyband Live! widgets have generous dimensions and mechanic of interaction that are perfectly fit for touch use. However, for comfort and trouble free use, especially when in the rush of a performance you cannot take away your hands for too long from the actual playing, we suggest a minimum of 12″ screen real estate.

UI building blocks

The user interface is built around a series of repeating building blocks that, as familiar as they can be, is better to study a couple of minute to which user actions (mouse and touch) they respond to. So that you can make the most productive and speedier use of the UI.

UI widgets.

  • Fader

    Click (tap) in a position along its path to instantly move the slider there. Double click (double tap) to reset to its default value. Drag the mouse (swipe) to move the slider. Place the mouse pointer on the fader and turn the mouse wheel to move the slider. Hover with mouse the fader to show its numerical value (instead of the label).

    While dragging or turning the mouse wheel, keep the shift key pressed to increase the precision.

  • Pan slider

    It works like the fader. Where applicable, right click (long press) to change the widget background (second function).

  • Knob

    It works like the fader, but the single click does nothing. Where applicable, right click (long press) to change the widget background (second function).

  • Button

    Click (tap) to activate the main function (if the button has a state the highlight will toggle). Right click (long press) to activate the second function.

    A button that supports the second function has a dot or square in the upper right corner. A square means that something can be saved into the button.

  • Display

    Click (tap) to activate the main function (if supported). It may highlight. If a second function is supported (dot in the top right corner) it can be right clicked (long pressed).

  • Dialer

    Double click (double tap) to reset to its default. Drag the mouse up/down (swipe) to change the value. Place the mouse pointer on the display and turn the mouse wheel to move the slider.

    While dragging or turning the mouse wheel, keep the shift key pressed to increase the precision. Use the side buttons to change one unit at a time.

Full screen mode

To maximize the screen area available for the UI, it is possible to enable a full screen mode that removes the window title bar and hides Windows Taskbar. This mode can be toggled by:

  • Pressing the F11 key. Additionally Shift+F11 will shrink the program in reduced windowed mode so that it is easy to grab the window resizing corners/edges (an operation that can be difficult when the window is expanded to the edges of the screen).

  • Right clicking (long pressing) the top left area of the screen (above the logo/name of Groovyband Live!).

To permanently (and automatically) activate the full screen mode at startup (very useful for those using "small" screen touch devices), it is possible to launch the executable with the command line /fs switch (i.e: Groovyband.exe /fs). You might need to edit the desktop icon properties to add the switch to the command line.