Rapture Instrument Page Knob Conventions - Thoughts?

I've wrapped my head around Rapture Pro, and am moving forward. All my sounds are showing up, things are working, blah blah blah. This thread IS NOT about people chiming in with "it's working for me too!" or "it sucks!" I'm programming patches, I like what I hear, and I'm currently driving Rapture with an Akai Advance keyboard so I have plenty of hands-on control. 
 
Which brings me to the Instrument page.
 
There are those eight knobs, and that's great. But I need to put some thought into a consistent assignment for the controls. For example, if I'm going to want to change Filter Cutoff a lot, I don't want it to be Macro Knob 1 in one preset, Macro Knob 6 in another preset, and so on. 
 
I had to think about this with Kore as well when not using NI instruments that were pre-mapped. So I started considering what kind of controls I'd want to have mapped for various patches, and so far, have come up with following for typical synth sounds:
 
Filter Cutoff - gotta have that, right?
Amp Envelope Attack - good for expressiveness with swells
Amp Envelope Decay - great for changing the rhythm with percussive patches
Tone control - for example, to pull back the high shelf on the EQs to dullen the sound, or raise to brighten. Maybe a treble control on some patches. or bass control on other patches.
FX 1 "More" control (e.g., more reverb, more chorus, more treble, whatever)
FX 2 "More" control - another one like the above. Could also control pitch for hard sync or something like that
 
So that's six parameters that seem like good macro knob candidates. What about the other two? I was thinking maybe these could be "to be determined" controls. And since you can do macros with multiple parameters, they could be unconventional like "more intense" or "more laid back" by controlling multiple parameters simultaneously.
 
And, what would be a good order for them? I was thinking the first four would map across controls 1 - 4, and the FX controls would be 7 and 8.
 
It might make sense to have different "standards" for different types of instruments. Like maybe guitars would need something different compared to synth pads. It's very convenient that you can include names in nice big letters, but I figure the less I have to read and the more I can just grab a knob instinctively and have it do what I expect it to do, so much the better.
 
Thoughts? Ideas? It might be helpful to have fairly standardized real-time control layouts.
 

No thought through input on knobs at this stage Craig but FYI ...
(Did I read you were in a driving seat at HC again?) 
 
The Harmony Central Forum link is not working for me at present - nor externally - no response. I can get to main page / subtopics and articles but Home Screen slideshow is not rendering either (tried Chrome and Firefox). Could it be backup time and hence some pages offline? I'll try again later.
 
[UPDATE]: Working OK now - as I say ... it may have been backup time at HC :)

Being there are 2 filters per element and 6 elements, to have a convetion that sets up with just one sound handicapping. I think the nature and flexibility of this synth means trying to nailing things down would limit it. The only one of your eight I would definitely have is filter cut off.
 
It's doesn't matter so much to me though as I bypass the programs, and don't use a keyboard with it
 
 
 

Kamikaze
Being there are 2 filters per element and 6 elements, to have a convetion that sets up with just one sound handicapping. I think the nature and flexibility of this synth means trying to nailing things down would limit it.

True, but if the controls were more general (like "more rude") they'd likely be controlling different parameters in different programs to achieve the same general sonic results. One of the RP attributes that simplifies this are the "control all" modulation options, like all the filter cutoffs on all the elements.

Kamikaze
I've also read your comments about the forum for doing market research. I think I then realised the reason for this thread. When I first read it, I thought you were calling for cake to apply the standardised approach, but now I'm thinking it's because as you are developing some patches for content inclusion you are trying to come up with something that appeals to a broader bass. Is that right?

 
That's half of it, the other half is I'm digging the instrument and am developing programs for my own use. So even if these programs weren't going to be distributed, I'd want to come up with a convention to preserve my own sanity. 
 
I agree there probably can't be a "one size fits all" option for individual parameters, but the implementation of general sonic changes like "nastier" or "sweeter" could be left up to the programmer's discretion. That way although you would reach for the same knob in a program to achieve a particular sonic end result, it would almost certainly be implemented very differently for different programs.
 
So far for general categories I'm think about the following, where turning up the knob would give you more of that particular sonic quality:
 

• Nasty (brighter, more distortion, etc.)
• Sweet (mellower, cleaner)
• Animated (like adding chorus, pulse width modulation, detuning, whatever)
• Percussive (faster attack and decay)
• Slower (slower attack and longer decay)
• Morph (change from one sound to a very different one when you turn up the knob)
• Real-Time FX 1 (like adding echo, wah, reverb, etc.
• Real-Time FX 2 (same as above, different effect)

 
Comments?
 
 
 

For me the Rapture PRO is seams like a scam...I pay for what?I cant have it as a stand alone synth?Whay not?comand center activation???That is big scam.I have a logg folder in the Rapture PRO synth...WTF is this?With avery sound what i try to use in Rapture pro,he stop function and ask me to send a raport...That is a scam what cost me monney.My monney.

I am wondering if it could be possible to have more than 8 knobs.  Also, if it's possible to have sliders and/or knobs.  Another possibility is to be able the copy, paste or save the mod matrix configuration so you can move them to other patches..

A bit if a redesign on the instrument page I know.....