Jarsve
Its not only the light guide. But names on the rotary knobs and light guide showing what is sound and not. What is snare drum and what is kick etc. You dont need to set up the rotary knobs. It not only show you what you edit, but also how far your going. Every of the 8 rotary knobs has their own little screens showing this. You should try it before judging it!
I am not judging the unit! I do not own it, but I have shortly touched it. Looks and feels pretty good indeed!
But I have not found any breaking technology which can pretend to be a standard and is sufficiently innovative to declare it private and a subject to license:
1) showing parameter name and value on display near knob is at least as old as VST (open!) standard. You don't need to set up these because someone has done that for you. But try to work with not yet supported by NI VST, and you are at the same point as with ACT/Automap/etc. No special VST extension is required to implement that.
2) light on keys require some additional interface, but it can be as simple as:
class IKeyLight {
void SetLight(UINT from_key, UINT to_key, UINT color);
void GetLight(UIN from_key, UINT to_key, UINT *colors);
};
If plug-in support this (I mean exactly this!) interface and there is some way to send the information to the keyboard (for example with SysEx), it is possible to control lights from plug-in. Do you see something to hide even under NDA or registration in these 4 lines?
3) browsing is specific thing. VST standard has "presets" only (and Sonar support "named presets" for plug-ins and switching them from ANY keyboard/controller!). Changing/replacing current plug-in is DAW specific. NI play "VST host" role there and has it's way. Sonar also support the same, its own way. And so all other DAWs.
So, what you think should become "future standard" for plug-ins and why?