Patchage

Patchage is a click-and-drag interface that mimics the intuitive act of plugging one device's output cable into another device's input port. It doesn't take an experienced sound engineer to understand that to hear a synth sound, you have to plug the synth into the speaker.

The Patchage interface combines all sound devices into one unified panel, and gives you plenty of space to arrange everything exactly as you please. Compared to more structured interfaces (like QJackCtl), this is a very flexible and malleable environment where everything is out where you can see it.

Since Patchage combines everything into one panel, it can be frustrating to find that a [red] ALSA device cannot be plugged into a [green] JACK device, and no [purple] MIDI device can be plugged into ALSA or JACK. There is no visual representation of how these disparate audio subsystems connect.

Connecting devices is as simple as a drag-and-drop, but disconnecting them requires a right-click and a contextual menu.

While some find Patchage's unified interface liberating and clear, others find it cluttered, messy, and confusing.