Qtractor 0.1.3

[Rui Capela]

Name: Qtractor
Version: 0.1.3
Type: KDE Sound Application
Depend: Qt 4.x
License: GPL
Homepage: http://qtractor.sourceforge.net
More Info:
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=56325

Description:
 Qtractor is an Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer
application written in C++ around the Qt4 toolkit
using Qt Designer. The initial target platform
will be Linux, where the Jack Audio Connection Kit
(JACK) for audio, and the Advanced Linux Sound
Architecture (ALSA) for MIDI, are the main
infrastructures to evolve as a fairly-featured
Linux Desktop Audio Workstation GUI, specially
dedicated to the personal home-studio.

Changelog:
 0.1.3  2008-05-02  The Frugal Damsel

- As one may find convenient sometimes, the global
time display format (frames, time or BBT) may now
be changed on the main transport time spin-box
context menu.

- Left-clicking on the track list number column
now toggles all track content clip selection.

- Prevent audio-buffer initialization mashups when
editing short audio clips while playback is
rolling and within clip region.

- Audio peak files gets a bit simplified, dropping
the peak frame count from its header; peak
waveform graphics are now rendered as straight
lines when over the end of audio file.

- The drop-span option (View/Options.../Drop
multiple audio files into the same track) now also
applies when importing tracks (as in Track/Import
Tracks/Audio...) to concatenate multiple audio
clips into one and the same new track.

- Audio and MIDI meter level colors are now user
configurable (as global configuration options,
View/Options.../Display/Meters) 

- First attempt for Qt4.4 build support, regarding
the bundled atomic primitives, which have changed
upstream as advertised (thanks to Paul Thomas, for
spotting this one first time).

- Record monitor switch is now an accessible
button option on all track mixer strips; for
visual consistency, the old bus "thru" switch
button has been renamed to "monitor".

- Force track-view position reset to origin on
session close.

- Fixed segfault on inserting an external file
into files widget.

- Mixer splitter sizes are now better
saved/restored when closed.

- Track record monitoring is now a state option,
being toggled from the Track/State/Monitor menu;
applies both to audio end MIDI tracks: when set
all input will be pass-through to the current
assigned output bus, including track plug-ins
chain.

- Session dialog gets split in its own tab
components, between descriptive, time and view
configuration ones.

- Drifting correction among audio and MIDI engines
is now back, but avoided while recording or should
it be while looping? (EXPERIMENTAL REGRESSION)

- Time-stretching percent value gets its semantics
inverted, as thought consistent with ones general
sense for relative stretching ie., lower to shrink
and higher to make longer. this is a major
up-side-down change and should affect all sessions
saved with time-stretched audio clips.

- Slack space in main tracks and MIDI clip editor
views are now proportional to viewport width,
leaving enough room for drag and moving content
past the current session length, specially at the
lower zoom levels.

- Clip end time is now also shown on tool-tip.

- When armed for recording, MIDI tracks are now
monitored and filtered through their own output
bus, thus having the same behavior as audio
tracks; this also implies that all record armed
tracks won't playback their current content
material when recording is engaged and rolling;
track mute and solo states are now honored on
record monitoring.

- Audio clip pitch-shifting makes its first
appearance, with the optional help from Chris
Cannam's RubberBand library.

- A new MIDI editor tool is available: note/pitch
randomize.

- Avoid (re)setting the default session directory
if a session cannot be open or loaded for some
reason.

- Another nastiness bites the dust: a subtle but
progressive drifting has been swept away from the
audio buffer looping; zero buffer flushing is now
also taken into account, which was the cause for
serious drifting on time-stretched clips.
[ANN] Qtractor 0.1.3 (frugal damsel) released!
- A major digital audio processing bug was tamed:
audio clip fade-in/outs are now linearly
piece-wise applied, even at the clip edges, giving
a much smoother rendering and thus mitigating the
nasty click-and-pop artifacts that were in fact
due to some early design optimization with a poor
and sloppy implementation.


0.1.2  2008-03-23 The Frantic Dame

- Session length fixed (yet again) while extend
recording; also improved follow-playhead switching
while playback/recording.
- Whitespace sanitization gets leaner for all
recorded filenames.
- Run-time SSE optimization detection has been
improved while on configure; additionally, IEEE
32bit float specific optimizations have also
sneaked in.
- SSE optimization is now featured over all audio
monitoring, and most specially on audio bus
buffering, lowering the CPU burden a bit while
doing track and bus gain, pan, metering and
mix-down.
- Fixed MIDI clip move into new track, preserving
the original channel, bank and program whenever
possible.
- Fixed session cursor seeking, specially
regarding overlapped clips, once gain.
- The MIDI editor gets new menu access to current
MIDI clip track (see File/Track/Inputs, Outputs,
Properties); selection of MIDI events has also
been improved, specially regarding overlapped note
events.
- Clip split command enters the stage (see
Edit/Clip/Split) about splitting the current
(selected) clip at the current playhead position
(red cursor line).
- Creating new clips from scratch is now finally
permitted (see Edit/Clip/New...); additionally,
the clip properties dialog is now also allowing
for changing the filename (and track/channel as
special to MIDI clips).
- Record armed tracks are now properly monitored
and fed through their own output audio bus on
mix-down, which includes plug-in effects
processing.
- The files widget get alternating colored rows.-
VST plug-in preset values are now being restored
properly; individual parameter changes are now
being queued for the also convenient undo/redo
command pattern.
- Some audio clip buffer-sync tweaks have sneaked
in, improving and fixing the rendering of
full-overlapped, integrally cached and/or offset
clips altogether.
- Stuffed one primordial shot on XInitThreads() at
the main head, and let native VST plug-ins start
behaving as they should, or not; this might be in
fact problematic and dangerous for people who
won't ever try the JUCE based plugins as from
JUCETICE (http://www.anticore.org/jucetice), due
to some broken locking mechanism in xcb; thanks
anyway to mighty kRAkEn/gORe at JUCETICE for this
precious hint and from who knows best.
- True deterministic session length update has due
fixed.
- Track menu has new accessible actions:
  Track/Inputs - show current track input bus
connections;
  Track/Outputs - show current track output bus
connections;
  Track/State/Record - arm current track for
recording;
  Track/State/Mute - mute current track;
  Track/State/Solo - solo current track;
  Track/Navigate/First - make current the first
track;
  Track/Navigate/Previous - make current the
previous track;
  Track/Navigate/Next - make current the next
track;
  Track/Navigate/Last - make current the last
track;
  Track/Move/Top - move current track to top;
  Track/Move/Up - move current track up;
  Track/Move/Down - move current track down;
  Track/Move/Bottom - move current track to
bottom;
- View menus have new accessible actions:
  View/Zoom/In - horizontal and vertical zoom-in
(Ctrl +);
  View/Zoom/Out - horizontal and vertical zoom-out
(Ctrl -);
  View/Zoom/Reset - reset both zoom levels to
default;
  View/Snap - select current snap-per-beat
setting;
- Plug-in forms don't auto-open on session reload
anymore.
- Keyboard shortcuts icon item (Help/Shortcuts...)
sneaks in.


0.1.1  2008-02-16 The Futile Duchess

- After some great user demand, keyboard shortcuts
are finally configurable, as found provisionally
under Help/Shortcuts..., for the main application
menu and for the MIDI editor as well.
- Debian package gets SSE optimization disabled as
default.
- At least some transport actions get to be non
auto-repeatable when pressed for much too long, as
Play and Record, avoiding the tumbling imposed
from the keyboard.
- For the first time ever, jackd auto-start is now
allowed (!).
OSC service support through liblo gets optional at
configure time, now leading the way to proper DSSI
plug-in hosting.
- All plug-in widget controls count are now capped
to one hundred.
- Plugin paths setup is now made available on the
options dialog, overriding each of respective
default settings, as implicit from the
LADSPA_PATH, DSSI_PATH and VST_PATH environment
variables (see View/Options.../Display/Plugin
Paths).
- Clip fade-in/out lengths are now kept relative
to tempo changes and also to clip offset and
length changes (clip resizes).
- Automatic time-stretching for all audio clips
when session tempo changes, may now be
disabled/enabled as a global session option (see
View/Options.../Audio/Playback/Automatic
time-stretching).
- Double-clicking on an empty area (de)selects all
clips on track.
- MIDI capture (record) quantization is now an
option, possibly handy for some jerky performance
musicians, as the one found in myself ;) (see
View/Options.../MIDI/Capture/Quantize).
- The global options dialog (View/Options...) has
seen its Display tab page being moved back and to
the right.
- Major rewrite of the plug-in infrastructure,
adding primordial support for DSSI and native VST
plug-in flavors.
- Drag-and-drop of plug-in instances are now
allowed intra- and inter-mixer strip chains,
either on tracks or buses.
- Turning track record off while recording is
rolling was leaving the session in a inconsistent
recording status, now fixed.
- A random but instant crash upon
audition/pre-listening player onset was hopefully
fixed.


0.1.0 2008-01-05 The Frivolous Debutante
0.0.9  2007-11-30  The Adolescence Prime
0.0.8  2007-11-12  The Twelfth Tight
0.0.7  2007-10-31  The Eleventh Tower
0.0.6  2007-10-09  The Tenth Commencement
0.0.5  2007-09-08  The Ninth Hitch Nail
0.0.4  2007-07-19  The Eight Wanderer
0.0.3  2007-06-23  The Seventh Draught
0.0.2  2007-05-26  The Sixth Lord
0.0.1  2007-05-07  The Filthy Fifth