[linux-audio-user] ANN: Freewheeling 0.5.1 RELEASE -

[JP Mercury]

Dear LAU & FW Folk,

Time again for a software release.
Here is the long awaited...

Freewheeling 0.5.1
------------------

http://freewheeling.sourceforge.net/

Summary:

FreeWheeling is an audio tool for live looping. It provides a highly
configurable, fluid user interface for instrumentalists to capture loops in
real-time. Based on the JACK, ALSA, and SDL libraries, it integrates with
FluidSynth, a software synthesizer.

Article:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8445

Changes:

v0.5.1

	    (CHANGE LOG AS OF MARCH 22, 2006)
	
	    Thank you to all for good ideas and inspiration over the summer
	    and winter. Many thanks to Paul Davis for hooking me up with
	    a great Linux Audio development gig. And thanks to an anonymous
	    donor for his contribution, and to Dubphil and Paul Brossier for 
	    beta testing.
	
	    ** FreeWheeling now requires libgnutls11-dev (gnutls-openssl)
	       instead of openssl (Thanks, Piem).

	    New Features
            ------------
	
	    * Significantly less memory usage-- more than 20 megabytes less.
	      Thanks to Drobilla for pointing out the issue with thread
	      stack size.

	    * New scripts (see scripts/ folder) to help you manage
	      a library of loops. You can now bath move, delete, and 
	      archive loops & scenes by date.
	       
	    * Jack transport sync-	
	
	      - Master and slave mode

	        For sync to work, you must first create a pulse,
	        either by recording a loop and pressing F1, or by tapping
	        a pulse by tapping F2 twice.

	        Freewheeling tries to become the Jack timebase master,
	        but if another app is master, it switches to slave mode.

	        In master mode, Freewheeling generates beats and bar counts
	        for every repetition of the currently selected pulse.
	        In slave mode, Freewheeling receives beats and bar counts
	        and syncronizes the currently selected pulse to them.
	
	        For both master and slave modes, you can adjust the number of 
	        bars/beats per pulse using:
	
	        Ctrl/Shift + S - adjust timebase

		You can also switch between sync to bars or sync to beats
	        using:

	        Alt + S - switch bars/beats sync
	  
	        Note that in master mode, FW is currently hard-wired to
	        generate 4 beats per bar. Since this is preliminary code,
	        not a big deal.
	
	    * New user interface 

              - Progress bar for saving and loading loops and scenes
	
	      - Better organization of help page with clear sections      
	    
	      - Mouse support
	        - Click on loops triggers them. 
		- Space + Click erases loops. 
   	        - Mousewheel on loops now adjusts loop volumes--
	          very convenient when you are mixing and playing with
	          improvisations.
	
	          These can be configured.
	          See 'loop-clicked' in .fweelin.rc.
			
	      - Joystick support
	        - Joystick buttons can now trigger events.
	          For example, I have used FW with a DDR dance mat to 
	          trigger loops. 
	
		  See 'joybutton' in .fweelin.rc.

	      - New 'engage' and 'shot' options in trigger-loop.
	        'Engage' forces a loop to ON or OFF,
		overriding the default toggle behavior.
		You can use it to create triggers that play short bursts,
	        rather than long loops.
	        
		'Shot' to be implemented.
	
	    * Stability improvements

	      - Better thread safety and design improvements to the real-time
	        memory manager have improved stability.
	
	    * Significant improvements to loop/scene management and browsing
	  
	      - You can now give loops and scenes your own names
	      	- New names are stored within the filename of library files
	      - Expanded browser window shows several items at once
              - Browser now sorts so that newer loops and scenes are first

	    * Better handling of looppoints

	      - Resolved issue with clicking at the looppoint on reloaded
	        loops.
              - Resolved sporadic clicks on syncronized loops.
	      
	    * Better handling of loading/saving loops

	    * Adjustable video loop delay
	    
	      - You can now adjust the performance of FreeWheeling
	        by changing the delay between video refreshes.
	        Several people asked for this feature, because
	        FW is processor-heavy on the video side.
	 
	        The video thread does run at a low priority,
	        and so it should not affect the performance of other
	        realtime audio threads. However, the system may get
	        sluggish, and if this happens, you may want to increase
	        the delay in .fweelin.rc:

                <var videodelay="20"/>

	    Fixes
	    -----

	    * Fixed 'glibc double free' segfault- FW should now run
	      when compiled with GCC 4.0.
	
	    * Adjusted the way F2 tap tempo works-
	      tapping a new tempo with F2 is now more responsive,
	      but less tolerant of mistakes 
	
	    * Fixed 'pure virtual method called' segfault
	
	    * Fixed segfault when browsing past end of FluidSynth patch list
	
	    * Various fixes to reduce CPU hogging
	
	    * Merged patches from Piem's debian package:
	      MaxVol, compile fixes for GCC 4.0, and removal of non-free
	      elements

	    * FW can now run without physical JACK inputs or outputs.
	      Thanks to Piem for this patch.

Enjoy!

-- JP Mercury


-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.