[ANN] Qtractor 0.1.3 (frugal damsel) released! - Linux-audio-user

1 May 2008

Greetings,

After another quarantine period, I am pleased to announce (yet) another 
maintenance release of my flag-ship toy, Qtractor, an Audio/MIDI 
multi-track "bedroom" sequencer for the techno-boy (and girl:). 
Probably, the major feature highlight for this release, is the new 
optional support for in-place audio clip pitch-shifting through Chris 
Cannam's Rubber Band Audio Time Stretcher library. This one alone just 
closes the gap on the techno-boy/girl bedroom-studio prospects, so let's 
move along, nothing really new to see here :) However, given there were 
many inner changes in the audio rendering engine everything might just 
sound a lot less glitchy than previous releases. Therefore, everybody is 
welcome to upgrade. And please, don't be shy ;)

   Qtractor 0.1.3 (frugal damsel) has been released!

Grab it while visiting the project pages:

   http://qtractor.sourceforge.net
   http://sourceforge.net/projects/qtractor

Here's some direct links to the most wanted pieces:

   http://downloads.sourceforge.net/qtractor/qtractor-0.1.3.tar.gz
   http://downloads.sourceforge.net/qtractor/qtractor-0.1.3-user-manual.pdf

And don't (ever) forget to drop by, over the upstream :)

   http://www.rncbc.org

As usual, the complete change log is worth a look too, for the record:

- 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.

- 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.

Cheers && Enjoy
--
rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela