Change Log for 2006

To the 2005 changelog

1. 09/06/2006 [nando]: Specimen: 0.5.1-2 built for fc5/fc4, includes Florian's LASH patch (and new matching version of the Phat widgets to match).

2. 07/19/2006 [nando]: Updated yum for Fedora Core 5 to add an ``oldpackage'' option to /etc/yum.conf. This fixes the problems users have had when installing planetccrma-core-* components after upgrading first to the newest FC5 kernels (the current version of yum will not allow you to install an older kernel). The instructions for installing Planet CCRMA on Fedora Core 5 have been updated accordingly.

3. 05/29/2006 [nando]: Updated JAPA (0.1.8-2), JAAA (0.4.0-2) and Aeolus (0.6.6-1) on fc4 (and underlying libraries clalsadrv, clthreads, clxclient).

4. 05/01/2006 [nando]: Raptor updated to version 1.4.9 (fc5), needed to build liblrdf.

   Ardour updated to version 0.99.3 (fc5).

   CAPS Plugins: updated to version 0.3.0 (fc5).

   ``The 0.3 release has relabelled the SweepVF, Cabinet, Chorus, StereoChorus and Phaser plugins (appending an 'I' to their label to be precise). Unfortunately, this might break some hosts' session files. Sorry about that. Ardour users are well-advised to read the file 'README.ardour' in this directory before installing caps 0.3.0.''

   Fluidsynth: updated to version 1.0.7 (fc5).

   ``Changes include: AMD 64 bug fixes, LASH and LADCCA support (exclusive, LASH overrides LADCCA), Re-organization of command argument processing and help, including the addition of help on previously undocumented command line switches; FluidSynth settings options can now be viewed from the command line with "-o help". All options are shown with their data type, valid ranges and default values. Jack driver displays a warning if jackd sample rate doesn't match synthesizer rate (in the hope that it will cut down on confusion when synthesizer is out of tune)...''

   Qsynth: updated to version 0.2.5-1 (fc5).

   ``New dial-knob behavior now follows mouse pointer angular position, almost similar to old QDial, but this time avoiding that nasty and rather abrupt change on first mouse click. By simple use of widget subclassing, the value/position of any dial knob can now be reset to its default or original position at any time, by simply pressing the mouse mid-button. These default value positions are just committed to current dial values when switching engines and/or closing the application. Optional specification of alternate fluidsynth installation path has been added to configure command arguments (-with-fluidsynth). Bank offset finally gets its due effect, while on the channels and channel preset selection dialogs. Regretfully, the soundfont bank offset feature has been lurking ever since its inception, but now its live and hopefully effective. A new fancy widget has arrived, qsynthKnob, with some modifications to replace the actual *ugly* QDial widgets in the main window. This widget is based on a design by Thorsten Wilms, formerly implemented by Chris Cannam in Rosegarden, and finally adapted and brought to Qsynth by Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas. Thankyou all.''

5. 04/14/2006 [nando]: STK updated to version 4.2.1 on fc4.

   ``Greatly expanded StkFrames functionality (including interpolation and indexing by channel/frame). New Blit, BlitSaw, and BlitSquare bandlimited waveform classes. New Granulate granular synthesis class. Removed Table class ... all functionality (including interpolation) now in StkFrames and FileRead classes. Revised Socket class (now abstract) and added TcpServer, TcpClient, and UdpSocket subclasses. Added Stk::showWarnings() and Stk::printErrors() functions to dis/enable warning and error printouts. Extracted file I/O functionality to FileRead and FileWrite classes. Revised WvIn / WvOut class structure (WvIn / WvOut now abstract and file I/O functionality in new FileWvIn / FileWvOut subclasses). New SineWave class which calculates its own static table of variable length (no rawwave dependency). New sinewave.raw file of length 1024 samples (used to be 256). TcpWvIn and TcpWvOut renamed InetWvIn and InetWvOut, with added support for UDP sockets. Fixed bug in WvOut tickFrame( const StkFrames &frames ) function. Fixed bug in demo.cpp when writing output soundfiles without realtime output. Added "binary" open flag to MidiFileIn class for Windows. Fixed oversized MAT-file header in WvOut.cpp. Fixed case statement bug in MidiFileIn.cpp for sysex. Added missing getDelay() function to DelayA.cpp. Fixed modDepth omission in Chorus.cpp. Fixed DC blocker initialization bug in Flute.cpp. Changed Filter class behavior so no default clearing of state when changing coefficients. Fixes to RtAudio, especially for Windows DirectSound and ASIO.''

6. 03/14/2006 [nando]: ATS added to fc4 (version 1.0-1). First trial build (does not install shared libraries, apparently not available yet). ``atsa'' is the standalone analysis program, ``atsh'' is the gui for analysis and resynthesis.

   ``ATS is a spectral modeling system based on a sinusoidal plus critical-band noise decomposition. Psychoacoustic processing informs the system's sinusoidal tracking and noise modeling algorithms. Perceptual Audio Coding (PAC) techniques such as Signal-to-Mask Ratio (SMR) evaluation are used to achieve perceptually accurate sinusoidal tracking. SMR values are also used as a psychoacoustic metric to determine the perceptual relevance of partials during analysis data postprocessing. The system's noise component is modeled using Bark-scale frequency warping and sub-band noise energy evaluation. Noise energy at the sub-bands is then distributed on a frame-by-frame basis among the partials resulting in a compact hybrid representation based on noise modulated sinusoidal trajectories.''

7. 03/10/2006 [nando]: Added a new Fedora Core 4 specific set of install pages. None too good (just an edited copy of the FC3 pages) but better than nothing, I guess...

8. 02/16/2006 [nando]: CLM: updated to current snapshot (2006.02.16) on fc4, fixes a problem with loop, the moog filter was not working on sbcl.

9. 01/31/2006 [nando]: CLM: updated to current snapshot (2006.01.31), fixes a problem with the grani granular synthesis instrument under SBCL.

10. 01/25/2006 [nando]: LASH: rebuilt, release 0.5.0-2. Fixed wrong provides for lash-devel package (provided ladcca instead of ladcca-devel).

    AmSynth: now available on fc4, version 1.1.0-1. Building this package required adding to the repository libsigc++20, glibmm24 and gtkmm24 (source packages borrowed from the Fedora Extras repository).

    ``Updated GUI to use gtkmm2.x / gtk2.x. Fix build on latest GCC versions (4.0). Stability improvements. Performance improvements.''

    Rezound: now available on fc4, version 0.12.2beta-1 (builds with gcc4).

    Denemo: now available on fc4 (version 0.7.4-1).

    Sweep: udpated to version 0.9.0-1 on fc4.

    ``This release is the first in a new unstable series. Changes include: sweep now uses gtk2 for it's interface; improved mp3 detection and loading; a new SVG icon for sweep; corrected a note to key mapping for pc keyboard playback; updated Spanish and Polish translations; minor tweaks and improvements.''

    Audacity: udpated to version 1.2.4b-1 on fc4.

    ``The File menu now includes a list of recent files. The "Generate Silence" effect now prompts for a length. Audacity is now built with Vorbis 1.1, which features better encoding quality and file compression. Dragging sound files into the Audacity window now works on Linux. "Preferences" command is now in Edit menu. "Plot Spectrum" command is now in Analyze menu. Opening a project file saved by a later version of Audacity displays an intelligent error message. Also, trying to import a project file (instead of open it) displays an intelligent error message. Other minor bug fixes. New or updated translations...''

    JAPA: now available on fc4, version 0.1.2-1.

    ``Japa (JACK and ALSA Perceptual Analyser), is a 'perceptual' or 'psychoacoustic' audio spectrum analyser. In contrast to JAAA, this is more an acoustical or musical tool than a purely technical one. Possible uses include spectrum monitoring while mixing or mastering, evaluation of ambient noise, and (using pink noise), equalisation of PA systems.''

    ALSA library: bumped to release 1.0.10-3.2 on FC4. This one does not include a versioned Requires: of alsa-driver so it will work with the older alsa-driver versions available from the standard planetcore repository (1.0.10-3.1 would only work with the packages in the planetedge repository but it was located in the standard repository).

    New planetccrma-* meta packages available on fc4. They now include ``rezound'', ``denemo'', ``amsynth'' and ``japa''.

11. 01/23/2006 [nando]: NOTE: the following packages are currently available only on Fedora Core 4.

    LASH: released, version 0.5.0-1. LASH is the ``Linux Audio Session Handler'', formerly known as LADCCA. This release obsoletes the old packages and needs a recompile of old LADCCA-aware applications in Planet CCRMA (currently fluidsynth, jack-rack, muse, timemachine, vkeybd).

    Vkeybd: rebuilt to link with LASH, release 0.1.17-2.

    Jack Rack: updated to 1.4.4 (linked with new LASH).

    ``You can specify a file to be loaded at startup now.''

    Time Machine: updated to version 0.3.1 (linked with new LASH).

    Muse: updated to version 0.7.2-pre5 (linked with new LASH).

    Fluidsynth: updated to version 1.0.6-1.

    Swami: rebuilt to match the new version of fluidsynth, release 0.9.2-3.

    Qsynth: updated to version 0.2.4-1 (GUI front end to fluidsynth).

    ``All widget captions changed to include proper application title prefix. Missing icons on channel and soundfont setup context menus are now up; bank/program splitter widget added to channel preset dialog. An abrupt segfault on engine restart have been finally fixed; this issue has been quite an annoyance which has been around for ages and was a highly probable showstopper just when restarting an engine due to changes on the setup settings. Not anymore, hopefully. New tool buttons were added to the main widget, for adding a new engine and removing the current one, while trying to increase the visibility of multiple fluidsynth engine capability (for new users, at least :) Set to use QApplication::setMainWidget() instead of registering the traditional lastWindowClosed() signal to quit() /slot, just to let the -geometry command line argument have some optional effect on X11. Fixed output disability when messages limit option is turned off. 0.2.3: New option for system tray icon and menu, which is known to be effective on KDE enabled desktops; support for freedesktop.org's system tray protocol specification has been included so this maybe also effective on Gnome2. Setup options for alternate MIDI and Audio devices were introduced. Output level meters get smoother and slightly layout optimzed. Set to ignore the SIGPIPE ("Broken pipe") signal, where available, as the default handler is usually fatal when a JACK client is zombified abruptly. Messages window limit is now enforced only when the line count exceeds in one third the user configured line count maximum.''

    Qjackctl: updated to version 0.2.19a-1.

    0.2.19a: ALSA sequencer client/port name aliases are functional again; all actual MIDI sequencer client/port numerical identifier prefixes are also back in business. 0.2.19: Connections widget views are now properly refreshed after renaming client/ports (aliases). The connections and patchbay windows are now allowed to have a wider connection lines frame panel; splitter width sizes are now persistent across application sessions (thanks to Filipe Tomás for the hint). Activation toggling feedback on the patchbay widget has been fixed; additionally and as found convenient, the most recently used patchbay definitions can now be loaded immediately by selecting from a drop-down list widget, which replaces the old static patchbay name status text, and adds a lil'icon too :) All widget captions changed to include proper application title prefix. Attempt to bring those aging autoconf templates to date; sample SPEC file for RPM build is now being included and generated at configure time. The current selected device is now shown with a checkmark on the device selection menu(s), while on the settings dialog. Set to use QApplication::setMainWidget() instead of registering the traditional lastWindowClosed() signal to quit() slot, just to let the -geometry command line argument have some effect on X11. 0.2.18: A freezing and endless loop condition on the patchbay socket item duplication (copy) has been fixed. Fixed output disability when messages limit option is turned off. 0.2.17: Systemic I/O Latency settings are now featured for the alsa, oss and coreaudio backends, letting you specify the known latency of external hardware for client aware compensation purposes. 0.2.16: ALSA sequencer client/port name changes are now properly detected on the MIDI connections widget. Long overdue transport buttons (rewind, backward and forward) finally landed onto the main control window. Duplication (copy) of patchbay socket items was added. Do not ever try to start the JACK server if there's one already found running, on which case the client-only mode of operation is then activated. Delayed geometry setup of windows upon startup was added as an optional workaround to subtle problems due to window decoration information not being available at window creation time on some window managers. Fixed some minor but rather old bug that was quitting the application abruptly, when one switches off the system tray icon while the main application widget is hidden. Cancel is now an option when creating a new patchbay definition. Context menus are finally littered with icons.''

    ALSA library: updated to release 1.0.10-3.1 on FC4. Integrated changes from Fedora's alsa-lib package, now includes ainit program and patches (to automatically use dmix/dsnoop with soundcards that need them for multiple stream playback - this is probably the cause of some alsa-lib problems that have cropped up lately in fc4).

To the 2005 changelog