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Revision 3540 - (hide annotations) (download)
Sat Jul 27 18:50:28 2019 UTC (4 years, 8 months ago) by schoenebeck
File size: 17201 byte(s)
* Preparations for new release (Gigedit 1.1.1).

1 schoenebeck 3540 Version 1.1.1 (2019-07-27)
2    
3     This is a maintenance release with numerous fixes and the following
4     few new features:
5    
6     From the file properties dialog you can now choose to specifically save a
7     gig file in GigaStudio v4 file format (from the main menu select
8     "File" -> "Properties" -> "File Format"). So you can override the file
9     format version of already existing gig files that way.
10    
11     There is now a combo box and checkbox on "Misc" tab which allow to define
12     when precisely release trigger samples shall be played. This is an
13     extension of the original gig file format. You have the option to play
14     release trigger samples only on note-off events (which is now the default
15     behaviour in the latest release version of LinuxSampler), or only on
16     sustain pedal up events, or both on note-off events and on sustain pedal
17     up events. These are options on dimension region level, so you can
18     override this behaviour even for individual cases, not just for the
19     entire instrument.
20    
21     When working on gig files with more than one real-time instrument script
22     per file, it was sometimes a bit tedious to keep track of which instrument
23     was using which script exactly, because it involved a right-click on the
24     individual instrument to get to the script slots dialog of the instrument,
25     which finally listed the scripts being used. You no longer have to do that
26     just to check which scripts are being used: Just hover your mouse over the
27     "Scripts" column of the instruments table on the left hand side of
28     gigedit; a coloured popup will appear with the list of scripts currently
29     being assigned to the instrument.
30    
31     Likewise it is a very common task to remove all scripts from an
32     instrument. There is now a keyboard shortcut for that: Just select the
33     instrument from the instruments list and then hit Shift + Backspace.
34    
35     Gigedit provides a large number of tooltips when you are hovering your
36     mouse over the huge amount of individual controls and menu items the
37     application is offering in the meantime. In case you find that annoying,
38     you can now disable those particular tooltips which are specifically
39     intended for beginners from the main menu by unchecking "View" ->
40     "Tooltips for Beginners". All other tooltips that are still useful for
41     daily work with gigedit are still being shown when this option is
42     unchecked.
43    
44     The previous release of gigedit introduced "Macros" for quickly
45     performing frequently used sequences of editor actions, and you were able
46     to assign your macros to keyboard function keys F1 .. F12. In this release
47     you can now also assign macros to function keys up to F19, in case you own
48     one of those keyboards with such a large amount of function keys.
49    
50 schoenebeck 3374 Version 1.1.0 (2017-11-25)
51    
52     This release adds various improvements for the NKSP real-time instrument
53     script editor of gigedit. LinuxSampler's NKSP script editor API is now
54     used by gigedit to visualize all issues of scripts (errors and warnings)
55     in real-time while you are typing with the script editor. The respective
56     locations of script errors / warnings are automatically highlighted in
57     red and yellow color respectively and when the mouse pointer is moved
58     over those code locations, then the precise error / warning message is
59     displayed as tooltip. And since gigedit's script editor is now tightly
60     coupled with the sampler's script engine this way, all the heavy work of
61     handling all aspects of the script language is now performed by the actual
62     sampler's script engine and thus you can now be sure and immediately see
63     whether there are any issues with your scripts with any character you are
64     typing, and if yes what kind of issues exactly, and that without
65     requiring to actually load the script into the sampler. To use these
66     features, gigedit must be compiled and linked against liblinuxsampler.
67     If gigedit is not compiled with liblinuxsampler support then the old hand
68     written, error prone and very feature limited script editor implementation
69     is used instead. Needless to say that compiling gigedit without
70     liblinuxsampler support is discouraged. Additionally when clicking on the
71     script editor's "Apply" button or using Ctrl+S keyboard shortcut, then
72     the script is automatically reloaded by the sampler. So you no longer
73     have to reload the respective instrument manually while you are
74     developing instrument scripts. There are also visual enhancements for the
75     script editor, for example the line numbers are now shown on the left,
76     the font size can be altered by the user, and unused code portions (i.e.
77     disabled by NKSP preprocessor statements) are automatically striked
78     through.
79    
80     Another major new feature in this release are macros. A macro is a set of
81     changes that should be applied to currently selected instrument. Such
82     macros can be reviewed and edited, and they can be saved permanently for
83     example as templates for common instrument creation tasks. Macros can be
84     assigned to F keys on the keyboard so that they can be quickly triggered,
85     you can transfer them over the OS clipboard and you can write comments
86     to your macros so that you never forget what kind of purpose you had in
87     mind for them. The macro features are based on libgig's new
88     "Serialization" framework and accordingly you need at least libgig 4.1.0
89     for using these macro features.
90    
91     All user settings of gigedit are now persistently saved and automatically
92     restored. This also includes gigedit's windows' dimensions and positions.
93    
94     Multi-row selection has been added to all list views now, so you can now
95     more efficiently apply actions to multiple samples, instruments or scripts
96     simultaneously at once, instead of requesting those actions for each item
97     individually.
98    
99     Also modifying key features of several dimension region zones
100     simultaneously is now supported. That means you can now delete, split and
101     resize multiple dimension region zones at once.
102    
103     You will also note that there are now icons displayed on the individual
104     regions and dimension region zones. Those icons visualize common key
105     features of regions and dimension region zones. For example if you forgot
106     to assign any sample to one of them, then you will see a red dot on the
107     respective region or dimension region zone. Another icon type is showing
108     you whether a region or dimension region zone uses a sample loop. This way
109     you can immediately see and control the key features of all regions
110     and their dimension region zones, without requiring to browse through all
111     of them individually.
112    
113     Various new keyboard shortcuts have been added so you can work more
114     efficiently on your sounds. For example you can now use Ctrl+Left and
115     Ctrl+Right to navigate through all regions of the currently selected
116     instrument, and likewise you can use Alt+Left, Alt+Right, Alt+Up and
117     Alt+Down to navigate through all dimension region zones of the currently
118     selected region. Since there are many actions that can be either applied
119     on instrument level, or on region level, or on dimension region level, as
120     a general rule, for all keyboard shortcuts the Alt key is used by gigedit
121     for actions on dimension region level, whereas the Ctrl key is used on
122     region level and the Shift key is used for actions on instrument level.
123     So as another example you may copy all parameters of the currently
124     selected dimension region zone by hitting Alt+C, then you might select
125     another dimension region zone, or another instrument and then use Alt+V
126     to apply the parameters from the clipboard. While the parameters are
127     (as macro actually) on the clipboard you can also review, edit and
128     delete the individual parameters before applying them. As a final
129     example for new important shortcuts you may now use Shift+Up and
130     Shift+Down for switching between instruments.
131    
132     Also the Combine Tool has been improved. You can now simply select the
133     (multiple) instruments you want to combine directly from the applications
134     main window, i.e. by Ctrl or Shift clicking them from the instruments
135     list view, and then right click to call the combine tool on that
136     selection. The Combine Tool now also shows you as preview the order in
137     which the selected instruments are going to be combined. This is
138     especially useful when combining instruments with certain dimension
139     types where the order matters for the actual resulting sound; for example
140     when using the velocity dimension. Simply use drag n drop to reorder
141     the previously selected instruments before combining.
142    
143     Since LinuxSampler 2.1.0 added a Giga format extension which allows to
144     control the envelope generators' state machines more precisely; new
145     options have been added to gigedit to control these new EG features.
146     For example there are new check box which you can use to define for
147     each envelope whether the individual EG stages should still be completed
148     or rather aborted if a note-off was received. These new EG settings matter
149     a lot for certain instrument types like percussive instruments.
150    
151     And last but not least a filter option field had been added to the
152     instruments list and samples list, which allows you to find specific
153     samples and instruments very quickly by typing search key words, which is
154     especially very helpful in case you are working on gig files which contain
155     a very large amount of samples or instruments in a single gig file.
156    
157 schoenebeck 2795 Version 1.0.0 (2015-07-17)
158    
159     With this release we added support for new GigaStudio 4 features, for
160     example there are now dialogs for editing some of the new so called
161     "iMIDI rules". These can be used i.e. to trigger notes by MIDI CC and to
162     define a set of legato samples. You may have heard that the GigaStudio
163     software has seen its last version with GigaStudio 4. Tascam officially
164     discontinued this product, its intellectual property has been sold several
165     times among companies and there is currently no way to buy a new copy of
166     GigaStudio anymore. However the GigaStudio format is still under active
167     development with gigedit and LinuxSampler. For the first time ever we added
168     our own extensions to the Giga format: one of it is major new feature
169     called "real-time instrument scripts", which allows to bundle small programs
170     with your .gig sounds, which extend the sampler with custom behavior for
171     specific sounds. You may know such kind of instrument scripts from
172     commercial software samplers. Find out more about this new feature on
173     http://doc.linuxsampler.org/Instrument_Scripts/. Another rather minor
174     extension to the Giga format is support for various other MIDI CCs which
175     were never supported by GigaStudio before. So you can now use any MIDI CC
176     for EG1 controller, EG2 controller and attenuation controller. Obviously all
177     those extensions will not work with any GigaStudio version, they only work
178     with a recent version of Gigedit and LinuxSampler. Gigedit will inform you
179     whenever you are using such kind of custom Giga format extension, so that you
180     are always aware in case your changes are not cross/backward compatible with
181     the GigaStudio software. A load of enhancements have been added to Gigedit
182     in the last six years: Until now you were only able to edit either exactly
183     one dimension region or all dimension regions simultaneously. With this
184     release you may now hold the Ctrl button and select a specific set of
185     dimension region zones in the dimension region selector area (on the very
186     bottom of the Gigedit window) with your mouse. All synthesis parameters you
187     then change, will all be applied to that precise set of dimension region
188     zones. Also managing dimensions have been improved: previously to change the
189     amount of zones of a dimension you had to delete and recreate the dimension.
190     Which was not just inconvenient, but you also had to redefine your synthesis
191     parameters from scratch. Now you can just open the dimension manager dialog
192     and increase or decrease the amount of zones of a dimension with few clicks.
193     Same applies to the dimension type: you may now simply open the dimension
194     manager dialog and alter the type of a dimension with few clicks.
195     When working on complex Giga sounds you certainly noticed that one could
196     easily get confused about which samples are exactly used by which instrument
197     or even whether a sample is actually used at all by any instrument or just
198     left orphaned and wasting disk space. This was also due to the fact that the
199     Giga format does not require unique names for samples. We have worked on
200     resolving this usability issue. In the sample list view you can now read the
201     amount of times a sample is referenced by instruments of your .gig file. If a
202     sample is not used at all, then it will be shown in striking red color in
203     the sample list view. You may also right click on a sample and select
204     "Show references...", a new window appears on your screen which will show you
205     where exactly that particular sample is used by, that is which by which
206     instruments and by which regions of those instruments. Also the other way
207     around has been addressed: when you now edit the synthesis parameters of a
208     particular dimension region, you may now click on the new "<- Select Sample"
209     button and Gigedit automatically selects and displays the respective sample
210     in the samples list view, which you may then might rename to some more
211     appropriate sample name, or you might check by which other instrument(s) that
212     sample is used by, etc. You may now also remove the current sample reference
213     from individual dimension regions (assigning a so called "NULL" sample) by
214     clicking on the new "X" button next the sample reference field on the
215     "Sample" tab of a dimension region; this allows you to define "silent cases",
216     that is a case where no sample should be played at all, for example this is
217     often used for very low velocity ranges of i.e. between 0 and 6. If you are
218     working on .gig files with a large amount of Instruments, then you might also
219     be glad to know that you can finally also re-order the instruments of a file
220     by simply dragging the instruments around in the instruments list view.
221     Another handy new feature for sound designers is the new "Combine" tool,
222     which you can reach from the main menu. It allows you to select two ore more
223     instruments (by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting with mouse click)
224     from your currently open Giga file and combine those selected instruments to
225     a new instrument. This way you may for example create stunning layered
226     sounds, or you may create velocity splits, crossfade sounds by MIDI
227     controller and much more, all with just a few clicks. This may sound like a
228     trivial task, but if you have worked on this before, you certainly noticed
229     that this was often a very time consuming and error prone task before,
230     especially with complex individual sounds which had custom region ranges,
231     custom velocity splits and much more exotic stuff to take care of. The
232     combine tool handles all such cases for you automatically.
233     Last but not least, the interaction of Gigedit with LinuxSampler (in so
234     called "live mode") had been improved: When you click on the "Edit" button of
235     a channel strip in QSampler or Fantasia, Gigedit will be launched with the
236     respective instrument automatically being selected. Vice versa you may now
237     also just select another instrument with Gigedit's instrument list view and
238     LinuxSampler will automatically load and play that instrument on the
239     respective sampler part for you. So no more need to switch between the
240     Gigedit window and QSampler/Fantasia window all the time while working on
241     your sounds.
242    
243 persson 1959 Version 0.2.0 (2009-07-31)
244    
245     When gigedit is running as a plugin in LinuxSampler the gigedit
246     keyboard may now be used to trigger notes. The settings in the file
247     properties window are now editable. A new function for replacing all
248     samples is added. Otherwise this is mostly a bug fix release, and
249     upgrading gigedit and libgig is strongly recommended, as previous
250     versions had bugs that may cause edited gig files to be corrupted.
251    
252 persson 1562 Version 0.1.1 (2007-12-06)
253    
254     Parameter edits can now be applied to multiple regions and dimension
255     regions simultaneously - three checkboxes were added that select if
256     changes apply to all regions and/or all dimension regions.
257    
258 persson 1441 Version 0.1.0 (2007-10-15)
259    
260     Many fixes have been made to make sure that the gig files created by
261     gigedit are working properly in LinuxSampler and GigaStudio. Gigedit
262     can now be run as a LinuxSampler plugin, allowing live editing of
263     loaded instruments. Sample loop parameters and instrument global
264     properties can now be edited. 24 bit samples can be imported. A
265     quick-start document has been added. Lots of other minor fixes and
266     improvements have been done.
267    
268 persson 1119 Version 0.0.3 (2007-03-24)
269    
270     First version of gigedit. The program is renamed from gigview to
271     gigedit as it is now an editor, not just a viewer. Basic support for
272     both editing existing gig files and creating new ones from scratch
273     is provided.
274    
275     Version 0.0.2 (2006-11-05)
276    
277     Quick fix for a thread initialization problem.
278    
279     Version 0.0.1 (2006-11-05)
280    
281     First version of gigview.

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