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Tue Feb 20 16:34:06 2024 UTC (2 months ago) by schoenebeck
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* Preparations for new release (4.4.1).
1 schoenebeck 4094 Version 4.4.1 (20 Feb 2024)
2    
3     Maintenance release.
4    
5     Fixes build errors with some compilers only. No behaviour change.
6    
7 schoenebeck 4076 Version 4.4.0 (26 Jan 2024)
8    
9     This release introduces a new command line tool 'wav2gig' which allows to
10     automatically create a .gig file from a directory of .wav files. This can
11     safe quite some time when creating a new and large .gig instrument from
12     scratch, as this tool automatically extracts info such as root note, velocity
13     and loop points either from the .wav files themselves (if possible), or from
14     their file names. It comes with a bunch of options to override exact
15     behaviour to whatever the naming scheme of your .wav files are for instance.
16     Refer to the new 'wav2.gig' man page for details.
17    
18     A long sitting API issue had been mitigated in this release: the ancient
19     GetFirstFoo() and GetNextFoo() style of methods were always error prone.
20     Those methods are now marked as deprecated and GetFoo(size_t index) or
21     GetFooAt(size_t index) methods were added as reentrant-safe replacement.
22    
23     Another important multi-threading issue for applications based on libgig have
24     been addressed on API level: the RIFF::File class now provides a new method
25     SetIOPerThread(bool enable) to activate a transparent mode of separation for
26     file streaming by libgig. By default this feature is off and libgig therefore
27     behaves as in previous releases, which means application threads would
28     concurrently change file I/O positions when accessing libgig file access
29     methods simultaniously, like e.g. streaming audio data from disk or loading or
30     saving any kind of other data from or to the file directly might
31     unintentionally change threads' file I/O positions between each other. By
32     activating this new libgig feature, libgig automatically detects individual
33     threads (as callers of affected libgig methods) and separates the file I/O
34     positions for each application thread automatically, as if each thread had
35     opened the file separately by itself. This feature comes with a slight runtime
36     overhead cost, but has the advantage that it keeps application code simple, as
37     it usually just requires to add only one line of code to make a multi-threaded
38     applications work as expected, while still sharing the same libgig objects and
39     without duplicating data or draining RAM resources.
40    
41     The rest of changes are numerous fixes, please refer to ChangeLog for details.
42    
43 schoenebeck 3878 Version 4.3.0 (9 May 2021)
44    
45     From this release on libgig requires at least a C++11 compliant compiler to
46     build from its sources. Another new requirement is the presence of some UUID
47     generating function which must be provided by the underlying OS. Previously
48     the presence of an UUID generating function was optional in libgig for many
49     years. Its absence in the past only meant that you were unable to load your
50     own gig files (e.g. created from scratch with Gigedit by yourself) into
51     Tascam's GigaStudio software, it did not mean though any restriction in
52     conjunction with LinuxSampler in the past. The latter has changed in this
53     release. Without UUIDs in gig files you would now also get misbehaviours
54     even while staying entirely in the Linux eco space, and hence this is now a
55     hard build requirement for libgig.
56    
57     Most of the changes in the gig classes in this release are about gig file
58     format extensions used by recent versions of LinuxSampler. For instance you
59     now have much more control over what LFO wave form shall be used (e.g. saw and
60     square, whereas the original GigaStudio was alwas limited to sine only) and
61     other LFO parameters like their start phase. There are also a bunch of new
62     audio filter types available in conjuction with the latest LinuxSampler
63     version, e.g. additional lowpass filter types with 2, 4 and 6 poles,
64     additional highpass filters with 1, 2, 4 and 6 poles, a new bandpass filter
65     with 2 poles and finally also a bandreject filter with 2 poles. Another gig
66     format extension was added concerning NKSP instrument scripts: LinuxSampler's
67     new NKSP "patch" variable type is now supported in this version of libgig.
68     Please refer to the LinuxSampler website for a more detailed explanation about
69     this new NKSP instrument script feature.
70    
71     And as always there are a various fixes in this release, foremost sane output
72     compatibility with GigaStudio 3 was broken, so that GigaStudio version might
73     not have accepted gig files changed by you with the prior version of libgig.
74     This issue is now fixed in this release.
75    
76     And last but not least the Serialization framework was extended to support now
77     various common C++ STL classes like std::string, std::vector, std::map and
78     std::set out of the box. So no custom code is required aymore to
79     serialize/deserialize such very common native C++ object types, which reduces
80     code complexity for serializing/deserializing complex C++ projects a lot.
81    
82 schoenebeck 3524 Version 4.2.0 (25 Jul 2019)
83    
84     This is a maintenance release with important fixes; especially it fixes
85     issues with gig files in GigaStudio v4 format, however this release also
86     introduces some few new features and additions. Most notably it is now
87     possible to write large gig files splitted over extension files (.gx01,
88     .gx02, ...). Previously it was only possible to read gig files with
89     extension files, but libgig only supported to save large gig files as one
90     single, monolithic gig file. The problem with the latter was that gig
91     files >= 2 GB could only be read by libgig, but could not be loaded with
92     any version of GigaStudio. So this solves that legacy support issue.
93     Apart from that, a bunch of convenience methods have been added.
94    
95 schoenebeck 3370 Version 4.1.0 (25 Nov 2017)
96    
97     This release adds support for files much larger than 2 GB for GigaStudio /
98     Gigasampler (.gig), DLS, as well as for RIFF files in general. This file size
99     limitation existed for a very long time due to the RIFF format's historical,
100     internal 32 bit file offsets. To circumvent this file size limitation the
101     concept of so called "extension files" was added in the past to the
102     GigaStudio format, which means that the GigaStudio instrument editor splitted
103     the respective overall instrument file into a set of files (.gig, .gx01,
104     .gx02, ...), each being max. 2 GB in size, and all of them were expected to be
105     located in the same directory for the sampler to load the entire large
106     instrument successfully. libgig always supported only reading such gig
107     extension files, however libgig never supported to create .gig files with
108     extension files, nor did it support modifying existing ones. In this release
109     it was necessary to finally get rid of this overall file size limitation in
110     libgig. Now when that concept of extension files was introduced years ago, it
111     made sense at that point, because there were still many systems out there
112     which still had no support for large files (on either OS or file system
113     level). However today even on low end mobile devices support for large files
114     is already a broad standard. Accordingly instead of adding write support for
115     extension files in libgig, the problem was addressed at its root by
116     transparently using appropriate, automatic file offset sizes. So when writing
117     .gig/DLS/RIFF files smaller than 2 GB there are still 32 bit file offsets
118     being used by libgig. Accordingly such files are still backward compatible
119     with older software. However if the overall file size to be written is 2 GB or
120     larger, then 64 bit file offsets are automatically used by libgig instead.
121     Note though that due to that circumstance such files >= 2 GB are not backward
122     compatible with older versions of libgig, nor could they be loaded with the
123     original GigaStudio software.
124    
125     Another major new feature in this libgig release is the entirely new
126     serialization API (Serialization.h) which provides a powerful and easy way
127     to serialize and deserialize an arbitrary set of native C++ objects into an
128     abstract data stream. Which means you can simply save the entire runtime state
129     of an application to a file or send it as data over "wire" (i.e. over network
130     or to another process) and restore that runtime state from that data there at
131     any time. In contrast to other C++ serialization frameworks out there, this
132     framework provides two major benefits:
133    
134     1. This serialization framework is designed to be very robust regarding
135     potential versioning changes of the native C++ classes being
136     (de)serialized. So even if the C++ classes have seen massive software
137     changes between the point where they were serialized and the point where
138     they are to be deserialized; for example if class member variables of
139     serialized C++ objects were renamed in meantime, or if variable offsets, or
140     variables' data types had been changed, then the deserialization algorithm
141     can still cope with such common software changes automatically in many
142     cases, that is as long as the deserialization algorithm can "guess" what
143     the changes were exactly. If the serialization framework is unable to
144     automatically detect the precise software changes, then it will abort the
145     deserialization task with an exception and an error message stating that
146     the software versions are incompatible.
147    
148     2. This serialization framework supports "partial" deserialization. That
149     means it not only allows to restore an entire runtime state, but it also
150     allows to only restore an arbitrary desired subset of information
151     from the previously serialized data stream, while leaving all other data
152     of the running C++ objects untouched. The serialization framework also
153     incorporates a reflection API which allows applications to implement
154     convenient editors on top of such serialized data, i.e. allowing end users
155     to pick or alter specific information within the serialized data.
156    
157     The new Serialization framework is already embedded into the gig classes of
158     libgig, and it is used as basis for the new powerful macro features in the
159     gigedit instrument editor application. Refer to the release notes of
160     gigedit 1.1.0 for more information about those new macro features in gigedit.
161    
162 schoenebeck 2785 Version 4.0.0 (14 Jul 2015)
163    
164     This major release of libgig adds support for other file formats:
165     SoundFont 2 (.sf2), KORG multi sample instruments (.KSF, .KMP) and AKAI
166 schoenebeck 4064 format sounds. The AKAI classes are a fork of S��bastien M��trot's libakai and
167 schoenebeck 2785 since it is released under a different license (LGPL) than libgig is (GPL),
168     the AKAI classes are built as separate DLL file. All other classes of those
169     new file formats are built and bundled with the existing libgig DLL. Thanks
170     to Grigor Iliev for his work on the SoundFont 2 classes! Please note that
171     there is currently no support for KORG's .PCG file format yet. That's because
172     this file format changes a lot and is not only dependent to the precise KORG
173     keyboard model, but also to the precise OS version on the same model. And
174     since basic conversion can also be done by just accessing the .KSF and .KMP
175     files (sample data, loop informations), the current classes should be
176     sufficient for many tasks. Adding support for KORG's .PCG files is not
177     planned at the moment.
178    
179     Various new command line tools have been added as well to dump, extract and
180     convert between all those file formats now. Each one of it has a man page,
181     so please refer to the respective man page of the individual command line
182     tool for details.
183    
184     The GigaStudio/Gigasampler classes received a load of fixes during the last
185     six years. And support for features introduced with the last official
186     GigaStudio 4 software (RIP) were added, for instance support for so called
187     "iMIDI Rules". Those rules allow i.e. to trigger notes by MIDI CC and to
188     define a sample set for legato playing style. In the meantime it seems as if
189     the GigaStudio software has seen its last version with GigaStudio 4, because
190     Tascam discontinued this product and the intellectual property of GigaStudio
191     had been sold several times between companies. It is currently not possible
192     to buy a new copy of GigaStudio anymore and we personally don't expect that
193     this situation will ever change.
194    
195     Does this also mean the end of new features for libgig? Not really! Actually
196     we already started to add new features to the GigaStudio/Gigasampler format
197     which never existed with the GigaStudio/Gigasampler software: The most
198     noteworthy new feature added by us is support for real-time instrument
199     scripts. These are little "programs" which you can bundle with your .gig
200     sounds to add a custom behavior to your sounds when playing them with i.e.
201     LinuxSampler. Find out more about this new major feature on:
202    
203     http://doc.linuxsampler.org/Instrument_Scripts/
204    
205     There are also some more minor extensions to the .gig format, for example
206     support for far more MIDI CC's than originally allowed by the GigaStudio
207     software. Obviously all those custom extensions will not work with any
208     version of the official GigaStudio software, those new features will only
209     work with a recent version of LinuxSampler and gigedit at the moment.
210    
211     Besides those major changes, a load of convenient methods have been added to
212     the existing libgig classes to reduce the overall effort working with all
213     those file formats with software applications based on libgig.
214    
215 schoenebeck 1953 Version 3.3.0 (30 Jul 2009)
216    
217     Partial support for MIDI rules, the rest are just bug fixes.
218    
219 schoenebeck 1549 Version 3.2.1 (5 Dec 2007)
220    
221     Just some minor performance optimizations.
222    
223 schoenebeck 1416 Version 3.2.0 (14 Oct 2007)
224 schoenebeck 1406
225 schoenebeck 1416 This release once again comes with a huge bunch of fixes regarding
226     Gigasampler write support. Instrument files created from scratch with
227     libgig can finally be loaded into the Gigasampler application as well.
228    
229 schoenebeck 1406 libgig's home has moved! From now on you can find it on:
230     http://www.linuxsampler.org/libgig/
231     Please update your links and bookmarks!
232    
233 schoenebeck 1116 Version 3.1.1 (24 Mar 2007)
234    
235     This is a bugfix release, fixing one important bug regarding gig v3
236     support (custom split points) and a lot of bugs regarding .gig write
237     support. And this is the first official release for the Windows platform.
238    
239 schoenebeck 933 Version 3.1.0 (24 Nov 2006)
240 schoenebeck 860
241     libgig's home has moved (slightly) from
242     http://stud.fh-heilbronn.de/~cschoene/projects/libgig/ to
243     http://stud.hs-heilbronn.de/~cschoene/projects/libgig/, please update your
244     links and bookmarks! This is due to the recent renaming of the University
245     of Heilbronn, which kindly hosts this and other projects.
246    
247 schoenebeck 854 Version 3.0.0 (28 Apr 2006)
248    
249     This is the first release which allows to create new and modify existing
250     .gig files. Beside that it also includes another bunch of bug fixes and
251     Gigasampler v3 support improvements.

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