/[svn]/linuxsampler/trunk/NEWS
ViewVC logotype

Diff of /linuxsampler/trunk/NEWS

Parent Directory Parent Directory | Revision Log Revision Log | View Patch Patch

revision 692 by schoenebeck, Fri Jul 15 16:59:35 2005 UTC revision 3537 by schoenebeck, Sat Jul 27 11:18:17 2019 UTC
# Line 1  Line 1 
1    Version 2.1.1 (27 Jul 2019)
2    
3      This is a maintenance release with various fixes. There are only two
4      minor new features in this release:
5    
6      The Giga format engine adds a format extension which allows sound
7      designers to define whether release trigger samples shall be played when
8      the sustain pedal is released. In the previous release this was actually
9      the default behaviour by the sampler, but meanwhile there was a consensus
10      on the mailing list that release samples being triggered by sustain pedal
11      is not the common, expected behaviour. So this is no longer the default
12      behaviour, but you can still opt in to this old behaviour by using this
13      new format extension option (i.e. by using latest release version of
14      libgig and gigedit and enabling the respective checkbox for your
15      gig instrument). If you don't enable this option then release samples are
16      now only triggered by note-off events.
17    
18      The sfz engine adds support for the commonly used built-in sample
19      '*silence' of the sfz format. It does what you think it does; it
20      instructs the sampler to play no sound at all. This is commonly used
21      in sfz files for instance for the lowest velocity switch to not play any
22      sample. With the previous release trying to load sfz files which used this
23      built-in sample caused a file loading error. There are various other
24      commonly used built-in samples in sfz files which you can denote by the
25      leading star character in the sample name, however the '*silence' one is
26      currently the only supported built-in sample by our sfz engine yet. Trying
27      to load sfz files which are using other built-in samples does not prevent
28      your instrument from being loaded by the sampler, however you will get a
29      warning message on the console that the built-in sample is not supported
30      yet and the sampler will simply play silence for that non supported
31      built-in sample.
32    
33    Version 2.1.0 (25 November 2017)
34    
35      This release adds a large amount of extensions and improvements for the
36      real-time instrument scripting support of LinuxSampler (NKSP).
37      For example 48 new built-in NKSP functions and 21 new built-in NKSP
38      variables have been added. Also the NKSP language itself was extended.
39      Most notably the script engine now has an execution scheduler which is
40      the basis for many of the timing relevant new NKSP features in this
41      release, like programmatically suspending and resuming scripts for an
42      exact amount of time or triggering or killing notes at very precise
43      times. Bitwise operators have been added to NKSP, as well as support for
44      read only built-in variables, "synchronized" code blocks
45      ("synchronized .. end synchronized"), user declared functions and user
46      declared const array variables have been added to the NKSP language,
47      and automatic suspension of RT threatening scripts by the RT script engine
48      has been implemented. Also syntax error messages with NKSP scripts have
49      been improved to output more clear and user friendly error messages, as
50      well as NKSP editor API has been improved which brings handy new features
51      to gigedit's NKSP script editor like automatically graying out code blocks
52      which are disabled by NKSP preprocessor statements.
53    
54      The SFZ engine now supports <global>, <master>, #define and set_ccN
55      statements. And finally the SFZ engine now supports NKSP real-time
56      instrument scripts as well by adding a new "script" opcode.
57    
58      Also the Instruments Database feature has received important maintenance
59      fixes. Before this release the instrument DB feature was barely usable
60      for quite some time. Fundamental instruments DB issues have been fixed in
61      this release to finally consider this feature stable again.
62    
63      And finally this release provides a huge amount of general bug fixes.
64    
65    Version 2.0.0 (15 July 2015)
66    
67      The sampler's code base has seen substantial changes in the last six years,
68      since the last release of LinuxSampler. The sampler engine code base has
69      been unified to a set of abstract base classes which cleared the way for
70      two new sampler engines: The SFZ2 format engine (.sfz) and the SoundFont 2
71      engine (.sf2). So LinuxSampler is not limited to the GigaStudio/Gigasampler
72      format (.gig) anymore. Another major new feature is support for real-time
73      instrument scripts, which may be bundled with sound files to extend the
74      sampler with custom behavior for individual sounds. You may know such scripts
75      from commercial software samplers. Find out more about instrument scripts
76      on http://doc.linuxsampler.org/Instrument_Scripts/. At the moment this
77      scripting feature is yet limited to the Giga format engine. Also noteworthy
78      is the new command line application "lscp", which is a text based shell for
79      controlling the sampler from the command line, providing colored output,
80      type completion, help text while typing LSCP commands and other convenient
81      features. You may now also load external effects directly into the sampler
82      (only LADSPA plugins yet). The LSCP network protocol (v1.7) has been extended
83      to manage such effects respectively. Also new with latest LSCP version is the
84      ability to trigger MIDI CCs by LSCP commands. You may have heard that the
85      GigaStudio software has seen its last version with GigaStudio 4. Tascam
86      officially discontinued this product, its intellectual property has been sold
87      several times among companies and there is currently no way to buy a new copy
88      of GigaStudio anymore. However the GigaStudio format is still under active
89      development with LinuxSampler. We not only added support for the latest
90      features introduced with GigaStudio 4: iMIDI rules for example which allow to
91      trigger notes by MIDI CC and allow i.e. defining a set of legato samples; for
92      the first time ever we also added our own extensions to the Giga format: one
93      of it is the previously mentioned new instrument scripting feature and a more
94      minor extension is support for various other MIDI CCs which were never
95      supported by GigaStudio before. The sampler's host plugins have also seen
96      some enhancements: the LV2 plugin now stores and restores the sampler's
97      overall state with your DAW application's song, the LV2 and AudioUnit
98      plugin's outputs were increased from 2 audio channels to 16 upon request by
99      some users and the VST plugin now uses the sampler's MIDI instrument mapping
100      system to show a list of available sounds to allow the user to switch among
101      them. And last but not least the VST plugin may also be used on Mac now.
102    
103    Version 1.0.0 (31 July 2009)
104    
105      This is the first release which allows the sampler to be used as audio
106      host plugin, namely supporting the standards VST, AU, DSSI and LV2. The
107      sampler's limits for max. voices & disk streams can now be altered at
108      runtime by frontends, no need to recompile the sampler anymore. The Mac
109      version now also supports CoreAudio as audio driver. The Windows version
110      finally supports the sampler's instruments DB feature as well, however
111      expect it still to be unstable at this point. Along to the already
112      existing JACK audio driver, Jack MIDI support has been added in this
113      release. The sampler allows frontends now basic MIDI control, that is to
114      monitor incoming MIDI data on MIDI input devices and sampler channels and
115      to send note-on and note-off MIDI events to sampler channels, which
116      allows frontends to provide a virtual MIDI keyboard to the user. Besides
117      these major changes there were countless bugfixes and optimizations.
118    
119    Version 0.5.1 (6 December 2007)
120    
121      This is the first release for the Windows platform, providing a MME MIDI
122      input driver and ASIO audio output driver. Note that the instruments DB
123      feature is not yet available for Windows systems, since the respective
124      code base has yet to be ported. Needless to say that there still might be
125      plenty of issues on MS systems. Beside that support for Windows, this is
126      merely a bugfix release (i.e. fixing one serious crash) with only minor
127      new features.
128    
129    Version 0.5.0 (15 October 2007)
130    
131      This release comes with a bunch of important new features. We implemented
132      a very powerful and easy MIDI program change mapping, which not only
133      allows you to define which instrument to load on which MIDI program
134      change number (and bank select number), it also allows further parameters
135      like whether the instrument shall be pre-cached or loaded only when needed
136      (and likewise freed when not needed). You can create arbitrary amount of
137      effect sends for each sampler channel, each having an arbitrary MIDI
138      controller for controlling the effect send level in realtime and can
139      flexible be routed to some of the sampler's audio output channel, i.e.
140      to a dedicated one for a certain effect type. The new instruments
141      database allows you to keep track even of largest instrument library
142      collections. You can order them in categories and search by various
143      criteria. The sampler now allows third party applications to offer so
144      called 'instrument editor plugins' which the sampler can use to spawn
145      an appropriate instrument editor application for a selected instrument
146      and for allowing to edit instruments with such an external editor
147      application on-the-fly, that is all modifications made with the editor
148      will immediately be audible with the sampler. No need to reload instrument
149      files anymore. Checkout our brand new instrument editor application called
150      'gigedit' which you can use for this feature. Loading huge instruments may
151      take a long time, that's why the sampler now allows to play an instrument
152      while loading. That way you can i.e. play and hold notes on the keyboard
153      while loading a new instrument on the same sampler channel at the same
154      time. Beside these new features, you can find the common huge list of bug
155      fixes and quality improvements.
156    
157    Version 0.4.0 (24 November 2006)
158    
159      Finally a new release after a long development cycle. The sampler now has
160      a completely revised synthesis core. Note that due to this, most of the
161      assembly code became incompatible and is thus deactivated at compile
162      time. So don't bother trying to activate the assembly option, it won't
163      compile! That's not an issue though, because even without assembly, the
164      new synthesis core is faster than the old one with assembly. The
165      Gigasampler engine now has real support for 24 bit samples, that is they
166      won't be truncated anymore, and finally supports all filter types of the
167      Gigasampler format. A lot of effort has been put into making all filters
168      under all parameters being as accurate as possible, compared to the
169      original Gigasampler ones. Analogue to hardware mixers, sampler channels
170      can now be muted and solo-ed and there is support for GM portamento and
171      GM mono mode (single note per channel) as well as support for sostenuto
172      pedal. Beside LSCP, third-party applications can now also link against
173      liblinuxsampler directly (using the sampler's C++ API). Beside these,
174      there have been of course a huge bunch of fixes and quality improvements.
175    
176  Version 0.3.3 (15 July 2005)  Version 0.3.3 (15 July 2005)
177    
178    Another bug fix release. It solves one usability issue regarding small    Another bug fix release. It solves one usability issue regarding small

Legend:
Removed from v.692  
changed lines
  Added in v.3537

  ViewVC Help
Powered by ViewVC