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Revision 3878 - (show annotations) (download)
Sun May 9 10:37:39 2021 UTC (2 years, 10 months ago) by schoenebeck
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* Preparations for new release (libgig 4.3.0).

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

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