Qtractor 0.4.3 - The Fussy Doula released!

Fall is upon us. Summer is gone. Trivial speaking, as it marks yet one's another birthday, mine that is. It also marks the approaching bankruptcy of this funny F&D release code-names. One can also think as the last and stable release before a probable next generation do break all loose. Automation and full MIDI control is popping up over the horizon. So take all children home and be prepared for the worst. Nah, don't be that afraid. With some help from good friends, everything can and shall be arranged. No second thoughts. No hard feelings. Meanwhile...

Release highlights:

• Audio send/return aux. inserts (NEW)
• Mixer peak meters gradient eye-candy (NEW)
• MIDI System Exclusive (SysEx) setup manager (NEW)
• MIDI Playback/Queue timer resolution option (NEW)
• MIDI Instrument definitions from SoundFont 2 files (NEW)
• MIDI Output bus default instrument (NEW)
• Buses dialog manager update (FIX)
• Plugin references by label (FIX)
• First audio metronome beat/bar (FIX)
• Ghost clip selections (FIX)
• Overlapping MIDI clips (FIX)

Website:

Project page:

Downloads:

• source tarball:
  qtractor-0.4.3.tar.gz
• source package (openSUSE 11.1):
  qtractor-0.4.3-1.rncbc.suse111.src.rpm
• binary packages (openSUSE 11.1):
  qtractor-0.4.3-1.rncbc.suse111.i586.rpm
  qtractor-0.4.3-1.rncbc.suse111.x86_64.rpm
• binary packages (Ubuntu 8.04 LTS):
  qtractor_0.4.3-1.rncbc.ubuntu804_i386.deb
  qtractor_0.4.3-1.rncbc.ubuntu804_amd64.deb
• binary packages (Ubuntu 9.04):
  qtractor_0.4.3-1.rncbc.ubuntu904_i386.deb
  qtractor_0.4.3-1.rncbc.ubuntu904_amd64.deb
• user manual (ever still outdated):
  qtractor-0.3.0-user-manual.pdf

Weblog (upstream support):

License:

Change-log:

• External preset files are not removed nor deleted from the file-system anymore.
• Connections support for UTF-8 encoded client/port names.
• Force track and clip properties dialog widget to be modal as it should from their beginning dawn.
• Audio effect send/return aux. inserts are implemented as special pseudo-plugins (Plugins/Inserts).
• Reset play-head position on auto-backward and keep playback rolling when continue past end transport option is not set.
• MIDI clip editor (aka piano-roll/matrix aditor) gets better on the virtual piano keyboard eye-candy side of things ;).
• Plugins are now also referenced by label, avoiding plugin index clash/misses eg. when plugin object file/path changes or is moved externally.
• Keyboard focus is now cleared/reset from the main toolbar time and tempo spin-boxes when editing gets finished (eg. Enter key is pressed).
• First audio metronome beat/bar now played back correctly (fixes bug #2841437).
• Client to/from port (dis)connections now found consistent as good ol'QjackCtl behavior (fixes bug #2834657).
• All dirty open MIDI clip editors are now prompted to save before the main application closes (fixes bug #2835516).
• Mixer level meters get their long deserved gradient look.
• Fixed any ghost clip selections that were haunting the main track view, specially after undo/redo.
• Increased tolerance on reading corrupt MIDI files (SMF).
• A MIDI SysEx manager is being finally introduced, in some primordial rather basic form though. MIDI System Exclusive (SysEx) event strings may now be freely assigned to MIDI output buses only, allowing for proper setup of external outboard MIDI equipment. Each bus may have an unlimited SysEx queue that gets sent out on every connection change (see View/Buses.../MIDI/SysEx...).
• A default MIDI instrument name may now be assigned to any MIDI output bus (see View/Buses.../MIDI).
• More legacy headers, stdio.h and stdlib.h, are yet again necessary to build with gcc/g++ >= 4.4 (as patch noted by Alexis Ballier on Gentoo bug report #274168, thanks).
• Bus manager dialog (View/Buses...) gets new columns on the left pane buses list as for displaying number of channels and bus mode.
• Crash when updating bus probably fixed (bug #2811630).
• Fixed glitch displaying beat snap/grid lines on MIDI clip editor, incidental to clips located at absolute zero time.
• Overlapped MIDI clips were rendering garbled note events to DSSI/VSTi plugins, now fixed.
• New MIDI Playback/Queue timer (resolution) option is now available (see View/Options.../MIDI).
• MIDI instrument definitions may now be imported from plain SoundFont files.

Cheers && Enjoy.