Sonic visualiser

Changes in Sonic Visualiser 3.0.2 (Mar 2017) since the previous release 3.0.1:

Fix crash when changing parameters for spectrum view

Fix incorrect measure tool crosshairs in spectrum view

Update Russian and Czech UI translations (thanks to Alexandre Prokoudine and Pavel Fric respectively)

Changes in Sonic Visualiser 3.0.1 (Mar 2017) since the previous release 3.0:

Fix crashes with MIDI devices and speedup/slowdown control on Windows

Update MIDI input driver layer

Changes in Sonic Visualiser 3.0 (Mar 2017) since the previous release 2.5:

Add ability to record audio, and ability to change the audio device for playback or recording in the preferences

Add complete support for high-resolution (Hi-DPI or retina) displays, including for layer data rendering as well as UI controls and icons. This makes the biggest difference when using a retina Mac, on which previous versions did not render layer data at retina resolution, but it also improves scaling and rendering of UI elements on Hi-DPI displays on Windows and Linux

Add ability to export scalable (SVG) image files

Run plugins in a separate process, so that if a plugin crashes, it no longer brings down Sonic Visualiser with it. In every other respect the behaviour should be unchanged

Scan plugins on startup in a separate process, and report on any that crash or won't load

Add ability to open, display, and analyse very long audio files (of more than 2^32 sample frames)

Change mp3 file loading so as to compensate for encoder/decoder delay and padding (using "gapless playback" logic). While this is a real improvement, unfortunately it does mean that the initial padding in mp3 file load has changed from previous versions, which may mean some sessions saved in previous versions are no longer correctly aligned. It's not a great idea to use mp3 as a file format of record, because of differences like this between decoders. The previous behaviour is still available as a preference.

Add new Hybrid normalisation type for spectrogram and colour 3d plot layers. This normalises each column to its peak value and then scales the normalised values by the log of the peak in order to restore some distinction in scale between columns with different levels. It can provide quite visually clear results.

Add function to subdivide time instant layers into regular intervals (and its inverse)

Add new preference for default colour scales

Add a basic ability to zoom (in the frequency axis) to the spectrum

Switch to using combined level/pan controls in layer property boxes and for the main volume control

Make CSV file reader better able to handle files with varying numbers of columns

Fix a number of problems on Windows with loading and saving some file formats to filenames not representable in system codepage

Add "What's New" dialog

Finally switch the Windows build to 64-bit by default (with adapters to run either 32- or 64-bit plugins)

Add unit-converter dialog, for converting between various pitch and timing units

- Fix failure to reload note layers from session file
- Use a more sensible scale for the play-speed dial
- Fix crash when importing very wide CSV files
- Fix generation of wrong layer type from some CSV files
- Fix failure to export last instant in a time-instant layer

Fix a crash when rendering certain colour 3d plot layers

Add support for left/right scrolling using a two-finger touchpad gesture (where available)

- Make the octave numbering into a configurable option, and change the default. Previously Sonic Visualiser labelled middle-C as "C3"; now it labels middle-C as "C4", a more common standard in the world outside MIDI sequencer software. The previous system is available as an option in the Preferences. This affects only the visible labels: there is no change to analysis or to the file format
- Sonify time-value layers. Any time-value curve whose scale unit is set to Hz will now acquire a playback toggle control; this control is off by default, but if it is switched on, the curve will be played back using a variable-frequency sound generator
- Add support for playback of note layers with non-MIDI frequencies (formerly the note playback was limited to exact MIDI pitch)
- Change the default playback sample for note layers from piano to an electric piano with sustain. The piano sample is still available, and any sessions saved using it should continue to use it
- Add keyboard shortcuts to cycle the current layer (in addition to the existing ones to cycle the current pane)
- Fix various bugs related to layer ordering: layer tabs re-ordering themselves randomly when new layer added, layers being ordered randomly when saving and reloading a session
- Fix incorrect interaction with non-Unicode usernames when creating temporary and template directories on Windows
- Shade the start and end of the main audio file, to make them easier to see for files that start or end in silence
- Speed up rendering and scrolling in time-value layers
- Make it possible to import CSV files directly into Note layers by adding Pitch as a data type in the CSV file import dialog
- Fix problems with keyboard shortcuts when using Qt5 on OS/X. This is the first release in which the official builds use Qt5 for all platforms.

Add a startup welcome dialog that also explains what SV makes network connections for and allows user to forbid them

- Add "Export Audio Data" feature

- Show piano keyboard scale in note and time-value layers as well as spectrogram, where vertical scale is log Hz; also show numerical scale in note and region layers when not auto-aligned

- Speed up CSV file import and avoid showing crazily wide window for CSV file format dialog when file has lots of columns

- Fix incorrectly saved window geometry when exiting from maximised state

- Reduce number of timer wakeups when idle

- Add American English translation and make choice of translation into a preference (defaulting to system locale)

- Permit installation to non-default location with Windows installer build

Support 64-bit builds on OS/X (using CoreAudio instead of obsolete QuickTime audio file reader)

Simplify RDF reading and fix some bugs. Now requires Dataquay

(http://breakfastquay.com/dataquay/) rather than using Redland
directly. Release builds use Sord/Serd rather than Redland

Add a fullscreen mode on the F11 key

Add session templates; save session as template; apply template to session

Tidy up the file open logic so as to remove the dialog asking how to open a file, where possible

Various bug fixes.

Sonic Visualiser now registers as a file type handler on OS/X,

providing better integration with the desktop generally (Dan Stowell)

- There is a new function to toggle all Time Rulers at once (key #)

- The CSV import dialog has been overhauled, allowing more flexible
selection of purpose for each column

- Text overlays are now easier to read on dark backgrounds

- Hidden layers are now ignored when exporting an image (Dan Stowell)

- A crash when starting a new session or exiting the application
after loading a session with saved alignment data has been fixed

- The duplication of right-button menu functions when multiple files
were loaded has been fixed

- The layer-add menu functions now have shortcuts (Dan Stowell)

- The codebase has been reorganised into libraries and a configure
step added. It should be easier to build and maintain on OS/X and
Linux than previously, although it won't make much difference on
Windows.

- A Czech translation is now included (thanks to Pavel Fric).

The RDF importer does a better job of assigning labels to layers,

layers to panes, and values to labelled regions

- Interactive editing in the Text layer benefits from the same
improvements as made in 1.7 to Note and Region layers

- The layer data editor window has a text search feature

- The main window status bar now shows the last label to have passed
the playback position in the current layer, at the right end of the
status bar

- The Russian translation has been updated (thanks Alexandre)

A new "Insert Item At Selection" function on the Edit menu

can be used to create Note and Region layer items whose time
extents correspond to the current selection(s)

- Interactively editing points in the Note and Region layers
now works much more smoothly

- SV can now import MIDI files that use SMPTE timecode for event
timing (importing MIDI files using with the more common
timebase-based timing was already supported)

- Time values throughout the display may optionally be shown in
seconds and frames at various frame rates

- A crash on exit in Windows has been fixed

- A very unobtrusive user survey is now included

- Various other bug fixes.