Version 1.2pre1 of Sonic Visualiser is now available for testing. This is the first pre-build of version 1.2, and is intended to be feature complete, with "only" bug-fixes and documentation remaining to be done for the 1.2 release.
Win32 executable:
http://www.sonicvisualiser.org/pre/sonic-visualiser-1.2pre1-win32.zipOS/X (10.4 and newer) universal binary executable:
http://www.sonicvisualiser.org/pre/sonic-visualiser-1.2pre1-osx-universal.tar.bz2Linux executable:
http://www.sonicvisualiser.org/pre/sonic-visualiser-1.2pre1-i686-linux.tar.bz2Source code:
http://www.sonicvisualiser.org/pre/sonic-visualiser-1.2pre1.tar.bz2Please try it out, and report any new problems you find in the bug tracker:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=162924&atid=825705A complete list of the new features in 1.2 (since 1.0) is included in the distribution package, and is also reproduced below.
Note that the timeline alignment feature is only enabled if the MATCH Vamp plugin is installed -- you can download this from the Vamp plugins download page at
http://www.vamp-plugins.org/download.html. You should see a toolbar button with an icon like this:
next to the Solo button; click this to enable Align mode. This button is absent if SV was unable to find the MATCH plugin.
New features in Sonic Visualiser 1.2, since the previous version 1.0:
- SV now supports time-alignment of multiple performances of a work
loaded at the same time. This option is enabled when the MATCH Vamp
plugin is installed. When alignment is switched on and more than one
audio file is open, SV will assume that all open files are
differently timed performances of the same work, and will calculate
time alignments for them. Playback will then play only a single file
at a time, and the playback cursors in other files will track at the
varying speeds to try to ensure that each is at the same point in the
underlying score. This enables effective comparison of several such
files, as well as a meaningful way to switch from one performance to
another during playback (ensuring that the switch happens at the
correct point in the performance being switched to).
- There is a new Image layer, which can display images from the
local filesystem or retrieved via HTTP or FTP.
- A new measurement tool has been added. With the measurement tool
selected, dragging in a pane draws a rectangle labelled with the
scale values for its start and end corners and its size. You can
have any number of measurements present at once; they are associated
with the top layer, their scale values depend on the scale for that
layer, and they are only shown when that layer is at the top and the
measurement tool is active. Measurements are saved and reloaded in
the session file. Drawing measurements can be undone and redone, and
a measurement can be deleted by hitting Del when highlighted. Note
that the measurement tool shows the scale values associated with the
pixel positions of the mouse when dragging, not any values associated
with actual features present in the audio or its analysis (e.g. the
values are not rounded to the nearest spectrogram bin).
- You can double-click using the measurement tool in the spectrogram
to get an instant measurement rectangle for a feature. This is a
purely graphical feature that works by calculating the boundary of a
contiguous region of pixels "similar to" the one you double-clicked
on; it does not use audio analysis. Adjusting the gain and colour
scheme etc of the spectrogram will (by design) affect the
measurements obtained this way.
- The spectrum can now optionally show frequency estimates of peaks
aligned with a piano keyboard along the horizontal axis (this needs
some refinement).
- The harmonic cursor in the spectrogram has moved from the Select
tool to the Measurement tool. There is now a similar harmonic cursor
in the spectrum. Both of them show more information as text
alongside the cursor than previously.
- There is a new Erase tool for erasing individual points from an
editable layer.
- Several keyboard shortcuts have changed -- all of the Alt+key
shortcuts now either use Ctrl or a plain keypress with no modifier,
to avoid clashes with window manager shortcuts and to make them
easier to use and remember
- The playback controls are now in a Playback menu as well as the
toolbar.
- There is a new key and mouse control reference under Help (or press
F2).
- You can double-click on a pane in navigate mode to jump to a time.
- All of the single-colour layers (waveform, time values etc) now
allow you to define your own colours as well as using the built-in
set. The colour of a layer is now shown next to its name on the pane.
- When you add a new single-colour layer it will use a default colour
that is not yet in use in another layer (if there is one).
- Single-colour layers can now optionally have black backgrounds (with
a set of lighter colours in the default colour palette that use black
backgrounds by default).
- There's a new Printer colour scheme in the spectrogram with only a
small number of grey shades.
- Vertical zoom in a log-scaled spectrogram is much more intuitive;
it now leaves the point that was in the centre of the visible area in
the centre after zoom, instead of the point that was in the centre of
the linear range corresponding to the visible area.
- There's a new Layer Summary window which shows the panes and
layer data in a tree layout. This is very simplistic at the moment.
- Each pane now has an [X] button at its top left, which removes that
pane when clicked.
- There's a new Solo play mode toggle button; when active, only the
currently selected pane is played. This is also the default when
time alignment is in use.
- Rewind/ffwd now stay confined to the selection if Play Selection is
enabled; also, the rewind and ffwd "one step" buttons are now enabled
even if there is no time instants layer for them to align to (they
align to the time ruler instead and so jump in steps of a size
dependent on the zoom level).
- You can now export note layers to MIDI.
- MIDI note velocity is partially supported. Note velocity is
retained when importing and exporting MIDI and is used in playback,
but it is not yet shown in the display and cannot yet be edited.
- You can now drag-and-drop files (of whatever type) onto SV from
other programs such as file managers or web browsers.
- mp3 files (and Ogg, but they aren't supported on Windows at the
moment) are now decoded in a background thread so you can see the
start of the track without waiting for the rest to decode.
- Mac builds of SV can now load AAC/mp4 files and anything else
supported by QuickTime.
- There is now an option to resample audio files on import if they
don't match the samplerate of the first file loaded. By default this
is switched off, as it affects the visible waveform. The default
behaviour is unchanged (play at the wrong rate). There is still no
option to handle multiple rates "correctly" (i.e. by resampling
on playback and showing the waveforms at different resolutions
according to each one's underlying rate) and there probably never
will be.
- SV can now open .m3u playlist files, though it's a hazardous thing
to do as it simply loads all the files in the playlist at once.
- SV now has various options for how to number tapped time instants
(bar/beat, plain counter, time in seconds, tempo etc).
- The official builds now use Qt 4.3, which fixes some nasty
bugs in the file dialog that the version 1.0 builds suffered from.
Chris
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