Soundplant 50.0.14 beta
Release Notes
3/10/2021
Soundplant home page:
https://soundplant.org
Soundplant is almost done getting rewritten from scratch to better support modern and future hardware and platforms. Core Soundplant functionality in this beta is stable and well-functioning, with several new features, including many that were disabled in the previous beta now reenabled with improvements, and plenty of bug fixes. Some lesser functions remain not yet fully implemented. If you're already using beta 50.0.8, definitely update to this more refined beta 50.0.14; if you still haven't tried the v.50 beta, v.50.0.14 is an even better entry point with a lot more functionality up and running!
New features in v.50.0.14 include:
- MIDI support (click 'midi assign' and then trigger a note on any connected MIDI device to associate a MIDI trigger with one of Soundplant's keys)
- settable eq band crossover frequencies for increased fine tuning, allowing the eq unit to serve as a lowpass or highpass filter (click and drag from the 'low' and 'high' band labels; doubleclick to reset to default)
- reverb effect revamped to convolution reverb, which is more performant, sounds better, & can yield interesting effects, including loading custom reverb impulse response from any sound file
- output sample rate configurable up to 384kHz, higher quality than any previous Soundplant
- spectrogram audio visualization (visualizations can be toggled on/off in the preferences)
- 'fade to pause' option added to fade configuration, allows fading in/out from/to paused state
- backspace can be set to 'fade out all' via the preferences
- several new performance tuning preference settings
- fullscreen mode togglable on Windows via ctrl+alt+shift+enter (this was already possible on Mac via the standard system fullscreen methods)
- many optimizations, efficiency improvements, & bug fixes
Newly restored features (these had been disabled in the last beta and are now working again):
- waveform zooming (improved with channel separation, increased detail, & deeper zooming)
- preferences panel (including audio output device, latency tuning, UI tweaking, & several useful new settings)
- activity logging
- save keymap with sounds
- recordings saved as proper .wav files (32-bit, lossless) instead of .mka
- when loading old version 4x keymaps, reverb & lowpass settings are applied (interpreted into similar v.50 settings)
Features *not yet working* in this build but still coming soon [sorry!]:
- playlists
- effects randomization
- multiple key simultaneous selecting/editing
- multi-key pitch assign & offset assign
- ASIO support on Windows
- custom key color selection
- space key as global pause/unpause
- native support for Apple Silicon Macs
- light UI mode
Some other notes:
- The new MIDI support feature for now is just a simple MIDI learn for note on/note off triggers. But this can be expanded to support things like note velocity data as well as other types of MIDI messages such as rotary encoders/continuous controllers mapped to Soundplant knobs etc. I am also thinking of enabling a kind of grid view mode to decouple onscreen buttons from the qwerty keyboard layout, to have custom onscreen trigger button layouts which can be assigned to MIDI and/or QWERTY keys. Let me know what you might find especially useful.
- Convolution reverb is a whole universe unto itself and I encourage experimentation with this new effect; Soundplant includes some impulse response presets but it's also fun to create your own or try using random sound files as IRs for unusual effects. You can generate synthesized IRs with tools like this.
- Audio output device selection seems to occasionally cause higher latency playback when selecting a device that's not the default. Let me know how it works for you.
- UI knob behavior has been switched to vertical sliding as default (e.g. click and drag up and down to adjust), with new preferences added to change back to radial behavior (click and drag in a circle) if preferred and to adjust sensitivity.
- Waveform zooming can get slow when zooming in really deep on long sounds; I'll be working to further optimize this.
- If you're on an older computer and found last beta v.50.0.8 to be sluggish or have glitchy audio, try tweaking the new performance tuning preferences especially the 'refresh rate' and 'latency tuning' options.
- As with the last beta, just to reiterate, this version can open keymaps saved in Soundplant v.40 or later, but it saves keymaps in a new format that can not be opened by previous versions of Soundplant. So be careful about overwriting old keymaps that you might still want to use in prior Soundplant versions.
- This free beta has no function limitations aside from those mentioned above, but will expire in July. I'll have a newer/improved public release out by then to replace this one, I promise! Until then v.47 remains the latest Soundplant for which you can purchase a license. All who have bought a v.47 license will get a free upgrade once v.50 exits beta; if you want to support v.50's development for now you can purchase a v.47 license.
System Requirements
The Windows version runs on Windows 10, 8, & 7, 64-bit only
The Macintosh version runs on latest macOS 11.2 Big Sur down to minimum OS X 10.11 El Capitan (should also work on 10.10 Yosemite but untested)
Shortlist of major new features in v.50 from last beta
- completely rewritten as a fully 64-bit app, with better optimized use of modern multicore CPUs and GPUs for a smoother UI & more audio processing headroom
- new audio engine with unlimited channels & higher quality
- faster asynchronous sound loading and .keymap opening
- numeric keypad support (16 more assignable keys)
- new per-key effects including 3 band eq, Chebyshev distortion, timestretch pitch shift, ring modulation
- darker-themed UI, hopefully easier on the eyes for those working in dark control booths
- collapsible/expandable keyboard sections for UI customization
- new 'info' view mode, a compromise between 'simple' & 'detailed' views
- improved memory handling especially when loading many large sounds