New beta in files
2005-12-15 by colinfraser_com
Folks, I've uploaded v3.1.006 beta 34 to Yahoo files. This build covers all the technical changes I'm planning on making before the next release build - there are just UI things to add, assuming there aren't any problems in this one. Feedback is always welcome with P3 betas - even if you install it and have no trouble at all, I'd like to know. Otherwise I can't be sure whether it all works perfectly, or nobody tried it. The most recent change is new external MIDI sync handling code, which should allow P3 to sync to dodgy PC based sequencers that send out clock bytes with the regularity of radioactive decay. It now queues up clock bytes, and handles them at maximum tempo if they arrive in clumps. I don't have any dodgy PC sequencers in my studio, so it would be nice if afflicted persons could confirm this resolves the issue (Miguel, this could save you the MIDI-Ox workaround). There are some major internal changes to the way P3 handles poly patterns. For mono patterns things will be exactly the same, but if you are using aux notes, a couple of things are different. First, multiple auxes set to the same note are thinned out, so there is only a single note message for each note number. This eliminates unneccessary use of MIDI bandwidth, and makes life easier for poorly written synth OSs that struggle with multiples of the same note... There's now a limit of 8 notes that can be played by each track - you can achieve this by pairing two tracks together, with aux A on one track redirecting all auxes to the second track and the other three auxes doing aux notes. Adding those three to the four aux notes plus one main note on the second track makes eight. I have also changed the behaviour of the 'aux note abs Xd' and 'aux note rel Xd' events which are renamed 'aux note abs xF' and 'aux note rel xF'. xF = no FTS Force-to-scale does not apply to these aux notes, but the current part transpose and playlist transpose settings now do. This seems a lot more logical to me, but if you find it stops you doing something useful, let me know. Another change is the rel aux notes are now calculated based on the FTS'd value of the primary note, not the stored value. This makes more sense if you are using 'aux note rel xF' to do fixed 'chord memory' type effects against a root note pattern that is being forced to scale. One other change in this build is not at all obvious unless you check P3s MIDI output on an oscilloscope. After recent discussion about MIDI delay, I decided to make sure that there was the absolute minimum of CPU latency in P3s MIDI output, so the notes come out as fast as the MIDI bus can take them. I found that with heavy use of CPU intensive aux events and all tracks active, CPU latency was reaching 3ms in some cases. A re-ordering of the way each clock pulse is handled has eliminated this, by moving all aux event processing from the start of each clock pulse to the end of the previous one. Personally I'm not sure I hear any difference even with quite a busy group of tracks triggering percussive sounds, but if you think this build is any rhythmically tighter, let me know. Best regards, Colin Fraser Sequentix Music Systems Ltd http://www.sequentix.com