March 18, 2024
The latest update of MIDI Tapper includes major improvements on several fronts. All reported bugs (and several which were not reported) have been fixed. The most visible of these is probably MIDI I/O auto-selection at startup. In previous versions that often failed; now it does what it should!
[ IMPORTANT NOTICE: If you downloaded the 1.9.1 update and it crashed when you opened a project or imported a MIDI file, please download and install update 1.9.2 which fixes the problem. Sorry for the inconvenience! ]
Among many other improvements, faster overall response time for editing actions will be immediately noticeable to anyone who uses the MIDI editing features. A more compact memory management system allows Undo / Redo actions to happen much more quickly than before. Also, new single-key Quick shortcuts have been added to speed up the editing process. Many functions previously only avaliable through menu selection (sometimes several levels deep) can now be accessed with single keypresses, speeding up workflow consideraby.
To make keyboard recordings even more realistic, Fringe Offsets are now available. These allow the notes in a single tap to have slightly staggered attack times, as in actual keyboard playing. Using these offsets, arpeggios can also be handled as single taps, rather than having to break a group into many individual taps. Simply by dragging fringe offsets with the mouse, note attack times will be updated in recordings already made within the project.
By request, Mac users can now use the Mac Magic Trackpad for tapping, with each touch followed as if it were a keystroke on a MIDI keyboard. The positions of the touches determine the velocity, and separate octaves can be assigned to left and right hands for control of Rubatos. In situations where you don't have access to a MIDI keyboard, this option is more musical (and much quieter!) than using the computer keyboard. Thanks to MIDI Tapper enthusiast Daniel Docherty for requesting this feature and helping out with the beta testing.
Best Regards,
Aaron
August 25, 2023
I'm pleased to announce FLASH firmware v7, brought to us by our new firmware developer, Henry Lowengard. This update includes an important bug fix and two new features which have been requested by synth owners.
NEW FEATURE No. 1: Those of you who own MIDI controllers that do not support patch change messages (there are more of these than one might imagine) will be happy to know we've added a new CC 119, so you can now change patches using a CC!
NEW FEATURE No. 2: For even more convenience regarding patch changing, you can now select any of the synth's 128 patches as the startup default patch (auto-selected) so you don't have to manually select that patch when you plug in the synth. This is especially nice for use-cases where you just want to plug it in and have a specific sound, when using for example a MIDI keyboard having no knobs as all.
Now for the bug: until now there was an issue which would appear from time to time when using algorithm 3 (mono), where the output would simply stop when a patch change was made. This turned out to have to do with voice allocation, and has been fixed in the v7 update. Yay! Thanks to Henry for figuring out what caused this and rewriting the code to get rid of the problem!
UTE has been updated to support the new features in FLASH firmware v7, and also to address reported issues in the software, and to add a few new features. To start with, definitions now display correctly in the Constants window. A new Step Size display option has been added to Tuning List, to show the distance between one tone in the list and the next. New options have been added to the Search and Replace function. Lastly, a new Preference option has been added to treat all period values as 1/1 for mapped .scl files. Sound a little dry? Trust me, it's all very useful stuff!
Please download the updates from the FLASH product page and the UTE software page.
Best Regards,
Aaron
P.S. Did you know "Patch Change" is actually called "Program Change" in the MIDI spec? Everyone calles them patches and so do we, especially since "program" means something entirely different when our synth is *programmed* via a UART programmer!
December 25, 2022
Our recent server migration included a security update which has unfortunately caused problems with some of our software not being able to connect to the server for authorisation, update checking, bug reporting, and so on. Since becoming aware of this problem, we have been working on updates for all of the affected software. These updates will be released as soon as possible. In the mean time, please enjoy the holidays, and thank you for your patience!
UPDATE: I'm pleased to announce that as of December 31, 2022, this problem has been fixed. Unfortunately, the affected software cannot inform you of the avaliable update because of the nature of the problem, you have to go directly to the product page, sign in and download the update yourself. Please do that! Please also note that this same software purchased from the Mac App Store has not yet been updated because of Apple requirements which slow down the process of update releasing (although in the case of the MAS versions, this problem is not as critical). In any case, have a happy and healthy new year everyone!
Warm Regards,
Aaron
P.S. It appears that TPXE is also affected by this issue, but that software has been discontinued for some years and unfortunately can't be updated now. It has been replaced by UTE. Please use that instead.
November 09, 2022
Today's update of Universal Tuning Editor addresses an unexpected issue affecting TBX2b owners. It was reported that after selecting TBX2b as the current device, and opening the firmware update window, the server query replied incorrectly with the firmware intended for the predecessor of TBX2b, namely TBX2. These devices are not the same. One of the major differences between them is the absence of a battery in TBX2b. Because of this important difference, if firmware intended for TBX2 is loaded into TBX2b, the device will shut down immediately, since it will be looking for a battery that simply isn't there. Luckily, we included a "battery bypass" startup routine for TBX2 (power up while holding down both blue buttons), making it possible to start the device and load the correct firmware, even when a battery doesn't exist. Special thanks to TBX2b owner Fen Moir for reporting this important issue.
Please download the update from the UTE software page.
Cheers,
Aaron
October 06, 2022
Universal Tuning Editor has been updated to address all reported issues. Owners of the FLASH synth will be happy to know that programming multi-channel tuning tables has been fixed for both platforms. Thanks go to Giancarlo Sacchetti for reporting the issue and testing the beta version to make sure everything is working properly now.
Users of Pianoteq or other software synths or samplers which support the .scl + .kbm export option from UTE can now rest assured that the export / import process will again properly reproduce tunings prepared with notes 'out of order' and / or repeated notes (things which often happen when creating tunings for alternative keyboards). Many beta versions of UTE had to be tested to get this working with the current version of Pianoteq (version 7), which changed its tuning support as compared to earlier versions of the software. Many thanks go to Juhani Nuorvala for working with me to get the function working flawlessly with Pianoteq 7.
Please download the update from the UTE software page.
Best Regards,
Aaron
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