What's new in Soundplant 50.5.0
Jul 21, 2022
- Apple Silicon native support
- Recording from mic (or any other source) directly onto keys, with optional monitoring through realtime effects
- Effects randomization
- Variable channel meter sizes allowing up to 24 visible & auto sizing
- Drag & drop keys between Soundplant windows
- Adjust knobs via mousewheel/trackpad scroll (with shift+scroll for high precision)
- Extensive optimizations lowering cpu & gpu use
- Shift+click recent keymaps list items to open keymap in a new window
- Ring mod effect improved performance & expanded frequency range to -4000Hz-4000Hz
- Highpass, lowpass, and ring mod knob adjustment curves improved with more intuitive logarithmic scale for fatter sweet spots
- Eq/filter processing moved to end of effects chain for more intuitive sounding results
- Chosen custom key colors are saved as presets in the color picker palette
- Midi assign dialog lists all detected MIDI input devices
- 'Auto save recordings' preference to skip prompt for recording filename
- Bug fixes
New in Soundplant 50.1.1 (Jul 16, 2021)
- Here is a complete list of all new features added in v.50:
- Rewritten from scratch with full 64-bitness optimized for modern multicore CPUs & GPUs
- New audio engine with unlimited simultaneous sound channels & higher quality mixing up to 384kHz
- MIDI assign for triggering sounds via MIDI
- Numeric keypad support adding 16 more assignable keyboard keys
- New per-key effects including 3 band eq, Chebyshev distortion, timestretch pitch shift, ring modulation, highpass, and convolution reverb with support for loading custom impulse response files
- Faster asynchronous sound loading & .keymap opening
- Improved memory handling especially when loading many large sounds
- Spectrogram, oscilloscope, and volume meter realtime visualizations
- Dark and light ui themes
- Collapsible/expandable keyboard sections
- New 'info' view mode, a compromise between 'simple' & 'detailed' views
- 'fade to pause' setting allows fading in/out from/to paused state
- 'copy multi key' allows easily duplicating a key onto multiple keys at once
- Backspace can be set to 'fade out all' via the preferences
- Fullscreen mode togglable via ctrl+alt+shift+enter
- Recording format preference allows lossless or compressed recordings
- New 'info' view mode, a compromise between 'simple' & 'detailed' views
- Waveform zooming has increased detail, deeper zooming, & channel separation for stereo sounds
- Improved latency for background key input
- Peak/beat detection for more automated offset slicing
- Custom key color selection
- Channel priority autokill groups for finer control over customizing what sounds can kill other sounds
- Fade curve setting
- Command/Windows/Meta modifier key combos added to 'only accept input with key combo', yielding 4 more combo options to background key input
- 'obey key combo setting even when in focus' background key input setting added
- Backspace key function options added, can be set to fade out all or ignore
- Activity logging startup state setting added
New in Soundplant 50.1.1 Beta (Jul 15, 2021)
- Here is a complete list of all new features added in v.50:
- rewritten from scratch with full 64-bitness optimized for modern multicore CPUs & GPUs
- new audio engine with unlimited simultaneous sound channels & higher quality mixing up to 384kHz
- MIDI assign for triggering sounds via MIDI
- numeric keypad support adding 16 more assignable keyboard keys
- new per-key effects including 3 band eq, Chebyshev distortion, timestretch pitch shift, ring modulation, highpass, and convolution reverb with support for loading custom impulse response files
- faster asynchronous sound loading & .keymap opening
- improved memory handling especially when loading many large sounds
- spectrogram, oscilloscope, and volume meter realtime visualizations
- dark and light ui themes
- collapsible/expandable keyboard sections
- new 'info' view mode, a compromise between 'simple' & 'detailed' views
- 'fade to pause' setting allows fading in/out from/to paused state
- 'copy multi key' allows easily duplicating a key onto multiple keys at once
- backspace can be set to 'fade out all' via the preferences
- fullscreen mode togglable via ctrl+alt+shift+enter
- recording format preference allows lossless or compressed recordings
- new 'info' view mode, a compromise between 'simple' & 'detailed' views
- waveform zooming has increased detail, deeper zooming, & channel separation for stereo sounds
- improved latency for background key input
- peak/beat detection for more automated offset slicing
- custom key color selection
- channel priority autokill groups for finer control over customizing what sounds can kill other sounds
- fade curve setting
- Command/Windows/Meta modifier key combos added to 'only accept input with key combo', yielding 4 more combo options to background key input
- 'obey key combo setting even when in focus' background key input setting added
- backspace key function options added, can be set to fade out all or ignore
- activity logging startup state setting added
New in Soundplant 50.0.14 Beta (Mar 11, 2021)
- New features 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)
New in Soundplant 50.0.8 Beta (Nov 20, 2020)
- Soundplant has been almost entirely rewritten from scratch to better support modern and future hardware and platforms, and is now fully 64-bit. Core Soundplant functionality in this beta is stable and well-functioning, with many improvements and new features, but expect some roughness around the edges, and several lesser functions remain not yet fully implemented. Please report bugs not mentioned below.
- New features include:
- faster asynchronous sound loading and .keymap opening, especially for large compressed sounds
- numeric keypad support (16 more assignable keys)
- new more flexible audio engine with unlimited channels & higher quality
- new per-key effects including 3 band eq, Chebyshev distortion, timestretch pitch shift, ring modulation
- per-key volume controls now allow up to 200% processed amplification
- darker-themed UI, hopefully easier on the eyes for those working in dark control booths
- collapsible/expandable keyboard sections for UI customization
- oscilloscope & levels meters for output visualization
- new 'info' view mode, a compromise between 'simple' & 'detailed' views
- improved memory handling especially when loading many large sounds
- much improved use of multithreading and GPU acceleration for smoother UI & more audio processing headroom
- custom key colors
- 'list keymap' function is now 'print keymap' which can save the onscreen keymap as pdf or print to an actual printer
- new 'channel priority' setting 'highest' makes a sound unkillable by ESC & Backspace, will only stop on a hit to that key in 'kill' keymode
- lower latency when triggering sounds in 'background key input' mode
- Features *not yet working* in this build (sorry!) but coming soon:
- playlists
- waveform zooming
- activity logging
- effects randomization
- multiple key simultaneous selecting/editing
- batch pitch assign and batch offset assign
- preferences panel including audio output settings & performance tweaking for older computers (though many other persistent settings can already be set right from the main UI)
- save keymap with sounds
- Some other notes:
- This version can open keymaps saved in Soundplant v.40 or later. HOWEVER, it saves keymaps in a new JSON-based 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.
- Let me know if you really need support for opening earlier version keymaps created in v.39 and below; if there's enough demand I'll add it.
- As this has an entirely new audio engine, effects won't translate 100% identically from past versions. When opening an older version keymap, legacy reverb, LFO, and lowpass settings are ignored for now. I plan to implement better interpretation/translation of these legacy effects for when loading old keymaps.
- Mac users: Given macOS's recent increases in security and permissions, note that this version of Soundplant will ask you to grant it "Accessibility Permissions" when you first launch it, and this is required for the app to fully function (if this is a huge impediment for you/your organization let me know; I could enable a "minimal permissions" mode if there is demand, which would allow skipping this permissions step but prevent use of 'background key input'). Also note that the app must be placed into your Applications folder in order to run properly without running afoul of security rules.
- Mac users: Custom key color selection works imperfectly on some versions of macOS, because the system color palette dialog behaves differently depending on the OS version. Fix to come.
- Really old Mac users: Technically this version should work as far back as OS 10.10 Yosemite but has not been tested on any system pre-10.11.6, if you happen to have a machine running Yosemite feel free to give it a try and let me know how it goes.
- Windows users: As Soundplant v.47 still runs perfectly on latest Windows and this new beta has not yet reached complete feature parity with v.47 and is not as battle-tested, you have some pretty good reasons to stick with v.47 for now especially in live production environments. That said this beta has many improvements over v.47, so as long as it does not lack v.47 features you really need and you are adventurous enough to be a bit of a guinea pig, please use it!
- I'm not totally happy with the current reverb effect implementation both in sound quality and CPU usage. Though I love having per-key reverb instead of the single global reverb unit of older Soundplant versions, the processing cost is high. I may change this to a convolution reverb and/or reintroduce global reverb to simplify things, let me know what you think if you are a frequent user of Soundplant's effects.
- In general it's asking a lot of the CPU to enable multiple standalone effects processing nodes per each of the 88 assignable keys and I'm still working to optimize things and find the right balance between effects flexibility and processing demands, with the emphasis on handy but low CPU effects (for example the timestretch pitch shift doesn't sound fantastic but is a relatively fast implementation). If you try to activate many effects on many dozens of assigned keys all at once you will surely get glitches on all but the beefiest machines but I'll be working to refine and minimize this.
- Circular dials are being used for UI controls instead of horizontal sliders. While I've long preferred the precision of sliders there are overwhelming practical reasons for dials over sliders and I hope most users are used to them by now from other apps. Soundplant's dials are currently implemented as radial controls, meaning you have to click and drag them in an actual circle to change their value rather than just click and drag in a single linear direction. To me this is the most intuitive and sensitive way to interact with UI dials, but I could be wrong! Let me know what you think. If this elicits strong opinions I can add an option to change them to linear control style (click and drag in a single direction).
- keymodes have been consolidated with the old 'hold down' setting into a new unified 'keymode' menu that I hope makes more sense (without limiting configuration flexibility), let me know what you think.
- This free beta has no function limitations aside from those mentioned above, but will expire in March. I will surely 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 developement for now you can purchase a v.47 license.
New in Soundplant 42 (Nov 6, 2014)
- 96 kHz output and 32-bit floating point internal mixing for highest possible sound quality; 256 channel polyphony for dense soundscapes and complex virtual instruments; audio output device selection; direct recording of Soundplant's output; realtime reverb, bnandpass, and other effects
New in Soundplant 41i Beta (Nov 28, 2013)
- improved memory management for loading large sound files. Eliminated crashes and out of memory messages (but please let me know if you’re still seeing any of these issues). For very large sounds (usually > 30 minutes in length), if system RAM is low then sounds are loaded in a special mode with some functionality disabled (realtime pitch shift and offsets), kind of like the “play from disk” mode in older versions of Soundplant, although in this case sounds are still being loaded to RAM but just in a non-contiguous manner.
- added a “locate file…” button to the warning that appears when loading a keymap and the sound file can’t be found in its original location. Soundplant will also automatically look for other files it can’t find in the newly selected location. This is really convenient and I should have added it a while ago!
- custom key labels: click on the currently selected key’s large filename in the key configuration part of the screen and a prompt will open allowing renaming the label for the key. Soundplant will ignore sound triggers while typing into this prompt and all other interface elements are disabled until the prompt is closed.
- onscreen keyboard keys are bigger with more room for text labels to occupy, and even bigger in simple view mode where a whole extra line of text is now visible.
- added a large channels meter display mode with fatter meters and bigger text but less channels visible. This has the added bonus of lower cpu usage with fewer sounds being tracked onscreen and is now the default setting on the Mac version for optimal performance on that platform. Another bonus is that it frees up some screen real estate to allow for longer, more precise sliders for the master volume and reverb controls. Also, while in this mode, if more than the visible 6 channels are in use an indicator appears specifying the total number of channels playing. This large channel meters mode is configurable in the preferences under the “sound channel meters display” setting with 2 options, 6 large meters or 12 small meters.
- added an option to set the default recordings save folder.
- added an option to set the startup state of the background key input setting. It’s off by default.
- added a “reload sound from disk” button on the key config toolbar – previously this function was only accessible by shift+clicking the “reset key” button. This preserves the key’s configuration while reloading and is handy if you’re frequently editing a sound file in an audio editor and needing to reload the changes into Soundplant.
- copy key, pitch assign, and offset assign have been reenabled.
- enlarged hotspots around slider bars to make it easier to instantly jump a slider to another point on the bar.
- bug fix: holddown mode wasn’t working properly in combination with the kill keymode. Also, in some situations if holddown was on, clicking/double-clicking the key to play the sound did not work as expected.
- bug fix: modifying the lowpass filter resonance setting while the lowpass filter itself was off resulted only in lowering of the volume of the sound; now the resonance setting has no audible effect unless the lowpass filter is on.
- bug fix: in a certain situation a key’s color would turn black after loading a file
- bug fix: in some situations trimmed sounds played slightly past their configured end offset
- bug fix: when saving a recording the wav file suffix wasn’t always automatically added
- bug fix: while playing a very short looping sound, the playback head was moving past the endpoint of the waveform in some situations
- bug fix: when running at the lower screen refresh rate, in some situations sound channel playback progress bar would flash when it first appeared
- Windows bug fix: on Win 8 when the program first started up, cursor rollovers didn’t work properly
- many other minor bug fixes
New in Soundplant 39 (Nov 15, 2013)
- virtually every audio file type supported
- first non-beta Mac version, with an identical feature set to the Windows version
- sounds set to 'play from disk' have all of the configurability of 'RAM' sounds
- 'list keymap' function
- master volume control
- keymaps easier to transport between computers and fully cross-platform compatible, with intelligent sound file locating
- redesigned interface with onscreen keyboard enlarged for better clarity and names of sounds appearing under each key, and channels meter enhanced with info and progress bars
- onscreen keys are animated as they play, showing progress
- 'background key detection' mode
- 'fade' keymode
- sound length display updates with pitch and offset modifications
- new key colors added
- all time displays standardized to H:M:S
- realtime RAM usage meter on Windows
- overall performance optimized and efficiency increased, making this the lowest latency Soundplant ever
- 'simple' and 'detailed' view modes
- waveform display
- key settings can be adjusted even if no sound is assigned to the key, allowing for saving of empty keymap templates
- 'low power mode' option
- 'show key config after key hit' option
- randomization settings for pitch, pan, and volume
- code-based program registration system
- Windows installer program
- asynchronous dialogs and file loading guaranteeing seamless playback even while loading new sounds
- play sounds with a mouse click
- recently loaded keymaps pulldown list
- 'save w/ sounds' function
- wav file cue point support
- 'save current key config as default' option