Blogging to Paradise

We’ve done preliminary testing on the new alpha (soon to be beta!) of SonicMood v4.9.6 (and also the currently shipping version, v4.9.5) and so far we’ve found nothing that doesn’t work just fine under Snow Leopard.

The one area that’s a bit of a problem is digital audio recording. Since SonicMood relies on Soundflower to record, and the current version (1.4.3) of Soundflower doesn’t work with Snow Leopard, SonicMood can’t record digital audio. Note that this doesn’t affect MIDI recording at all, just recording to AIFF, etc., files.

I have found a temporary work-around by using a customized version of Soundflower that I discovered here: http://si02.info/index.php/audio/tutorials

Digital audio recording works fine under Snow Leopard using this customized version of Soundflower.

Anyway, other than the recording hiccup discussed above, SonicMood seems to get along fine with Snow Leopard. We’ll be doing more testing, of course, but I think it’s safe to say SonicMood has no major problems running under Snow Leopard.

And the beta should be starting SOON!!!

Cheers,
John

Well, I’m still working on SonicMood next version, alpha 12. My computer died about a week ago and it took a few days just to track down the problem (bad video card). I took a shot at just buying something from Best Buy (bad idea) but of course that video card didn’t work (Mac Pros are pretty particular about which video card you can use…) plus it wasn’t even as described on the box (only one DVI connector, not two). So I bought one that I knew would work (a very nice ATI Radeon 3870 HD MAC/PC edition) from Amazon with next day shipping.

Anyway, long story short, I’m back up and working on SonicMood again. I doubt I’ll make the “early June” hoped-for release date since I haven’t even started beta testing of this version. I’m also still struggling with the audio recording. Parts are looking pretty good, but I’m stuck at needing to use something like “Soundflower” (www.cycling74.com/products/soundflower) to get the recording input to work right. I may have to go with that this go-round and get something that works better for the next release.

That’s it for now - back to work!

Cheers,
John

I’ve been working hard on the next SonicMood update. I have the undo/redo working and also “digital recording” is coming along well. With this version you should be able to record both the instrumental sounds and the nature sounds to an audio file that you can move to iTunes and then upload to an iPod, etc.

There’s still more work to be done as I’m not yet happy with everything on the recording side.

I’m shooting for an early June release, but that could change depending on how long testing takes (and how many bugs show up…)

Cheers,
John

Hi all,

I’ve been working on SonicMood v4.9.2 and making progress on adding a proper undo/redo capability so you can reverse editing changes. This is taking longer than I expected (as usual) since I have to be careful with the way I handle changes (since one control can affect others).

I also am making some cosmetic and functional changes to make the whole operation a little more intuitive (I hope!). And I’d like to improve the way timing is selected with a few more choices in the note and rest durations. Still thinking about how to handle that.

Finally, I am still planning on adding MP3, etc., recording capability. I’d like to do that soon, but don’t know if it will make it into this version or not… I’m afraid I’ve gotten a bit sidetracked with the undo/redo thing, so we’ll see…

On a side note, I just wanted to let you all know about what I consider a GREAT deal over at MacHeist. They have a “bundle” sale that just started today (March 25th) with what I consider mostly incredible apps for $39! I don’t know how they do it. 25% of their sales is supposed to go to charity, too.

I don’t know if you have to be a member or not (doesn’t cost anything) but if you’re interested, here’s the link to their web site:
http://www.macheist.com/

SonicMood isn’t part of the bundle and I don’t get anything out of this. But it just seems like such a good deal that I thought I should pass it along.

Cheers,
John

We’re in the middle of beta testing SonicMood v4.8.9.

Here’s a list of some of the new features and bug fixes for this version:

• Made the edit window more compact to save screen space. In addition, the edit window is now resizable with vertical and horizontal scrollbars so the controls can be scrolled. The width and height of the edit window, along with the position of the scrollbars, is saved.
• Changed default starting size and position of windows. Made changes to the default locations of windows so they open over the main window.
• Tweaked the look of the various lists.
• Changed some of the toolbar buttons on the main window.
• Made a small tweak to the “color scheme” selection area of the Preferences window and changed the default color scheme to “mellow yellow”. Also put a “spiral galaxy” graphic background on the Register window.
• Made a few improvements (I hope) to the “version update” function, including adding a check to see if the SonicMood folder is read-only. If it is, SonicMood will tell the user to fix it before an update can happen.
• Came up with a way to trap the user’s pressing of the oval button at the right of the titlebar to know when the toolbar is hidden or shown.
• Changed the URL for the “Bit of Paradise Products” link on the “About SonicMood” window from the BitOfParadise home page to the SonicMood home page. Also changed the URL for downloading updates.
• Added more error checking in the “version update” code.
• Got the “Cancel” button on the “version update” DownLoad window to work even if the connection is interrupted.
• Changed the behavior if a network connection isn’t available. Now no user message is given (it “fails silently”) if the check is not requested explicitly by the user (auto check).
• Replaced the HTMLViewer with an EditField in the “version update” window to hold the version notes. This avoids the crashing problem on PPC with Tiger (don’t know about Leopard with PPC…) when scrolling with the mouse scrollwheel.
• Removed some unused “Help” variables.
• Fixed an “out of bounds” error that happened if a Mood was moved to the last row, and it was playing, when it was deleted.
• Fixed a bug that caused the wrong Mood to be removed from the “play times” schedule list if a scheduled Mood was deleted.
• Fixed a problem with the way user names were saved if the name was in a multi-byte character set like Kanji, etc.
• Fixed a bug that erased a good registration if the user started to re-register and then pressed Cancel. Also fixed a bug that caused a good registration to be erased if the user entered an invalid re-registration code and then pressed Cancel.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the horizontal scrollbar from appearing when listbox column sizes were increased.

We’re making great progress on the next update to SonicMood! Most of the new features are in and debugged. There are still one or two new features we’re thinking of adding. After that it’ll be beta time, followed shortly by its release.:) Here’s a partial list of changes so far: 

1. Combined all the edit controls that worked on individual instruments into one page called “Individual Note Properties.” That and a few other changes in the “Mood Info/Edit” window should make editing Moods easier.
2. Changed the timing and volume variation controls to work on each instrument individually.
3. Each instrument can set its own # of notes now, although the maximum number of notes playing at any time is still 16.
4. Changed the method of setting pause and sustain times from directly specifying a time in seconds to setting a “tempo” (in Beats Per Minute) and a note value (quarter note, eighth note, etc.)
5. Changed the “Mood Tempo” slider into a “Relative Tempo (%)” slider on the SonicMood window to be compatible with the idea of “tempo” and note values (quarter note, etc.)
6. Enabled the use of the mousewheel to adjust all sliders (volume, pan, etc.) and the time/date digits in the sleep/wake/TimeOfDay windows.
7. Tweaked the MIDI note generation to work more reliably with new features like the ability to adjust the number of notes for each instrument individually.
8. The “Instrument Groups” (pianos, strings, etc.) are saved and restored now.
9. Updated some of the Mood instrumental settings to make them more pleasing.
10. Moved the synthisizer list to the preferences window.
11. Made cosmetic changes to the “default” color scheme to make it more “mainstream”.
12. Changed the slider knobs to round and tweaked the location of slider elements a little to give more space.
13. Added background color to the “Mood Info/Edit” window. Fixed the text so its color would contrast properly with the background color.
14. Saved a little space at the top of the SonicMood window and now the “zoomed” height is 60, not 65.
15. Fixed a bug with the “Clear All” and “Restore” buttons/functions on the Keyboard Window. They weren’t working.
16. Fixed a bug the was causing fast notes to sometimes not continue after a few seconds.
17. Fixed a bug that kept buttons from darkening when pressed.

 

It shouldn’t be too long now. We’ve got v4.8.6 in beta and so far we’ve received no reports of bugs. If all goes well, this version will go “gold” in a week or less.Don’t forget, those of you who haven’t purchased SonicMood yet, if you buy before v4.8.6 comes out you’ll get “free updates forever”. If you wait until after v4.8.6 is out you’ll need to pay a small upgrade fee after every two major version releases.Lots of good stuff coming, so don’t wait!John

Well, we haven’t seen much in the way of bug reports (or bugs) in v4.8.5.3 so the next version will probably be v4.8.6. As you may know from the “IMPORTANT MESSAGES” notes on our web site, anyone registering after v4.8.6 comes out will no longer have “free upgrades for life”. Instead you will have to pay a reasonable “upgrade fee” after two major versions. So if you register with v4.8.6 you’ll need to pay the fee when v6.8.6 comes out, which probably wouldn’t be for a few years.So far I’ve managed to make two major improvements to v4.8.6. One is a re-factoring of the timers that drive the notes and many other time-dependent operations. This will make for a much cleaner and easier to maintain and extend set of routines. The other is the rethinking and rearranging of the way we handle Scene files and Soundfiles. Scene files and Soundfiles will now be kept in separate folders inside a folder labeled “SonicMood” inside the “Application Support” folder. This will make for a centralized repository for those files which will make it easier to keep track of them. It will no longer be necessary to specify a location for the Soundfiles folder, either.There are a few more improvements:

1. Holding the “shift” key down while sliding the instruments or soundfiles volume slider will set the volume of all the Moods, not just the one currently playing.
2. The “Scene list” is now on a sheet window attached to the “Scene” window.
3. Put the current elapsed timer mode in the “progress bar timer area” of the marquee.
4. Improved the behavior of the elapsed timer so it won’t start up if the current Theme contains no Moods.

More to follow!☺

Well, we got v4.8.5 out, then rushed out v4.8.5.1 to fix some rather annoying bugs. Now we’re working hard on another bug fix version (v4.8.5.2) that’ll squish even more bugs we’ve found!We’ve also made a new page on the web site (“Sharing”) at http://www.sonicmood.com/MoodSharing.htm that contains extra soundfiles and some Mood files users have contributed. Stop by and pick up some new Moods if you’d like.Well, it’s May already and the yard’s a mess. We are threatening to go out and start a cleanup (to be fair, Laura did a bit yesterday while I was pounding the keyboard). So it’s time to GTD (Get Things Done!) :)Hope you all have a great weekend!John