Blogging to Paradise

SonicMood v4.9.8.1 was just released. We made some improvements to the layout of the Edit window and combined the undo stacks for the Edit, Mixer, and main windows. And we added two new Moods, “Windy Day,” and “Climbing Mount Fuji.” We hope you like them!

Also (of course), there were some bug fixes.

Download them here and let us know what you think.

John

For the past month or so I have been reading Aaron Hillegass’ book “Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X” with an aim to rewriting SonicMood using Xcode and Objective-C.

My plan is to release SonicMood v5.0 as a rewrite in Cocoa. It will (I hope) contain substantially the same functionality as the current v4.9.8. Some parts of the interface may very well be improvements over the current one. And there may be a few bits of functionality missing in my first attempt at conversion.

I can’t ignore the fact that the future is with the Cocoa frameworks. And if SonicMood is to ever appear on the iPad, etc., it must be by using Apple’s tools - which they kindly provide free of charge anyway!

Of course, anyone buying SonicMood v4.9.8 will get free updates until v7 is released, so they will get all of version 5.x and version 6.x. Not to worry, in other words.

Anyway, that is my plan for SonicMood’s future. And moving to Cocoa/Xcode/Objective-C will allow for some nice future enhancements, too!

Cheers,
John

SonicMood v4.9.8 was released today, April 8th. I’ve made some functional improvements and fixed a few bugs.

If you haven’t already, you can download it here. The changes are documented here.

Enjoy!

OK, we’ve got those bugs fixed and this is the version to get!

Thanks,
John

I’ve finally finished all the work I wanted to do for this version. So go and get it!
http://www.sonicmood.com/SonicMoodDownloads.htm

Cheers,
John

I’m putting the finishing touches on this latest version of SonicMood. Unless some new bug shows up, I will probably post the update by early next week.

Here’s a short list of improvements and bug fixes:

Each instrument can use its own note pattern.
Added a new Mood, called “Bells Knells.”
Improved the way pictures are added to the picture window.
Improved the “crash reporter” to make it easier to report bugs.
Improved some of the cosmetics.
Fixed some bugs related to deleting and undo.
Fixed some registration issues.

There are many more fixes and improvements, too numerous to list here. You’ll be able to “read all about it” on the history page of our web site once the new version is posted.

Cheers,
John

Finally! We managed to decide we’re done and finish the beta testing… <grin>

So v4.9.6 is posted on our web site now. Get it here:
http://www.sonicmood.com/SonicMoodDownloads.htm

If you want to know what’s changed, just look here:
http://www.sonicmood.com/SonicMoodHistory.htm

If you’re interested in additional Moods and seeing what others have done, check this page out:
http://www.sonicmood.com/MoodSharing.htm

If you’d like some beautiful scenery to add to SonicMood’s “Picture Window,” this is the place:
http://www.sonicmood.com/Scenes.htm

Read what others have said about SonicMood here:
http://www.sonicmood.com/SonicMoodReviews.htm

and enjoy!

John

Well, we’ve been hard at work readying the next version of SonicMood, and it’s nearly done! Beta testing is at the point where only small bugs are surfacing, and I feel like the “last bug” <grin> has been squished!

So with any luck we’ll be going live in the next day or two. As usual this has taken much longer than anticipated, but I believe the improvements and new features will be worth it! Here’s a few of the new/changed items:

Added three new Moods (”Rainy Day,” “Aurora,” “Inside”), and added a “Check for New Moods” Mood menu item. The new Moods should be added automatically so the check is there “just in case.”

Updated and changed the Help system to use a browser to display the Help files, instead of using the Apple Help system.

If the “Green + zooms SonicMood full-screen” is checked in Preferences, then clicking the green “+” causes the SonicMood window to zoom to full-screen while “Option clicking” causes the window to shrink to its small size.

Added a “drop picture folder” capability to the “Picture Window” (formerly the “Scene Window”). The new capability allows for nested folders so you can drop a folder containing picture files and folders containing more picture files. Picture files/folders/images can be dropped anywhere on the window. Added this “drop picture folder” ability to the list window, too. Generally cleaned up the code to make it more efficient and improve error trapping.

Fixed some bugs on the “Individual Note Properties” page of the Edit window:
Fixed a bug that caused the BPM/seconds conversions to be inaccurate.
Fixed a bug that caused the note time multiplier to be wrong and to display the wrong values next to the selection buttons.
Fixed a bug that caused some sliders to indicate zero instead of the correct settings.

And this is a very short list compared to the full list of changes!

Should be soon…

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

Boy, I am slow! We released SonicMood yesterday morning - it’s finally out!

This version 4.9.5 adds a number of new features despite its “bug fix” number change. Here’s a few highlights (complete list is here: http://www.sonicmood.com/SonicMoodHistory.htm)

• Can record digital audio with the help of soundflower, a free utility.
• Changed the MIDI file format so each instrument now has its own track.
• Added an “undo/redo” capability to all controls.
• Added “.caf” (Core Audio File) to the list of audio files SonicMood can play as “soundfiles.” If you have iLife installed, you may find some interesting sounds here: “/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/iLife Sound Effects.”
• Many more updates and bug fixes!

Get it here: http://www.sonicmood.com/SonicMoodDownloads.htm

Thanks!
John