Blogging to Paradise

Are we there yet? Are we there yet???

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but SonicMood v4.9.5 should be out in a few days. I’ve basically finished the updates to the Help and beta tested the heck out of it! So barring a catastrophic bug showing up now, it’ll be out before the week is…

I’ve made a few changes (improvements?) to the web site, too. A selection of SonicMood’s repertoire will start playing when you visit some pages. The selections were recorded (of course) with the new recorder I’ve added to SonicMood. It makes recording SonicMood so much easier! I’ve changed the web site’s look a little to be more in keeping with SonicMood’s spirit - I hope you like it!

Boy, it’s been almost two months since my last post. I’m really not much of a blogger I guess… But I have been working hard on the changes/improvements to SonicMood, so it’s all good!

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

Not to be confused with the impending birth of our daughter’s baby!

SonicMood v4.9.1 has been posted on the web site. You can download it there or use SonicMood’s update feature to download it.

Most of the changes are cosmetic, intended to improve usability, especially with Mood editing. But there are some bug fixes, of course. A list of the changes are here.

Enjoy!

SonicMood v4.9.0 is now available on our web site, www.sonicmood.com

The improvements include a re-designed note selection engine, some nice “tweaks” to many of the included Moods, a few cosmetic enhancements, and the usual assortment of bug fixes.

It’s a free update to all registered users. If you were a “trial” user whose trial expired, this version will give you another 7 days to check it out.

Enjoy!

John

We’ve just released the newest version of SonicMood, 4.8.9! It’s HOT so get it now!

Like the title says, we’ve just released the latest update to SonicMood! While there are no huge changes, this version finally adds an “update” capability that will offer to download and install the latest version.

Another notable change is the use of “alphanumeric” registration codes starting with v4.8.8. This will give us more code possibilities and reduce the (extremely small) chance that two people wind up with the same code. We hope it will also reduce piracy…

But it’s important to note that this change (alphanumeric codes) will not work with earlier versions of SonicMood. If you want to run an earlier version for some reason (not recommended, by the way), then you can email us for another code.

We had some fun playing around with the color “schemes” that you can change from the Preferences window (“windows” page). Now the default scheme is “midnight” and there are some pretty bright schemes added Don’t forget you can always make your own if you don’t like ours
Be sure to check out the Mood “sharing” page on our web site. (http://www.sonicmood.com/MoodSharing.htm). We’ve added another set of Moods in a Mood file by Patrick EL MELIANI, our resident SonicMood genius! He’s a true musical artist and really knows his way around SonicMood. Thanks Patrick!

We’ve also added a file courtesy of another user, Jack Huntington. While in Maui recently, Jack recorded the “early birds” who make a racket at 6:25 in the AM! He’s kindly supplied us with a copy of said recording which we’ve posted in a zip file on the Mood “sharing” page (it’s “Maui Birds early am.zip”). Thank you Jack!

That’s about it. For a list of all changes for this version, go to the web site here:
http://www.sonicmood.com/SonicMoodHistory.htm

Take care all,
John

Well we’ve finally managed to push the latest version of SonicMood out the door!
I won’t bore you all with the list of improvements, just go here: http://www.sonicmood.com/SonicMoodHistory.htm for the list
I hope everyone likes the improved way of editing Moods. There’s more work to be done, but I think we’ve made it a bit easier to figure out some of the editing capabilities of SonicMood.

John

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.

 

With apologies to Abby Road

So here’s another update - another few bugs fixed and that’s about it. For the record they are:

• Added the number of checkmarked Moods or Scenes to each marquee’s timer progress bar when in that mode.
• Changed the label above the soundfiles list to include a color background for highlighting the text.
• Fixed an “out of bounds” error when changing Themes after updating from an old version (before v3) of SonicMood.
• Fixed a bug that caused fast Moods to stall when the Mood timer changed from a slow Mood to a fast Mood.
• Fixed a bug that caused the SonicMood window’s listboxes to not be sized right if SonicMood starts “zoomed” to a small size and is then “zoomed” to its normal size.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Progress Bar Mode display to overlap the elapsed and total time values in the marquee if the timer was on and the SonicMood window was “zoomed” to its small size.

So if you want it, here it is:
http://www.sonicmood.com/SonicMoodDownloads.htm

and enjoy!

John