Blogging to Paradise

We got back last Saturday and all was well. Well, there’s a LOT of ash on the ground, in the trees, etc. But other than cosmetic issues, nothing was harmed around here.

We’re back in business!

John

Hi all,

We live in Paradise, CA, and have been in the middle of a number of threatening fires collectively called “the Lightning Complex”.

Yesterday we were told to evacuate and are currently in a motel about 50 miles from our home.

I have the automatic registration software here so if you purchase SonicMood I will be able to register you from the motel There might be a slightly longer delay (usually you receive your registration within half an hour) if I’m out for a short time, but I’ll keep checking for sales, don’t worry

Thank you for your understanding!

Take care everybody,
John

We’ve just released the latest version of SonicMood, v4.8.6. While it doesn’t look or sound too different from the last version, there are plenty of changes “under the hood”.

The biggest change is an re-factoring of the sound generation components. There is a lot of timing going on to handle note generation and synchronization. The way the many timers were handled before was fairly cumbersome and would have been difficult to expand upon. The change makes expansion of the MIDI section of the software much easier. I’m thinking a future version of SonicMood will allow for multiple sets of three instruments so it will be possible to add an accompaniment to the main theme of the Mood.

Other changes involve the handling of the soundfiles and the scenes. They are now kept in a location apart from the preferences and default Mood file. Addition of soundfiles and general soundfile maintenance should be easier with this new arrangement.Finally, we made some improvements to the sleep, wake, and time of day timer controls and the way the scale and pattern lists are displayed. Along with lots of little “tweaks” to get the interface easier to use.

Hope you like it!

John

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!☺

OK, we’ve managed to squish a few more bugs and the result is v4.8.5.3. I hope we don’t find too many more before v4.8.6 cause I’ll run out of numbers! Check out the web site. We’ve added a few more Moods and another .mid file here:http://www.sonicmood.com/MoodSharing.htmAnd visit the forum here:http://sonicmood.com/forum/once in a while too, ok?☺Cheers,John

<sigh> It was bound to happen. Or to paraphrase: “nothing is certain except death and bugs!”So I’ve learned that SonicMood v4.8.5.2 has a BIG bug - dragging a Mood to a new location in the “Moods list” causes a crash. The good news is we’ve found the error and have a fix! So look for a new version (cleverly titled “v4.8.5.3”) in the next day or so…To anyone who’s been bitten I say “Sorry!” Somehow we missed one that should have been obvious (chalk it up to adding a “last minute” feature that couldn’t cause any problems…);-)John

I’ve posted some more soundfiles on our “Sharing” page here:http://www.sonicmood.com/MoodSharing.htmThey’re sounds of birds (and Loons in particular) and foghorns (with one bell buoy).It’s the last file in the list of soundfiles. Enjoy!John

We’ve finally switched over from the XD-forum Wordpress plugin to a better-supported (read, actually supported) forum based on the open-source phpBB code.I haven’t deleted the old forum entries (such as they were), and I haven’t yet figured out how to move them over to the new forum… There weren’t any ongoing discussions that will get chopped, so it’s not an urgency, but it would be nice to have some history.Anyway, the new forum awaits! Let me know if you’d like to see any new forum topics, etc.!Thanks,John

Or is it “features added and bugs fixed?” Try it and let us know! ;-)Yes, it’s true! We’ve managed to push out another update to SonicMood. This one fixes a few more bugs and add some features, including a few that are “under the hood.” For example, the way SonicMood handles Mood files that are added to an existing file is more logical. If a Mood in the added file has the same name as one in the current file, then that Mood’s settings will replace the settings of the Mood in the current file. Previously, the original Mood’s settings would be kept.This version of SonicMood adds some more “note patterns”, too, thanks to the work of one of our users, Patrick EL MELANIE. If you haven’t downloaded and played any of his Mood files, maybe you should. They’re here: http://www.sonicmood.com/MoodSharing.htm and they’re free! :)I’ve also posted a MIDI file I recorded using SonicMood that captures one of Patrick’s Moods, “Taiko Rhythms”. It’s a lively Mood with a real nice beat! Proof that SonicMood can do more than create slow, semi-random sounds! :)Enjoy!