Blogging to Paradise

Actually, spring has been here since last Wednesday night. And it shows. Cherry blossoms are on the trees (cherry trees only :). Grass growing tall already (sigh). Somewhat warmer, although we still have our cooler days with clouds floating ominously by.

So I raked the pine needles in the driveway - one of my least favorite things to do… But it’s trash day and I wanted to fill the “lawn waste” bin before I took out the trash. Yard work is in our future, I’m afraid. To that end I got a new battery for the “tractor” and put it in. It works.

I posted SonicMood v4.8.5 beta 2 yesterday. It fixes some bugs and adds some features - I think it’s a nice update from v4.8.1.

Got a new Apple keyboard, just started using it. It’s the low-profile aluminum one that has keys like the notebooks do. It’s kind of nice and looks great.

Paid the property tax, but still haven’t started on the income tax (groan). I’ve got to get moving, but I’m even less excited about that than I was about raking…

That’s it!

SonicMood is the featured promotion on MUPromo.com today (January 24th, 2008). You can buy your copy for 40% off: just $5.95 USD.

We’re working on a new alpha, v4.8.2. It will include (among other things) the ability to choose how notes are selected and how pauses and sustains are determined. For example, you’ll be able to specify a pattern like the Fibonacci sequence to generate notes. This won’t be completely deterministic (you’re not going to be able to feed a musical score into SonicMood), but will give you more control over the kinds of sounds SonicMood can make.

If you have any ideas or suggestions for new features, feel free to give them here

Well, we’ve finally managed to push v4.8 out the door

The last hurdles were mainly getting some tutorial videos published and putting final touches on the web site. Let me know what you think, and if you encounter any problems with either SonicMood or the web site!

John

We have SonicMood v4.8.0 waiting in the wings and we’ll release it as soon as we’ve had a chance to test it on Leopard. As of October 27, 2007, we are still waiting to get our hands on a copy. UPS says they’ll have it here Monday, the 29th (I’m so excited As soon as we get it installed we’ll test SonicMood and see if we need to make any changes. As of this moment we’re unaware of any potential problems (although some developers say sheet windows with graphics might have refresh issues). If we discover any issues, we’ll add the fixes to v4.8.0 and then release it. It will be a free update for all users.

UPDATE (November 4, 2025):
We’ve been working on a few Leopard-related bugs and think we have them fixed. Beta testing has been uneventful (after the first crash reports and we should have 4.8.0 out soon! Thanks to everyone for their patience

UPDATE #2 (December 27, 2024):
I’m really behind on my blog posts…

Anyway, SonicMood is Leopard compatible. Has been since v4.8.0… We’re working on v4.8.2 (might become 4.8.5 right now, adding the ability to affect the note selection and timing criteria in a more direct and interesting way…

We’ve also added the ability for the user to select the font size for the Marquee display and the items in lists.

More to follow!

Well, we’re slowly moving toward the release of v4.8.0. We’ve caught some bugs and made a number of changes and (hopefully) improvements.

One of the improvements allows the user to set a “fade-up” time for the volume when changing Moods. It’s a very pleasing effect, I think. Another (that’s still in work) will allow the user to set a time of day for starting a Mood. Similar to the current “Mood Timer”, this one will let the user set specific times for Moods to play and how long to play or whether to repeat play. So the user could have a rousing Mood set to play early in the day to get things going, and later have more tranquil Moods play on into the evening… Lots of cool possibilities with this one, I think.

Some other improvements include more control over where Soundfiles go and how they get there. There’s more flexibility in the use of multiple Mood files and the saving and combining of them. We’ve added some more “special effects” to the instrument (MIDI) sounds - you can set “Pitch Bend”, “Modulation Depth”, and “Volume Diminuendo” for each of the three instruments in each Mood. In general there’s more capability and usability in Mood editing now.

You’ll find that v4.8.0 looks a little different, although the changes are fairly subtle. For example, the “Color Chooser” you get from the Preferences window is now a mode-less, floating window. There’s no more selecting a color and pressing “OK” to close the window before you see the effect of the color. Colors update in “real time” as you change them in the “Color Chooser” window. You can also change the overall transparency of the five main windows from opaque to nearly transparent.

There’s lots of other little improvements that I won’t go into here. We’re still working on a few features but anticipate the start of beta testing in the next few weeks, with a release around mid-September. This will be a free update for all registered users.

We made it! Amy’s married and my legs are killing me from all the dancing at the reception. What a great wedding! And what a great father’s day!

Yes, it’s true Amy’s getting hitched this coming Saturday (June 16th). I’ve never been “father of the bride” before, so I’m just a little bit excited! I’m flying down (the wedding’s not here) Friday to meet my wife (she’s going down earlier to help out a bit), so we’ll be away from the “store” for a few days (Friday, Sat, Sunday). If you send email over that period I’ll answer it as soon as we return. We’ve decided to NOT run the automated registration program while we’re gone. So, if you register SonicMood over the weekend (starting Friday), or if you encounter problems, you’ll have to wait till we return late Sunday. I’ll take care of registrations Sunday (we should be in by 8pm PDT) and help requests Monday am.

Thanks for your understanding. I wouldn’t miss this for the world!

OK, we’ve got the bug previously mentioned (crashes on “Create a Mood”) fixed, plus a few other small tweaks

So, go get it!

Time for me to start thinking about v 4.8!

I finally got the website updated and am reasonably satisfied with the way the new version looks and acts, so we’ve officially released SonicMood v4.7.5 today…

It seems I’m always struggling with “one more thing” to add or change … But I wrestled myself to the floor and convinced myself that “it’s time” to let this one go. I hope you all like it!

UPDATE: We’ve found a bug in v4.7.5 - if you try to use the “Create a Mood” menu item from the “Moods” menu, then click the “Create” button in the window that opens, SonicMood will crash. We have a fix which we’ll be posting (as v4.7.6) in a few days. Meanwhile, don’t use “Create a Mood”. Thanks!