Hi Everyone,

It is my pleasure to present reViSiT v0.90.1 Beta. Although only scheduled as a maintenance update, I’m please to introduce a couple of features, which add some flair to the interface and might make reViSiT a little friendlier to work with. This version also patches a couple of quirks identified in the initial beta release. The major additions/changes:

• Instrument labels
  Instead of decimal indexes, you can use the Instrument List to specify labels (including letters, numbers and symbols) for instruments. This is done simply by moving the cursor in the Instrument List left of the instrument name and typing as appropriate. For example, you can change instrument "07" to be Instrument "Vi" (for Violin). Or perhaps 07 and 08 can become "V1" and "V2" for First and Second Violins. In the pattern editor, you just type in the appropriate 'label' as you would a number. Although, if you only have one instrument beginning with, for example, a 'V', you will only need to type the first 'V' - reViSiT will select that instrument automatically, so you could set up a number of 1-key fast access instruments, if you wanted. 
  (Note: Labels are case sensitive. If you use the same label for two instruments, the pattern will always point to the first. It is, of course, also possible to rename instrument "02" as, for example, "01" - it's up to you to be sensible. Also, if you have renamed, for example, instrument 07 as "Vi" and then type "07" in the Pattern Editor, reViSiT will spot that you are using indexing and insert "Vi" automatically, assuming you haven't named another instrument "07". The feature can be disabled by pressing the '`' key whilst in the instrument column or Alt-'`' in the Instrument List, should you need to find out what the original indexes are.)
  
  
• Instrument colour coding
  Instruments can also be colour coded, using the same section of the Instrument List as above. 5 presets available to use to code instruments - White (Alt-0), Red (Alt-1), Green (Alt-2), Yellow (Alt-3) and Blue (Alt-4) - useful for denoting instrument families or other voice groups. It can also be used more dynamically: for example, if you simply write everything in white and then want to quickly find all occurrences of one or more instruments in the pattern, you can switch those instruments to Red and they will stand out in the patterns and the pattern overview.
  
  
• New Channel Configuration interface with naming and colouring
  The order list’s “Initial Volume / Panning” sliders have been revamped into a more coherent channel configuration panel, which not only allows the initial channel volumes and panning positions to be set, but also permits the channels to be renamed and colour coded. This screen also accommodates the Professional Edition’s extra settings for the surround sound and multiple output features.
  
  
• Other changes and bug fixes
  reViSiT v0.90.1 also adds an extra MIDI effect for Keyswitching, resolves the note audition / entry problems reported in previous versions, sports new mixing code in preparation for surround sound and multiple output support and includes a number of minor tweaks and fixes. For a complete list of changes, please refer to the readme.txt or release notes.

• [ Professional Edition Update ]
  The development of the Professional Edition is well underway, and much of the Surround Sound support has been implemented and appears to be working well. Support for a second dimension of panning (“depth&rdquo has been added for both the interface and audio engine, and an additional effect (Txx) allows control of a Theta variable that enables the user to easily rotate sounds around the listener (where xx represents the angle).

Read the release notes and download reViSiT v0.90.1 Beta from http://www.nashnet.co.uk/english/revisit/download.htm.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to pose them on the forum, and I’ll try to answer you as quickly as possible. For more information, see the reViSiT website @ http://revisit.nashnet.co.uk.

All the best,
Chris

Re: Title corruption.

It's definitely something to do with memory corruption, but I can't see how - the variables are cleanly initialised. Can you remember exactly how it read?

Re: Pattern update lag.

Yes, the pattern resizing should also be instantaneous, with no lag. Can you email me a DxDiag.exe dump of your system configuration, so that I can see what's different. I've even tested the plug-in on a PCI Matrox Millennium II and it works fine. Are you doing this during playback? What it your Graphics Priority setting? Which keyboard mode are you using?

Is anyone else suffering graphics lag?

Chris

did a very short and quick test with the new release yesterday evening (only had 10 minutes of time ). i can confirm that the note audition/entry bug i reported with 0.90.0 is solved. unfortunately note-offs still don't work when i stop playback within revisit.

btw: what is this button in the upper left corner good for?

greetings,

fegi

Hi Fegi,

I thought we established that the Note Off problem you were experiencing was down to Reaper? Have you had any joy with its developer?

The button is not actually a button (though I guess it could be) - it's just an icon that tells you what editing mode you're in - volume (as pictured) or panning. I added it after experimenting with UI techniques for the surround sound. Since surround sound adds an extra editing mode - making 3: volume, panning (left/right) and depth (i.e. panning front/back) - it becomes paramount to remind the user which they are in. However, I decided not to actually have 3 different views (1 per mode), as this gets confusing, hiding two pieces of data in any mode, so I opted to have three editing modes over two views:

The Standard Edition is pictured left and the Professional Edition is pictured right. In the latter, you can see how the two panning modes are integrated into the single view.

All the best, 
Chris

Hi Fegi,

Sorry, I can't find any trace of your email on the 13th. However, I've spent nearly the entire day on the problem and have only convinced myself that it's something to do with REAPER - reViSIT is doing everything 100% correctly.

It's interesting that Note-Offs in the pattern work during playback, but no other note-off or MIDI reset feature works outside of playback.

I have monitored the data flow right up until the MIDI message is sent to the host, and the Note-Offs are sent correctly. I can find no difference between the information sent when reViSiT is playing and when it is not. In both cases, a properly formatted MIDI message is sent to the host via the VST function sendVstEventsToHost. After that, it's up to the host to handle the subsequent communication.

It should be easy for the REAPER devs to debug this function and actually establish whether MIDI messages are being received from reViSiT or not - they are certainly being sent!

Regards,
Chris

Hi Maarten,

I've had a look at those problems:

Fxx Problem when Playing Pattern
This problem only occurs on Play Pattern (F6), not on Play Song (F5) or Host Playback - even when the pattern is repeated in the order. It also only occurs on slides that begin on the first row of the pattern. The problem occurs when reViSiT detects that it needs to restart playback (i.e. loop) on-the-fly. The playback cursor goes over the end of the pattern, prompting reViSiT to reset it to 0. However, the "frame" that triggers the loop is also processed, despite being outside the looped data itself - this meant that the first row of the subsequent iteration effectively gained a "frame", and hence the slide would be longer. This has now been altered so that the extra frame is skipped.

Keyswitching Issues
Keyswitching is affected by issuing a Note On and a Note Off in quick succession. In v0.90.1, the commands were issued in the right order, but ended up being reversed on the MIDI message queue, effectively resulting in "hung notes". This has now been rectified.

Pattern Highlighting Crash
I cannot find any problems with changing the pattern highlight. I have changed the code slightly, so that the operation is less involved, but this shouldn't affect the stability. Can you tell me anything more about the occurence? For exampe: What size pattern? After how long in the program? What highlight values?

All the best,
Chris