Ardour 5.11 released

[gimmeapill]

https://ardour.org/whatsnew.html

New Features

VCA automation can now be graphically edited.
VCAs can now be selected (e.g. from control surfaces).
Allow VCA renaming in the editor window.
Bindable buttons for VCA solo and mute.
Add select-all-tracks shortcut in the mixer window.
Template management dialog (both session and track templates).
Allow control surfaces to hide/show plugin GUIs.
Realtime export now allows listening to channels being exported.
Non-layered MIDI recording now works (MIDI regions will be trimmed at the end of recording to avoid overlaps).
Add an LTC generator to the Dummy backend.
Update colors for the "Caineville" theme.
Expose Off/Play states for MIDI CC "automation".
Allow touch automation to be done via Ardour's own knobs (e.g. trim control).

General Fixes and Improvements

Fixes for consistent selection and track/bus ordering.
Improve display of dB values.
Improvements when dragging control points for log-scale or relative parameters.
Lookup VST parameter default values once only, at the correct time.
Major code cleanup for locale (internationalization) handling.
Create a deep-copy of MIDI sources when saving snapshots.
Allow saving state even when audio/MIDI engine is not running.
Substantial reworking of waveview rendering code.
More differentiation of error messages during startup.
Fix for a-fluid handling of out-of-memory conditions.
Avoid display/use of "mnemonics" in menu items (shortcuts continue to work as usual).
Correct an issue when sending from a source with less channels than the destination.
Don't invert azimuth & elevation display value for some panning configurations.
Fix undo being invoked from a non-GUI thread.
Fix crash when rapidly switching snapshots.
Show region name correctly in a context menu.
Reintroduce a command to toggle editor/mixer windows when they are tabbed.
Retain plugins order for copy/cut/paste + Drag-n-Drop.
Correctly adjust gain when selection spans multiple track/bus groups.
Honor groups when selecting in the mixer.
Convert summary display into a horizontal scrollbar (no more y-axis sensitivity for scrolling; now zooms).
Fix loading bundle definitions.
Changing type of track/bus in the add track/bus dialog no longer resets the name, if edited.
Take automation lanes into account when changing "visible track count".
Make it impossible to zoom to ridiculously zoomed-out scales.
Fix crash when renaming a track to an invalid name.
Increase the range of the a-comp stereo release time.
Forward-to-grid and Backward-to-grid now snaps even when in magnetic mode.
Correct note length setting and display in the note edit dialog.
Time info box updates its length display correctly across a tempo change.
Indicate region positional lock style with various UTF-8 glyphs (Beamed 1/8th notes => music position lock).
Only add a new tempo or meter on a click with the primary modifier pressed (avoid confusion with a tempo-change drag).
Disable tempo end drag for meter-locked tempi.
Cropping a single region to time selection works for multiple ranges.
Setting a tempo to 'Continue' via right click puts it in a permanent state of continuing the previous section's end tempo (basically what 'Lock Continue' should have been). This can be disabled (unlocked) by selecting 'Don't Continue'.
Reorganise menu to separate position lock style from more commonly used functions.
Main Menu: some re-organization of session- and global-centric windows.
Track/Bus mute automation now works as expected.
Many improvements to plugin in-line displays.
Fix various issues when changing automation state while rolling.
Make it possible to select regions at zero when the grid is set to Region Bounds.
Fix a bug with LTC chasing when using small buffer sizes and a large initial offset.
Ask user about saving when using Save As or Snapshot & Switch.
Fix the cursor in some TextEntry popups.
Show a-comp's makeup gain and gain reduction in it's inline display.
Many crashes at exit or close-session fixed.
Prevent duplicate playlist names while renaming.
Session > New ... cancel : now retains current session, if any.
Use Mach real time priority in process threads.
Use real-time safe MIDI buffer allocation for ALSA, CoreAudio and PortAudio (Windows) MIDI backends.
Fix for "MIDI Input follows Selection" (breakage introduced during 5.10 development).
Improve clock font used on OS X.
Fix --samplerate option for ardour-export standalone tool.
Add options for bit-depth and BWF format to ardour-export tool.
Ensure that broadcast data (BWF) is complaint with EBU specifications.
Save sample-rate for sessions created with templates.
Fix LV2 preset path on Windows.
Do not disable MIDI CC "automation" after clearing all data for a given CC.
Only button 1 (typically left) will now add new MIDI CC events on click.

Lua

Expose editor vertical zoom.
Expose region list.
Expose clone/copy regions.
Expose systemexec.
Improve script sandboxing.
Provide access to toggle actions.
Expose a new Lua message dialog.
Support for template scripts.
Support for meta-templates for Session setup.

OSC Support and Control

Added /*/db_delta for strip, select, master and monitor.
bank_up will now accept -1 for bank down so an encoder can bank.
GUI improvements - usability.
Allow user selectable group use (/use_group 1 or 0).
Prevent crashes or hangs in some cases.
Send fewer duplicate messages.

FaderPort 8 Support

Use 2 lines for Plugin Parameter Names.
Expose Plugin Bypass/Enable per plugin.
Shift + Select in Plugin Select mode.
Bypass button in Plugin Parameter Edit mode.
Don't allow toggling strip bypass/enable.
Allow selection of plugin presets.
Scribble-strip display preferences.
Fixes crash when switching snapshots.
Display in mixer order.
Add plugin GUI display options.
Implement "control link" (control operates on currently focused widget in GUI).
Fix shutdown sequence.
Indicate implicit solo by blinking.

Translation Updates

Czech translation update (Pavel Frich).
Japanese translation (Hiroki Inagaki).
Swedish translation update (Kristoffer Grundström).
Russian translation updates (Petr Semiletov, Alexandre Prokoudine).
Chinese translation update (Yq Ysy).
French translation correction (Léo Andrès).

[ufug]

Wow.

Is anybody here using OSC? I'd be curious to know if you find it useful and if so what you are using as a controller.

[gimmeapill]

Wow.

Is anybody here using OSC? I'd be curious to know if you find it useful and if so what you are using as a controller.

I was just writing a pd patch to do midi feedback for the akai midimix I got as BDay present
OSC doesn't seem to be anymore the eldorado it used to be. Probably because it's too complicated for regular users.
Not sure actually, but I have the impression that everyone is back to midi...

[gimmeapill]

And to celebrate, here's a new pkgbuild (just for Arch users, sorry for the off-topicking):
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ardour_stable-git/

Explanation: the official Arch packages are usually 1-2 releases behind, while the developement snapshots from git are a bit hit or miss when it comes to stability. Not ideal for productive use...
So this pkgbuild tries to find a middle ground and builds exactly the latest stable release from git, yet the versioning is still automated - it shouldn't need to be updated too often. It's very fresh, so feedback is welcome, especially if you have a better way to do it...

Cheers,

LX

[ufug]

OSC doesn't seem to be anymore the eldorado it used to be. Probably because it's too complicated for regular users.
Not sure actually, but I have the impression that everyone is back to midi...

That could be... I think I just need to jump in and try it if I can find a good setup tutorial.

I'm not really interested in the MIDI aspect, but controlling the transport over WiFi would be handy (so I could record vocals in a better sounding room in my apartment without having to run back and forth to the computer, for example).

Sorry to derail the thread, it jumped out at me in the announcement.

[Luc]

I'm not really interested in the MIDI aspect, but controlling the transport over WiFi would be handy (so I could record vocals in a better sounding room in my apartment without having to run back and forth to the computer, for example).

I don't even have a microphone and the computer cooling fan makes noise anyway, so I turn off the computer for recording sessions, when I sit inside my wardrobe and sing into a portable recorder, while the music plays on headphones as a guide. Then I turn on the computer and mix the wardrobe voice track with the rest. I do it because it's cheap. The recorder was a lot cheaper than a microphone, it doubles as a microphone when connected to the USB interface, and it also works as a recorder on the field, of course! It's obviously not ideal, but it's a workaround for those who need workarounds.
One of these days, I'll have to make a cover of The Cure's "Close to Me."

[gimmeapill]

I'm not really interested in the MIDI aspect, but controlling the transport over WiFi would be handy (so I could record vocals in a better sounding room in my apartment without having to run back and forth to the computer, for example).

You don't even need OSC then, you can do more or less the same with QmidiNet and QmidiCtl, two underrated projects from rncbc:
https://qmidictl.sourceforge.io/
https://qmidinet.sourceforge.io/

[sysrqer]

Nice to see a few of my own reports get fixed in this one.

[funkmuscle]

And to celebrate, here's a new pkgbuild (just for Arch users, sorry for the off-topicking):
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ardour_stable-git/

Explanation: the official Arch packages are usually 1-2 releases behind, while the developement snapshots from git are a bit hit or miss when it comes to stability. Not ideal for productive use...
So this pkgbuild tries to find a middle ground and builds exactly the latest stable release from git, yet the versioning is still automated - it shouldn't need to be updated too often. It's very fresh, so feedback is welcome, especially if you have a better way to do it...

Cheers,

LX

thanx dude!! I've been using the git version in Arch for a long time now for that exact reason, Arch being 2 releases behind. The stable git is even better.

[gimmeapill]

thanx dude!! I've been using the git version in Arch for a long time now for that exact reason, Arch being 2 releases behind. The stable git is even better.

Glad that you like the idea
I was also tired of shooting myself in the foot with the development snapshots.
For such a huge, yet fast moving project like Ardour, we need ideally something both reliable and up to date.
Btw, if you build the package in a chroot with devtools and 'extra-x86_64-build', you should end up very close to the "would be" official packages, since the build flags are pretty much the same.

The versioning method is still a bit new, but if it works reliably (this also assumes that the releases are properly tagged in the git repo), I'll try to apply the same treatment to a few other git packages.
This should help solve the classic Arch dilemna = when you have to choose between an outdated official package or an experimental git snapshot
Possible candidates: Qtractor, Hydrogen, possibly jack2?
Inversely I don't think this would bring much value to Guitarix for example: the official package is not so old and the git not so unstable.

But nevermind, I'll stop derailing my own thread, have a nice week end all

[Quirq]

There was a major MIDI bug resurfaced in 5.10, which I reported straightaway (before Mantis had even been updated to mention 5.10 though I did put it in the subject line). Sadly the bug report has been ignored (probably with not being tagged with a version number), not even assigned to anyone so the problem still exists in 5.11 – my excitement at the new version soon dissipated

I really must get around to resubmitting the report in the hope it might get fixed – it's been holding up my progress significantly.

I never used to use midi much at all preferring to record audio, but I've been finding it really useful during the writing stages as the flexibility to change instruments and bpm etc is really helpful when sketching things out. But in too many of my writing sessions midi doesn't work and the notes appear miles beyond the end of the midi regions they should be in

[finotti]

There was a major MIDI bug resurfaced in 5.10, which I reported straightaway [...]

Could you let us know what is the bug?

[Quirq]

Many MIDI regions are blank and it's only on zooming right out that I can see the notes that should be contained within the region are free-floating (i.e. separate, not bounded in a region) much further along the timeline.

The regions themselves are at the correct point on the timeline but the notes that should be contained within them appear elsewhere and no MIDI sounds, either at the point where the region is located or where the notes are actually displayed on the timeline.

The bug report has screenshots showing the issue. Looking again at the report I filed, I need to double-check whether the associated issue of meters being ignored persists as well.

This bug (notes appearing outside the regions they should be bounded by) keeps manifesting itself seemingly every other release in the 5 series. I have a feeling that newer sessions suffer less from it (if at all) and that it's older sessions that are affected, either created from older 5.x versions and quite possibly some are ones created in A4.