See the news and download the alpha here.
I've fixed a few things.
I'll try to make a list of big features:
- GUI can be scaled by right-click on the Xhip logo, depends upon host support for sizing. (120%, 150%, 200%). It resizes the background bitmap which doesn't look great, but is fine as a temporary solution.
- Presets and banks now come with bank name and preset categories. This allows the menu to be much more accessible/readable.
- More LEDs, everyone loves LEDs right? The voice activity LEDs now change color to match the envelope stage for the voice they represent.
- Text edit for the names. Right click to edit, middle click for an extra menu (if there is one.)
- Some extra menus on some buttons too, right click for those.
- The oscillators have been improved a bit, they have had support for thru-zero xmod for a long time. That isn't 100% finished (needs a few more tweaks).
- A lot of menus have been cleaned up. For example see the filter modes or voices, routing, ...
- The synth is overall quite a bit faster although on modern hardware like you care about that.
- The default skin is embedded in the plugin. No longer needs an installer.
- The mixer now has a ringmod level rather than switch, the switch was a dumb work-around and the level works fine.
- The mixer levels now have a bigger (-90db) range, most often useless but sometimes required. This uses multiple step sizes and going from -40 to -90 takes up only the very last tick of the dial. Hold shift and mouse/wheel or right-click and drag to fine-tune that.
- There is a unison "stereo" switch.
- Also a switch for voice recycling.
- Don't worry about the unison or effects page, the control pages will be adjusted before the RC and effects will likely be removed.
- Old presets likely remain incompatible at this point. That will also be fixed for the RC.
- The "random" button is garbage, don't say I didn't warn you! Hissss!
- I haven't figured out exactly how I want to eliminate the buttons yet.
Most of all, I'm interested in any small, simple changes that might be put on the list to be added before the next release. For example the unison "stereo" switch should be a "width" knob. Stuff like that requires minimal effort but makes the whole synthesizer far more useful.
Longer term considerations:
I've considered dropping MIDI/VST-style preset management and having the plugin work more like an AU. The current preset would be temporary/edit and other presets (more than 128) could be loaded from an unlimited number of banks. This will still be compatible with multitimbral functions ("drum mode") but not with MIDI program changes. One solution might be to have a "MIDI program map" where you can select presets to load triggered by MIDI program changes.