It's been a few weeks since we've posted news of any updates, so it's probably about time we lift the lid on some of the new features in the impending Aspect 1.7 update:

What's new in Aspect 1.7?

• Undo/Redo, with unlimited steps.
  
• Mono legato, with low, high, and last note priority.
  
• Mono unison: stack multiple voices in mono legato mono.
  
• Independent envelope triggering modes. Each envelope can individually be set to either retrigger, reset, or legato. Retrigger mode will start the envelope again at the attack stage, but from the current level; reset will start the envelope attack from 0; legato will only trigger on the first note.
  
• Linux 64-bit native VST and Standalone application.
  
• Category support in preset browser.
  
• Increased filter modulation range.
  
• Lots of 'behind the scenes' bug-fixes, improvements, and host compatibility tweaks.

Is Undo support coming to the other products?
Yes; all updates, starting with Sequent 1.2 in April, will have Undo / Redo support.

When will Aspect 1.7 be available?
Early April. Undo support has meant a big rewrite of the parameter handling code, which unfortunately necessitates significant testing.
Last edited by colin@loomer on Thu Mar 01, 2012 2:36 am; edited 6 times in total

Looking forward to this!!

If all goes accordingly to plan, Aspect 1.7 should be in your hands (figuratively speaking) by the end of the week... And you won't want to go back: Undo and redo really is a godsend when it comes to preset design.

Cool... really looking forward to the update also.

Aspect 1.7 is now out. Download the update here: go shake some speakers.

Click for full-size screenshot

Improvements in this release (apparently the 19th update for Aspect!) include:

• Native 64-bit VST and Standalone application versions for Linux.
  
• Integrated undo and redo, with unlimited history size.
  
• Mono legato modes, with selectable low, high, and last note priority.
  
• Mono unison: stack up to five unison voices in mono legato mode.
  
• Independent trigger mode for each envelope: retrigger, reset, or legato.
  
• Category support in preset browser.
  
• Increased filter cutoff modulation range.
  
• CPU usage is now consistent when using the Mac OS X RTAS plug-ins.
  
• Windows VST 32-bit plug-ins and standalone applications no longer depend on additional runtime libraries. However, these libraries are still required - and installed - for the RTAS format plug-ins.
  
• libjack is now weak-linked for standalone Linux. This means JACK is not required (but still recommended) for Linux users.
  
• Windows RTAS plug-in is now installed to the correct location on 64-bit Windows operating systems.
  
• MIDI Program Changes are now multi-threaded, and so will no longer potentially stall the audio synthesis.
  
• Fix for rare issue that stopped presets from loading in Linux Renoise when LADSPA plug-in support is enabled.
  
• Factory presets now load significantly faster.
  
• Additional presets.
  
• Various host compatibility fixes.

Any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to ask.

Woohoo, let's download!!

Yay... Great news!

First (and hopefully last) trivial bug spotted: because the additional Factory sounds have thrown the indexing a little off, you may find that your chosen default Factory Preset (ie, the one that Aspect loads when a new plug-in instance is created) has been changed. You'll need to re-select your default preset of choice:

• Open the Preset Browser.
  
• Right-click on the preset you wish to use as default, and choose "Set as Default".

Pro-tip: if you're the type of person who immediately hits "New" when opening Aspect, there is a blank preset called "initial" at the bottom of the Factory sounds list, which you can set as the default.

What is Mono Solo, and how does it differ from Mono Last?

I've been asked this a few times, so it could probably do with a public clarification. Essentially, Mono Solo legato mode is for compatibility with Aspect 1.6 and earlier: any monophonic presets you've created in earlier versions will import into Aspect 1.7 as using Mono Solo legato. The difference is probably easier to hear than to explain:

In Mono Solo compatibility mode, only one note is scanned at a time. To demonstrate:

• Create a new Preset.
  
• Set the Polyphony to Mono Solo.
  
• Play a note, and keep it held down.
  
• Whilst keeping the initial note depressed, play another note. Obviously this note will now sound.
  
• Stop playing this second note, but keep the initial note held. Notice that the initial note does not sound.

In Mono Last, a note scanner caches all previously held notes. When you stop playing a note, the last previously depressed and held note will sound:

• Create a new Preset.
  
• Leave the Polyphony as Mono Last.
  
• Play a note, and keep it held down.
  
• Whilst keeping the initial note depressed, play another note. Obviously this note will now sound.
  
• Stop playing this second note, but keep the initial note held. Notice that the initial note will again play.

So think of it as a compatibility option. In my experience, you'll likely want to change your presets to Mono Last in order to make use of proper legato expressions, but obviously this could cause any MIDI sequences you've crafted to sound slightly different. And of course, Mono Solo may suit some player's keyboard style more than the other mono priority options.

Aspect 1.7.1 for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux is now available. This release adds the following improvements:

• Fix for hung note that could occasionally occur when using legato triggering for Envelope 1.
  
• Fix for certain non-ASCII characters being either missing, or displayed incorrectly in the interface.
  
• Integrated preset browser is now re-sizeable.

Not a huge amount in this minor update, but it's certainly worth installing if only for the hung-note fix.

Yep, we've asked for this before ... but could you offer a no-install zip file for future updates? (pretty please)

So easy just to drop the new *.dll / data into the existing folder.

In theory, yes. I've already removed any additional dependencies from the vst .dlls to ensure portability*. I could add another step to the automated build that would take the relevant .dlls - and any other livery I wanted to package up, such as manuals, and create a .zip file.

I do have several concerns though: One is that, without an uninstaller, the products can't clean up any additional files they may need to create. A second is that adding a second Windows download option is almost certainly going to confuse a small amount of users, and hence increase our support time. Finally, installers integrate themselves nicely with Windows System Restore.

So, convince me: In what situation is an installer-less setup preferred? What do you see as the advantage of a raw archive over a proper installer? There is no technical reason I can't do this, and I'm certainly open to the possibility of an archived delivery, I just need to be convinced that offering this option is not going to cause more headaches than it is worth!

* Thus far all products apart from Sequent, which will too be portable in the next release.

Review our discussion in the Apsect 1.6 thread (Dec 2010).

I understand your concern about support - seems like you squeeze Loomer in between a number of other projects. So time is precious for you.

Anyway, most of the vst(i) coming from independent devs these days happily run from the folder, including stuff made in JUCE or with JUCE modules.

(Actually, Loomer is my full-time job: the other projects I'm working on are generally other updates, new products, etc...)

I will review said discussion, and give this some thought.

Ok, reviewing the previous discussion, am I right in saying that you basically want have a 'self-contained' Aspect that you can move between locations just by dragging a few files? If so, what if I make Aspect preferably read its configuration file (Aspect.xml) from the same location as the .dll? That way, you can install and register Aspect as usual, move your Aspect.xml into the same .dll folder, edit the Library path to be relative, and have an entirely portable system.

Of course, I could be completely misunderstanding what you want, in which case, feel free to correct me!