Xenakios updates HourGlass for Windows to v1.4.4

Xenakios has updated the Windows version of HourGlass, a standalone application intended for radical sound processing, to v1.4.4.

Changes:

• Source sound volume can be analyzed and converted into an automation envelope (found under the Ops menu button as "Generate from sound").
• Source sound pitch can be analyzed and converted into an automation envelope. Don't expect too much out of this, it's mainly useful to get an envelope that vaguely resembles the pitch curve of the source sound. (found under the Ops menu button as "Generate from pitch analysis").
• Fragment scripts can have 2 different sections that are called at seek time or at fragment generation time (forgot to include an example of this in the script presets).
• When used as an external editor, no longer require a render target folder to have been set.
• Effect/VST plugin reported latency now taken into account in the offline preprocessing (i.e., the presumed silent beginning of the processing is removed in the processed result).
• Offline preprocessing resets effect/VST before rendering (should fix for example ReaFIR losing the start of the sound).
• Envelope generation function rewritten so that the audio engine mutex lock is held only for a very brief time, even if tons of envelope points are generated.
• Some other changes/fixes.

Changes in HourGlass 1.4.3:

• Source position, panning and transposition randomization can now use an envelope shaped probability distribution. The envelopes to control these are currently available from the View button menu (above the envelope editor, right to the Grid/Snap button), under the Main parameters submenu. Note that the randomization/spread amount for the parameters in question must be higher than zero for the probability shapes to do anything. This feature will probably be later enhanced to include morphing between the probability distributions etc.
• Rewrote sample offline reverse to use the element swapping algorithm instead of using a temporary buffer.
• Rewrote some envelope point removal routines using the erase-remove idiom to get a lot faster removal of the points (especially if there are tons of envelope points to be removed).
• Sound source select parameter envelope grid should now match the sound source selection (there was a rounding error previously which made it necessary to leave the envelope points between the envelope value grid lines to cause the sound source to change).
• Some other tiny fixes and changes.

Changes in HourGlass 1.4.2:

• New main parameter to randomize the source position 0%-50% of the whole sound duration.
• New main parameter to select the sound source to play in Classic mode. If the parameter is at the minimum value, the usual random selection system is used.
• Envelope segment shape node movement now follows the mouse direction when dragging (with the power shape, looks like others might now/still be broken…).
• Keyboard shortcuts loading at startup optimized.
• Context help optimized to not excessively access the help text file.
• Some tweaks to other behaviors/defaults.