Image Line releases FL Studio 8

Image-Line has announced that FL Studio 8 is now available. An extensive list of changes follows...

Additions:

• New Slicex drumloop slicing generator plugin.
• New SynthMaker modular environment.
• FL finally supports MIDI SysEx input, and handles basic MMC functions.
• Added error message at startup when MMX or SSE1 is not found.
• Cleartype not forced on anymore for mixer labels for Win9X platforms.
• Right-clicking splitters (browser, piano roll, playlist) for spare position.
• Project browser: can show/hide plugin editors from the generators/effects folders.
• Generator smart disable is now compatible with threaded rendering.
• Added mouse wheel support to popup menus & combo selectors.
• Added some extra mouse buttons support.
• Added (manual) plugin editor thumbnails to project browser.
• Sinc interpolator now faster (64point sinc now usable realtime).
• New slope modes for LP/HP/LS/Peak/HS bands in Parametric EQ 2 plugin.
• New 'multilink' option for quicker remote control assignment, creation of multiple automation clips, etc.
• Added 'Edit whole mapping' to Remote control part of the project browser.
• Optional stereo waveform display in playlist.
• Re-implemented CME UF keyboard support (although MIDI feedback sometimes makes no sense).
• Parameter smoothing now works for relative knobs or other incremental MIDI controls too.
• Improved parameter smoothing.
• Can now define absolute increment steps in MIDI remote control window.
• Playlist->Edit->Shift left/right now works for audio clips too (including using control surface jogs).
• Added full support for the Mackie Control Universal.
• Improved support for some controllers.
• Improved 'undo knob tweaks' to support tweaking several parameters at once without slowing down.
• Love Philter: piano keys assigned to patterns.
• Tweaking controls on VST(i)s now show a hint message in FL's hint bar (when possible).
• Wave Candy: fixed some bugs & added Vista window background blur.
• Updated to LAME 3.97.
• Improved latency compensation 'Set from' option.
• Rendering with latency compensation.
• Added slip editing in playlist clips, as well as little changes in resizing tools.
• Improved accuracy of MIDI input recording under high GUI CPU load.
• Can now move effect slots around using the mouse wheel.
• FL (& some FL plugins) now support .ogg format.
• Introducing 'Selected' mixer track, to which the selected mixer track is routed, and in which you.
• Place visual effects or a recording Edison.
• Ctrl+E to quickly open an audio editor in a mixer track, or Shift+E to open an audio logger.
• Added score logging feature, not to miss scored played while testing.
• Piano roll: added 'Select at random' to select 10% random notes, for variations.
• Playlist: clip source selection now in titlebar, and clips panel now on top by default.
• One-click audio recording now prompts to record in Edison.
• Improved RAM usage meter for some systems.
• Can now resize multiple playlist clips at once.
• Caps lock function changed to allow resizing of notes from left side in piano roll.
• Added recording filter (right-click record button).
• Newbie enhancement: snapping is on by default.
• Newbie enhancement: browser snapshot now defaults to slot 1.
• Newbie enhancement: window menu icons replaced by holly down arrows.
• New spectral view in monitor panel.
• DrumSynth: added call to SendPatchToEngine to Voice_Release, to temporarily fix a release.
• Problem when multiple voices are active.
• Automation now displayed in pattern clips, improved event editor display.
• Channels in piano roll channel selector are now sorted by channel group.
• New list of available patterns when right-clicking the pattern selector.
• Patterns named '-pattern name' now act as separators in lists.
• Added OGG Vorbis rendering target.
• Added randomize & humanize to multilink menu.
• Default audio device changed to ASIO4ALL.
• Newly-recorded patterns now added as pattern clips (when in song mode).
• Fruity DX10: mod init and sustain calculations now also take sample rate into account.
• Changed piano roll keyboard modifiers a little (see help file) to add a new SHIFT+click to add note in resize mode.
• Added 'Send previous/next to selected channel' option in browser. Works well with extra mouse buttons too.
• Default peak meters scale bottom changed to -70dB, alternate scale down to -50dB.
• Introducing FL-chan in wallpapers.
• Newbie enhancement: 'save as' icon blinks once 5min after the last save, then each 30sec after 10min.
• Changed generator multithreaded processing method a little.
• Adapted wav file loader for more bad interpretations of a bad format.
• Mapped incoming "all notes off" MIDI message to panic.
• Removed obsolete '16.8' version of the 32Bit wav rendering.

Edison:

• EQ, blur & reverb tools now remember their envelope editor settings.
• Unselects when live selection is too short (<150ms), and added live selection as published parameter.
• New fancy waveform display mode, and option to export display to bitmap file.
• Added stereo waveform display.
• New slave sync, pause button, transport active when not playing, support for control surfaces and keyboard.
• Input (to slice or for sampler preview).
• Can now link notes to markers/regions (for use in Fruity Slicer).
• Added "Undo mix (spectral)" and "Paste mix (spectral)" features.
• Added keyboard (to note or to slice) preview.
• Added 'quick rename (all)' option to rename all regions to drum names.
• Edison & Sytrus now captionize themselves when starting a sample drag.
• New Tools->Send to playlist as audio clip, to send the clip to the playlist at selection, linked to the same.
• Mixer track as Edison.
• New drum(loop) stretching tool (& paste replace (drum)), with improved gaps filling.
• CTRL+DRAG drums from one instance to another, to replace drums in a loop with drums from another loop.
• Slide option now works on markers/regions too.
• Hold right-shift to move markers more accurately (temporary zoom).
• New phase editing feature in Edison's EQ.
• Added middle note & score detection.
• Improved smoothness when recording for several minutes.
• New 'dual view' mode showing both waveform & spectrum.
• Added tools->sequencing->send to selected channel, to quickly send audio to the selected channel.
• Without dragging (mainly for Fruity Slicer).
• Changed spectral display's windowing to Kaiser.
• New support for region types, and grid aligned to first downbeat marker.
• New tempo detector that gives better results for fixed-tempo songs.
• Added 'Time format' menu to display time regardless of the grid mode.

Dashboard:

• Fixed scroller freeze issue.
• Edit string dialog now pops up on correct screen.
• "send value" for patch control no longer generates an exception.
• Messages are no longer added to a buffer to be sent during processing.

FPC:

• Invalidate synthpanel on resize, to avoid graphical glitch when resizing the editor with "Show window.
• Contents while dragging" off in Windows.
• Mouse wheel now changes pad.
• Some cosmetic changes.
• Pan envelope is now bipolar.
• Fixed some save dialog glitches.
• Fixed envelope handling.
• Added wave preview in open dialog.
• Small UI changes.
• Better behaviour when samples are missing.
• Changed direction for changing pads from mouse wheel.
• Fixed MIDI loop loading, it now takes into accounts the steps per beat.

Video Player:

• Do nothing in TVideoViewer.AcceptMediaSample to prevent creeping cpu usage.
• Moved position updates from Process to Idle function, to save some cpu usage.
• Detached video will now keep playing if the plugin editor window is hidden.
• Added "Ignore tempo changes" option.
• Fix to prevent rising cpu usage.
• "render fast" is now the default.

Fruity Wrapper:

• "Export all programs as Cubase presets" saved the current program in every file.
• Fixed new implementation of ProcessParam to avoid "integer overflow" exception when adding an.
• Automation clip.
• Added hint when plugin parameter changes.
• Some fixes in ProcessParam.
• Now flushes plugin (inactive/active) in the PlugIOChanged callback.
• Don't send "all note off" message for effects.
• The fixed size output buffer for effects are now initialized to zero before processing.
• Now call AllocBuffers when the blocksize changes.
• Renamed menu items for saving/loading fst and fxb files to "VST" instead of "Cubase".
• Added "Send note off velocity" option.
• Implemented support for sysex messages sent by the plugin (untested).
• Let FL re-read key names when updateDisplay message is received from VST plugin.

DirectWave:

• Fixed bug showing save program dialogs.
• Added file compatibility options to (global) options dialog.
• "gain" control on zone tab now defaults to 0.0dB again.
• "gain" control on zone tab is now multiplied to the volume instead of added.
• Updated downloader implementation.
• Double-click on zone (or zone index) now opens sample tab.
• Now need to right-click on sample scroll bar to zoom.
• Fixed drag&drop crash.
• Made library scan (for popup menu) a lot faster.
• Fixed browser resizing from config dlg.
• Fixed behaviour of browser expansion with multiple instances.
• Changed volume and velocity implementation.
• Re-implemented soundfont support, now supports 24bit soundfonts.
• Fixed resizing in FL version, made it more spec-compliant in VSTi version.
• Some VST specific improvements.
• Fixed crash in VSTi when opening/closing browser because of incorrect FL version check.
• Effect switches on the zone page now also act according to the "global" switch.
• Improved demo mode save/restore for VSTi version.
• Fixed window size bug (browser open/closed) when opening editor.
• Fixed ogg import, made it use 32bit float samples instead of 16bit int.
• Restructured files, recompiled.
• Fixed "full range" behaviour for selectors.

Bug fixes:

• Bugfix in envelope point snapping.
• Bugfix in Sytrus unison sub.
• Bugfix: quick quantize no longer resizes playlist clips.
• Bugfix in stretching engine.
• Bugfix in monophonic mode combined with Fruity Slicer plugin.
• Little bugfix in Edison's looping tool & trimming option.
• Little bugfix in Sytrus envelope release combined with sustain level.
• Fixed weird bug importing corrupted playlist data from FL6 projects.
• Fixed keystrokes not getting to FL when mixer was detached & focused.
• Fixed strange bug with ASIO.
• Fixed little bug when reordering mixer tracks.
• Fixed crash when closing FL while project browser was open.
• Fixed tiny browser bug.
• Fixed bug in WaveShaper & Sytrus bipolar to unipolar mapping conversion.
• Fixed rare arpeggiator bug.
• Fixed problem loading some VST 2.4 plugins.
• Fixed crash in Vista when Data Execution Prevention is on.
• Fixed some possible deadlocks when MIDI-controlling parameters.
• Fixed little bug in Fruity Slicer's note dump.
• Fixed little problem in MIDI input window.
• Fixed big bug in wav file loader when regions have comments.
• Fixed thread-locking issue with multiple smoothed up remote control combined with visible project.