Qtractor - An Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer
Contents
1. Files widget action refactorization the files context menu gets its due item icons and a new menu item for direct audio player accessibility MIDI time resolution changes ppan ticks per beat now tries to keep all session MIDI clip times unchanged as far as possible MIDI channel volume and panning control change events CC 7 and CC 10 respectively are now rendered unfiltered on playback First rendition of the long due implementation of an audition or pre listening audio player is now in place the files window got this new play stop control button on its lower right corner Actual instrument definition note keys and controller names are now in effect on the MIDI editor whenever applicable Fixed instrument bank selection method Bank MSB 2 which was broken enough to never send the correct bank number Mouse wheel horizontal scrolling is now accessible on every view while pressing a modifier key Shift or Ctrl New auto backward transport option when enabled the playhead will be reset backward automatically whenever transport stops playing A suicide crash has been fixed while invoking the bus dialog from the respective mixer bus strip context menu Master default buses are always set to Duplex mode being now an enforced update policy while on the Buses dialog A stupid lockup bug infinite loop was spotted on the track bus qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 31 of 38 assignmen2. Mixer window gets a minimum default height bump Clip fade in out type changes have been properly fixed Complete refactoring of the command class pattern making it now derived from QObject and not having a reference to the main form anymore Inoperative context menu event handler has been removed from the track view MIDI sequence note on event tracking now uses faster QHash class instead of original QMap Off by one bug fix on MIDI track write method while parsing co incident note on off events in the wrong order and thus leaving note events with an invalid zero duration obviously affecting MIDI recording in very special circumstances Minor and rather innocuous drop at this time in the MIDI event class structure the flags member field Port connections now get their lines correctly drawn strangely enough the connection lines were being painted only for the parent client items probably since the Qt4 migration aka Halloween files Early clip editing is in place clip name start offset and length parameters fade in out length and type Some menu item text capitalizations 0 0 1 2007 05 07 The Filthy Fifth Newer JACK 0 105 0 seems to bitch probably correctly about the return value of the process Callback Make it to bitch no more by ensuring the JACK client is always issuing the innocuous 0 zero return value Important fixes have been issued affecting MIDI recording
3. after a heads up suggested patch from Marko thanks 0 0 5 2007 09 08 The Ninth Hitch Nail MIDI edit tools quantize transpose normalize randomize resize are all functional and ready for experimentalism gets in its own top level menu and form with named preset store and recall functionality EXPERIMENTAL Main form backward and rewind transport actions are now being immediately enabled when playing from the session zero time start position Audio and MIDI export sneaks in and in form and accessible from the main Track menu EXPERIMENTAL MIDI track channel is now properly set on session re load track background color changes was missing the alpha setting The mix down buffering was fixed again now taking multi track overlapping clips into consideration was a lot more broken since the recent glitch looping fix Dirty MIDI clip editing control has been fixed but still somewhat hacky nevertheless First attempt on solving a nasty MIDI editor bug which was qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 34 of 38 quietly and severely crippling MIDI files while saving offset edited clips Session loop re setting is finally now an undoable command Yet another insidious bug has been swept away from under the carpet once again on audio looping some astonishing old and crappy session cursor seek backward statement was lurking to be laid off Gone now simply as it is growing old on this A tremend
4. Display Meters First attempt for 0t4 4 build support regarding the bundled atomic primitives which have changed upstream as advertised thanks to Paul Thomas for spotting this one first time Record monitor switch is now an accessible button option on all track mixer strips for visual consistency the old bus thru switch button has been renamed to monitor Force track view position reset to origin on session close Fixed segfault on inserting an external file into files widget Mixer splitter sizes are now better saved restored when closed Track record monitoring is now a state option being toggled from the Track State Monitor menu applies both to audio end MIDI tracks when set all input will be pass through to the current assigned output bus including track plug ins chain Session dialog gets split in its own tab components between descriptive time and view configuration ones Drifting correction among audio and MIDI engines is now back but avoided while recording or should it be while looping EXPERIMENTAL REGRESSION Time stretching percent value gets its semantics inverted as thought consistent with ones general sense for relative stretching ie lower to shrink and higher to make longer this is a major up side down change and should affect all sessions saved with time stretched audio clips Slack space in main tracks and MIDI clip editor views are now proportionial to viewport width leaving enough roo
5. Edit Clip F4 Hi Rectangle Figure 8 Demonstrates a right click over a clip allowing for Mouse Mode Selection e In Clip mode Clip Objects are selected as a whole with no sub clip regions possible e In Range mode Clip Object regions are selected on all tracks between a given time interval or range e In Rectangular mode only the regions that fall under a rectangular area are selected this means for adjacent tracks and clips only 10 3 Clips and Tracks Tracks may be armed for recording making way for creating new audio and MIDI clip files with captured material Tracks can also be muted and soloed on mix down which also applies when exporting Most editing operations should be possible while playback is rolling but not completely safe though there are many procedural helpers but not completely assisted with lock free primitives yet Track 3 Led Lbs Figure 9 Track Functions Record Mute and Solo MIDI Clip Objects are representations of a sequence of events of one single MIDI channel as extracted from a SMF format 0 file or of one single track as from a SMF format 1 either in whole or in part 11 Engines and Buses Qtractor is a fairly massive multi threaded application For instance each audio clip has a dedicated disk I O executive thread which synchronizes with the master engine and for all purposes to central JACK real time audio processing cycle through a lock free ring buffer These audio file
6. MIDI sequence zero time event insertion MIDI file pending note off processing on write track method Qt4 migration complete 0 0 0 2006 10 31 The Halloween Files qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 37 of 38 28 Appendix Ill User Documentation Changelog 0 1 3 2008 04 30 Update librubberband requirement Updated Menu Items 0 1 2 2008 03 16 Updated Figures 4 5 and 7 with updated screen snapshots Updated text on Adding new Clips and Splitting Clips Changed formatting from US Letter to A4 Added an Appendix 2 for the Qtractor Changelog Added an Appendix 3 for the Manual Changelog qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 38 of 38
7. as mix down devices Buses are independently assigned to tracks Each track is assigned to one input bus for recording and to one output bus for playback and mix down The assigned output bus determines the number of channels the track supports Clips bounded to disparate multichannel audio files for which their number of channels do not match with proper bus track s one are automatically resolved on mix down Figure 2 shows one typical signal flow block diagram By default Master buses are automatically created at session startup being stereo for gt Volume Pan Plug ins gt Figure 10 Buses Tracks signal flow diagram audio 2 channels ports auto connected and single port for MIDI 16 logically addressable channels Bus ports are accessible for arbitrary connection to and from external client applications or devices through the connections window interface atractor 0 1 3 user manual 14 of 38 12 Track View g home hines_j Audio gtractor DontDreamitsOver qtr modified tractor File Edit Tack View Transport Help AE coso i wm wt BS JU L_302 01 043 48000 Ha Figure 11 This ts a snapshot of the main window with track layout Tracks are arranged as a sequence of one or more overlapping clips of the same file type either audio or MIDI The tracks window is the main application workspace serving as a virtual canvas of a
8. 38 3 Linux System Requirements The software requirements for build and run time are listed as follows 3 1 Mandatory Qt 4 core gui xml C class library and tools for cross platform development and internationalization http www trolltech org products at JACK Audio Connection Kit http jackaudio org ALSA Advanced Linux Sound Architecture http www alsa project org libsndfile C library for reading and writing files containing sampled sound http www mega nerd com libsndfile LADSPA Linux Audio Developer s Simple Plugin API http www ladspa org 3 2 Optional Support Libraries opted in at build time gtractor 0 1 3 user manual libvorbis enc file Ogg Vorbis audio compression http xiph org vorbis libmad High quality MPEG audio decoder http www underbit com products mad libsamplerate The secret rabbit code C library for audio sample rate conversion http oreakfastquay com rubberband librubberband Rubber Band Audio Time Stretcher an audio time stretching and pitch shifting library http oreakfastquay com rubberband liblo Lightweight OSC implementation needed for DSSI GUI support http liblo sourceforge net DSSI An API for soft synth plugins with custom user interfaces http dssi sourceforge net VST SDK Steinberg s Virtual Studio Technology http www steinberg net 6 of 38 4 Download Qtractor is still in its alpha stages of development but
9. Calls the Track Properties dialog Inputs Shows current track inputs Outputs Shows current track outputs State Current track state Record Mute Solo Monitor Navigate Current track navigation First Previous Next Last Move Move current track navigation Top Up Down Bottom Import Tracks Import either Audio or MIDI track Export Tracks Export either Audio or MIDI track 21 4 View Menu gtractor 0 1 3 user manual Menu Bar Will toggle whether the menu bar is shown Status Bar Will toggle whether the Status Bar is shown Tool Bars Toggles various Tool Bars on and off Files Toggles whether the Files dialog is on or off Messages Toggles whether the Messages dialog is on or off Connections Displays the Connections dialog Mixer Displays the Mixer window Zoom Zoom the main view In Out Reset Snap Change the snap per beat setting Refresh Refresh the view contents Instruments Displays the Instruments dialog Buses Opens the Buses Editor dialog Options Opens the Program Options dialog 23 of 38 21 5 Transport Menu Backward Rewind Fast Forward Forward Loop Loop Set Play Record Metronome Follow Playhead Auto Backward Continue Past End 21 6 Help Menu Shortcuts About About Qt 22 Future Thoughts As of its current status there are many and rather fundamental functionality still missing that tear Qtractor apart from a finished product let alone for the quest
10. Native Linux VST plugin support is also available Presently there are only a few native Linux VSTs available but more should be on the way soon thanks to some aggressive ongoing projects Please see section 5 2 for complete information on building Qtractor with native VST support NOTE Native Linux VST support does NOT include running of Windows VST plugins Please use the DSSI VST wrapper when attempting to use this type of plugin and make sure your Windows VST plugins are located within your DSSI path environment variabe atractor 0 1 3 user manual 18 of 38 18 MIDI Instruments Instruments Qtractor Instruments Figure 17 MIDI Instruments Editor As a special feature Cakewalk 11 instrument definition files ins are natively supported thus offering a convenient MIDI bank select program change mapping for existing MIDI instrument patch names and easier intelligible selection of MIDI track channels qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 19 of 38 19 MIDI Editor BRAHMSPC MID Track 1 Otractor File Edit View Tools Transport Help 201470 o E Note on 7 k a E Lu Po BT DORADO CARE ORT RTT EERE ee a A A Pano iMome ines Jaudio MIDIF es BRAHMSPC MID maka 1502016 Each MIDI clip content may be readily edited under a dedicated and fairly complete piano roll MIDI Editot with individual pitch velocity and controller editable trough the usu
11. _7 capture 4 2 playback 8 capture 5 playback 9 capture 6 z playback 10 A capture 7 capture 8 capture 9 capture_10 capture_11 capture_12 Figure 13 Jackd Connections Window The connections window serves to establish the audio and MIDI port connections between the internal core layer input and output buses ports and the external devices or client applications Incidentally the Connections window can also be used to make connections between external client application ports either JACK clients for audio or ALSA sequencer clients for MIDI In fact it almost completely replicates the very same functionality of QjackCtl 10 All connections on the existing input and output buses are properly saved and restored upon session recall 15 Audio Effects Plugins 15 1 Summary There are three types of Plugins supported within Qtractor LADSPA DSSI and VST Plugin support is available for all audio input and output buses and for all audio tracks All Plugin types are aggregated seamlessly as one single instance on a multi channel context and can be individually selected activated and moved within the plug in chain order Also you may drag and drop all plugin instances over the mixer strip channels You can move drag and drop inside the same strip or over to and from any other You may also copy plugins from one channel strip to another as well A mini menu will ask if you want to copy or move the p
12. human ear rade in perception Over 070601_06 02 2006_01 01 16 WAv Parameters Format Start 00 00 02 750 Offset 00 00 00 000 O Frames Time O BBT 00 00 00 000 fe Cuente Fade Out 00 00 00 000 Quadratic Audio Time Stretch Figure 7 Clip Properties Clips are placed on tracks either by importing audio and MIDI files as new tracks or by dragging and dropping files into the track view arranger window Empty Clips may also be created by right clicking on a track and choosing Clip New After being placed on their respective tracks you may perform clip region operations such as drag copy cut paste delete truncate fade in out etc Altering clip fade in and fade out is accomplished by dragging the handles square boxes on the top ends of any clip A Clip may be split by positioning the playback head where you want to split it right click the Clip and choose Clip Split If you use this often it is far more convenient to assign a keyboard shortcut to accomplish this task Most clip editing operations are accomplished through the usual mouse interaction by first selecting one or multiple clips and or regions and applying the edit action upon the resulting selection There are three selection modes available clip range and rectangular modes qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 12 of 38 Undo clip fade out Ctrl Z Ctrl Shift Z Ctri X Ctri C Ctri V Del Select lu Range
13. on the global View Options dialog A bad old time session cursor glitch has been apparently fixed Make sure the generic clip properties form is modal Major rewrite and adaptation to the session time scale properties making its way for a brand new command instance the session tempo command Changing the snap per beat combobox value on the main window toolbar does not make it as an undoable command anymore Long due MIDI clip editor integration has come to reality Major rewrite on the MIDI sequence file read write methods in preparation to the coming MIDI clip editor Status bar session length label now gets rightly updated while extended recording of course Clip properties fade in out lengths gets their old due constraints qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 36 of 38 Main transport time display is now an editable custom spin box the Tempo BPM spin box has seen new colors green on black Transport time display format option adds the new choice of absolute frame number alternative to previous time and BBT The frame time based spin boxes on the clip properties form were replaced with a new custom one allowing for alternate frame time and bbt input display formats Time scale helper class has been introduced 0 0 2 2007 05 26 The Sixth Lord Audio MIDI connections gets slightly refactored contributing for whole robustness specially in case of incidental engine shutdown
14. on their respective tabs Files can be explicitly added and grouped into a hierarchical tree list Individual and multiple files can be drag and dropped from the desktop environment and within the provided tree list This lists all the files which are referred in the working arrangement session File items can be drag and dropped directly into the track window thus creating new clips in the working arrangement This is mainly used as a your audio MIDI file data pool a Don t Dream its Over 0706 _4 Don t Dream its Over 0706 Don t Dream its Over 0706 a Don t Dream its Over 0706 Don t Dream its Over 0706 Don t Dream its Over 0701 Don t Dream its Over 0403 Don t Dream its Over 0402 NoiseSample WAV Mixdown 01 WAV g Don t Dream its Over06_M Don t Dream its Over05_M g Don t Dream its Over05_2 a Don t Dream its Over03 wav a Crowded_House Don t_ Files 5664000 5666000 5666000 15314824 15314824 11896393 10398397 10366911 32384 10752000 40653126 14647296 45029600 13254656 10476748 48000 00 01 58 000 48000 00 01 58 041 48000 00 01 58 041 48000 00 05 19 058 48000 00 05 19 058 48000 00 04 07 841 48000 00 03 36 633 48000 00 03 35 977 48000 00 00 00 674 48000 00 03 44 000 48000 00 14 06 940 48000 00 05 05 152 48000 00 15 38 116 48000 00 04 36 138 44100 00 03 57 567 Audio The Files Pool can also allow you to preview the files shown in
15. ring buffers are recycled filled emptied at one second threshold and has a maximum streaming capacity of 4 5 seconds of audio sample data Smaller clips are permanently cached in a RAM buffer Audio thread scheduling is mastered and mandated through the JACK callback API model MIDI clip events are queued in anticipation through one MIDI output thread which feeds a ALSA sequencer queue synchronized on one second periods to the JACK process cycle A single thread is responsible for listening polling for MIDI input and multiplexes all incoming events through record armed MIDI tracks Time stamping is done through the ALSA sequencer facility Looping is made possible through the audio file buffering layer right at the disk I O thread context The same consideration is adopted for MIDI output queuing JACK transport support is not an option as playback positioning is constantly kept in soft chase fashion Audio frame relocation is accounted from successive JACK client process cycles i e buffer period atractor 0 1 3 user manual 13 of 38 resolution On this particular design JACK and ALSA sequencer ports are logically aggregated as buses with respect to the audio and MIDI signal routing paths functioning as fundamental device interfaces Input buses through exposing their respective input ports are responsible inlets on capture and recording Output buses are the main signal outlets and are responsible as playback and more importantly
16. you ll have to go through the nuisance and download yourself the VST SDK from the Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH site specifically digging through the 3rd Party Developers section It doesn t matter much whether you pick the VST 2 3 or VST 2 4 version but you need to pick one and just one only Do not use the recently announced VST 3 0 It will not work Once you have downloaded the VST SDK zip archive for which you ll have to accept their license and supply some personal data you ll have to unpack the pertinent header files which are found under the respective folder Just copy those couple of files to somewhere on your system e VST SDK 2 3 vstsdk2 3 source common aeffectx h AEffect h atractor 0 1 3 user manual 7 of 38 e VST SDK 2 4 vstsdk2 4 pluginterfaces vst2 x aeffectx h aeffect h If you choose to copy those files into some standard include directory eg usr local include Orf usr include all will be handled automagically by the configure build step Otherwise you ll need do supply the path yourself as in configure with vst path to vstsdk2 x include Once properly built you will need to grab some native VST plugins and tell where those might be found Currently you ll need to set the VST PATH environment variable with the paths where the plug ins will reside and can be picked up by Qtractor Bash Command export VST_PATH path to vst_plugins Some ready made Linux VST plug ins can be found on the follo
17. AJO Clients Output Port Writal Linux Audio and MIDI Multi Track Workstation May 2008 User Manual Revision 0 1 3 Rui Nuno Capela and James Laco Table of Contents ADS IC ai tipica 4 A nn A ansaeee este eee aeeees 4 SEDU System RequitementS teorias ido 6 AA F211 0 o eee nee a Pe ne eee rn eee en eee ee 6 3 2 Optional Support Libraries opted in at build tiMe ooooooccccccconononcccnnncnnnnnnccnnnacnnoncnnnncnnnnncnnnns 6 A DOWN Adaro 7 Ss LINUX Compiling AMG Instala scenic cio dada alicia 7 5 1 Basic Compiling and Installation 7 5 2 Compiling Qtractor for Native Linux VST Support OptiONal ooccoocccccnonccccnccconcnancccnnnnncnacnnnn 7 Ss HOM OC UNO Eh esas cs Sua becca ace coe satlaan E decane oeane seacebacineaee ocadeateasad autor eet oeenecneaeoeetete 8 T Master GUNMAN Erotico 9 E O o a A A 10 8 1 Understanding the Session Project ta dolce ia 10 8 2 Time Signature and Temi O sncti rd TA 10 8 3 SESSION FOP SIS ura dla eiii 11 BA SESSION DION A o A a E A ode 11 FINS Sassen its ea eect cata Prenat ie aes one ec tea E sect a ncaa A TE E TAE E een T 12 GNIS scart aos be o A seas es se pale Sew a su ae cee seat a seeedannemnas 12 105 Gli SUMMA 12 10 2 Clip Properties AU losa as 13 MOSS Gps and racks dd do e e ds 14 11s ENGINES ana BUSES earn anni based an E Cacaten Se olnaint Shabani 14 T2 ACHE NOW A E a a a a a dade eareusaunaeetetend ieee oe 16 mn o ao y a
18. Ble Ede Fack Yew Transport Help DEU val nax Ja 24 24 o a T I i Track Hama T Drums 1 ber 3 o PAL SS ig Plead EOL wav ij ja ra E 2117 Bs A ri yy PLesd 02 waw r ME La Piead E02 way 2 Guitar a PhasGit EOL mav MA PhasGit B02 we a PhasGrt E03 waw i PhasGit 04 maw 4 Es Piano gm Piano BOL mar A Piano CO2 mae a Piano BO rra la Piano EXA maw 1 Gass Drums a Drumioop 10 was a DumLleoph 09 me F DrumLoop 0 mar a Brurmriloop OF mare A DrumiLoopA 06 mar a Prumicop 05 me E DrumLoop Li mars a Drumioop 04 waw a Drumilcoopa 02 20 Master MIDI Y Piano Leit Hand O Master a o E _ a Mo T Readable Clients Output Port E B system a capture_1 capture Maater out_1 af Master out_2 Llao A Qayrith g utt f out 1 i i Gayrahe E ff af Conmect Sf Disconnect E Disconnect All Figure 1 Main GUI Window Tracks Mixer and Connections 2 introduction As a new Linux Audio offering Qtractor 1 targets and positions itself comfortably tagged for the techno boy bedroom home studio However in general it is just yet another digital audio and MIDI multi track composition and arranger software application The design and functionality model tak
19. IDI channel event without regard to the current channel assignment which still applies for playback purposes qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 32 of 38 Audio pass through has been also implemented now being a common and consistent property of both audio and MIDI buses provided those are set in duplex mode input and output Re touched follow playhead and continue past end tool icons again to be a bit softer and not so bright as to hurt someones eyes O 05 7 2007 10 31 The Eleventh Tower Suspend auto follow playhead while dragging or moving content over the main track and midi editor views re touched follow playhead and new continue past end tool icons Playback is now forced complete full stop whenever play head goes behind the current session length and or loop end and the newer continue past end option is enabled from transport menu Tool child windows position and size preservation fixed MIDI pass through has been finally implemented after several kind requests it applies as a property of duplex mode MIDI buses this new setting is configurable from the View Buses dialog also from respective new input bus mixer strip button when enabled implies all incoming MIDI events at the input bus will pass through unchanged to the corresponding output bus as found useful just for direct monitoring one s performance without the help of any extra circumvent or kludgy connections Mouse cursor shape changes ac
20. PERIMENTAL The files widget get alternating coloured rows VST plug in preset values are now being restored properly individual parameter changes are now being queued for the also convenient undo redo command pattern Some audio clip buffer sync tweaks have sneaked in improving and fixing the rendering of full overlapped integrally cached and or offset clips altogether Stuffed one primordial shot on XInitThreads at the main head and let native VST plug ins start behaving as they should or not this might be in fact problematic and dangerous for people who won t ever try the JUCE based plugins as from JUCETICE http www anticore org jucetice due to some broken locking qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 29 of 38 mechanism in xcb thanks anyway to mighty kRAkEn gORe JUCETICE for this precious hint and from who knows best mm True deterministic session length update has due fixed mm Track menu has new accessible actions mm Track Inputs show current track input bus connections mm Track Outputs show current track output bus connections nm Track State Record arm current track for recording Track State Mute mute current track Track State Solo solo current track nm Track Navigate First make current the first track mm Track Navigate Previous make current the previous track mm Track Navigate Next make current the next track m Track Navigate Last make
21. Session Project set the Time Signature Bars Beats Ticks Beat etc session atractor Name Templatel Directory JE Description Time View Sample Rate 48000 a Snap Beat Beat 24 gt Tempo 85 0 2 Pixels Beat 32 Beats Bar 4 4 Horizontal Zoom 100 Ticks Beat 96 E Vertical Zoom 100 yw OK A Cancel Figure 3 Session Properties Dialog qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 10 of 38 8 4 Session Options Access the Options windows via the View Options menu item This window and its tabs allows you to control the global parameters of Qtractor and these settings are saved within your Session file E Options Otractor Capture Export File type WAV Microsoft Sample format Float 32 Bit gt Quality a Y Playback Sample rate converter type Sinc Best Quality 4 _ Automatic time stretching _ Quick seek time stretching lx Dedicated audition pre listening player outputs Metronome Enable audio metronome File bar home hines_j Desktop SourceCode rui qtractor fx Metronom1 WAV pa m File beat home hines Desktop SourceCode rui gtractor fx Metronom2 WAW La m Dedicated audio metronome outputs Figure 4 Options Dialog Found under the View menu 9 Files Sound file selection is made available through a tabbed mini organizer Audio and MIDI file lists are kept separate
22. al GUI operations such as Multi extended selection drag and drop move cut copy paste deletion of every event in the MIDI sequence is rightly accessible on the fly Figure X Figure 18 The MIDI Editor Window Special home brew tools for batch processing are also implemented and applicable to the any event selection quantize transpose normalize randomize and resize All MIDI editing operations are available and processed in real time effective while playback Several MIDI Editor instances may be active and open in any time provided each one refers to its own clip All MIDI content may be saved as standard MIDI files SMF Format 0 or 1 qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 20 of 38 20 Audio MIDI Export Export MIDI Qtractor 2 0 x File A Jjrit Range Output DO Loop Format Edit nge Output 1 Loop Format O Edit Frames Frames O Custom Start 1 01 000 E End 301 01 043 El 0 Custom ee a Time Start 1 01 000 e BET End 5 04 067 zz Figures 18 19 The Export Audio and Export MIDI Windows All or part of the session may be exported to one audio or MIDI file Audio export is implemented through the special JACK freewheel mode thus faster than real time resulting in the complete and exact mix down of selected audio material into a designated audio file of the opted format wav flac au aiff or ogg MIDI export is just the same but for MIDI mat
23. already fully functional The latest versions are publicly available from the qtractor sourceforge net project web site 1 The bleeding edge source code may be found in the CVS repository through anonymous pserver access with the following instructions Login to the CVS repository cvs d pserver anonymous qtractor cvs sourceforge net cvsroot qtractor login When prompted for a password hit enter and proceed for check out all in the same line cvs z3 d pserver anonymous qtractor cvs sourceforge net cvsroot qtractor co qtractor Prepare the configure script on the just created qtractor source tree directory cd gqtractor make f Makefile cvs Hopefully the source tree will be now ready for build and installation 5 Linux Compiling and Installation 5 1 Basic Compiling and Installation The standard procedure for source distributions based on autoconf follows through the now quite usual build command sequence configure amp amp make and complete installation by having the appropriate root authority make install which will end installing by copying the qtractor binary executable and desktop and icon files to common standard base system locations NOTE To see all configuration options of the configure command use configure help 5 2 Compiling Qtractor for Native Linux VST Support Optional VST support is not that easy At least it does not work out of the box First off due to its licensing issues
24. ar connection persistance once an explicit discconnection is issued on any of the intrinsic bus ports MIDI output buses now get the panning slider to spit out some GM system master balance sysex messages being now enabled Mouse hovering on the clip fade in out handles while in the main track view gets its long due cursor pointer feedback Fixed a off by one boundary issue on MIDI clip event playback which were enqueuing duplicated MIDI events on every read ahead output thread processing cycle 1 sec Transport menu and toolbar are now featured on the MIDI Editor Use actual session name when asking to save changed session Transport loop setting keyboard shortcuts swapped Ctrl L will set the loop immediately and Shift Ctrl1 L will toggle on off Changing MIDI event duration may now affect MIDI clip duration Alternate sharp note color lines have returned to MIDI Editor canvas as was the shadow color marking the end of MIDI clip 0 0 8 2007 11 12 The Twelfth Tight Bus context menu is now accessible from respective mixer strip Fixed a subtle crash suicide issue when invoking the bus dialog with a double click over the corresponding mixer bus strip also fixed the sloppy ganguing mistake when changing mixer bus gain volume and panning values MIDI Omni mode sort of makes its entrance as a new MIDI track property meaning that is now finally possible for the capture of any unfiltered M
25. cordingly while hovering in header time scale rulers both in main track view and MIDI editor Track view clipboard paste action has been refactored with the user interface consistent with the same functionality featured on the MIDI editor the clipboard selection being pasted now floats at the mouse pointer and can be moved around before placed into its final position either with the mouse or keyboard arrow keys A unitialized member variable bug affecting all MIDI clips has been discovered and squashed this one has been lurking for quite some time and was causing wrong clip editing results specially when tempo or meter differs between session and the MIDI file Keyboard step moving is now allowed while pasting in MIDI editor Track view clip selection can now be drag moved into the void bottom view area creating brand new tracks automagically Losing focus resets all current keyboard step moves in progress affecting the main track view and all MIDI editor as well As done before on the MIDI editor the main track view current selection may be step wise moved using the keyboard arrow keys and the enter insert keys for final placement horizontal step movement is quantized according to current snap setting vertical key step movement is only allowed to selected clips belonging to one Single and the same track Immediate session loop settting accessible from the main menu Track properties dialog gets fixed again i
26. current the last track nm Track Move Top move current track to top mm Track Move Up move current track up mm Track Move Down move current track down mm Track Move Bottom move current track to bottom View menus have new accessible actions View Zoom In horizontal and vertical zoom in Ctrl View Zoom Out horizontal and vertical zoom out Ctrl View Zoom Reset reset both zoom levels to default View Snap select current snap per beat setting Plug in forms don t auto open on session reload anymore Keyboard shortcuts icon item Help Shortcuts sneaks in Os ee 2008 02 16 The Futile Duchess After some great user demand keyboard shortcuts are finally configurable as found provisionally under Help Shortcuts for the main application menu and for the MIDI editor as well Debian package gets SSE optimization disabled as default At least some transport actions get to be non auto repeatable when pressed for much too long as Play and Record avoiding the tumbling imposed from the keyboard For the first time ever jackd auto start is now allowed OSC service support through liblo gets optional at configure time now leading the way to proper DSSI plug in hosting All plug in widget controls count are now capped to one hundred Plugin paths setup is now made available on the options dialog overriding each of respective default settings as im
27. d recording also improved follow playhead switching while playback recording Whitespace sanitization gets leaner for all recorded filenames Run time SSE optimization detection has been improved while on configure additionally IEEE 32bit float specific optimizations have also sneaked in SSE optimization is now featured over all audio monitoring and most specially on audio bus buffering lowering the CPU burden a bit while doing track and bus gain pan metering and mix down Fixed MIDI clip move into new track preserving the original channel bank and program whenever possible Fixed session cursor seeking specially regarding overlapped clips once gain The MIDI editor gets new menu access to current MIDI clip track see File Track Inputs Outputs Properties selection of MIDI events has also been improved specially regarding overlapped note events Clip split command enters the stage see Edit Clip Split about splitting the current selected clip at the current playhead position red cursor line EXPERIMENTAL Creating new clips from scratch is now finally permitted see Edit Clip New additionally the clip properties dialog is now also allowing for changing the filename and track channel as special to MIDI clips EXPERIMENTAL Record armed tracks are now properly monitored and fed through their own output audio bus on mix down which includes plug in effects processing EX
28. e or eee ee ee ee ee re eer ee 17 14 COMMECIIONS Falt I DAY ii iia ot cdect nade se care 18 atractor 0 1 3 user manual 2 of 38 Table of Contents Continued 19 Adio Effects PIUJIN S usan asii lia IOA SA V a colecta iaa 15 2 LADOS Acne Ren eee eer detectada dolce dema donec s 20 Audo MIDIENDO isdie a a R AE 21 Keyboard Shortcuts EGO cpe dicos 21 Menue MS dn E AA A 2 Nice EEN aa 21 3 TRACK MENU ia 2 ae Vew Meni ia a E 21 5 Transport Mel caida 22 FOUE I MIOUG MUS stilo li sido 2 CONC Mercadal 24 AcknowledgemMentS ooccccccoccncococnnccnnconncnncnnononnnnononnnnonanononnarenonanens ZO Rellenos doin 20 TUONA lS Sees eo a er eh la ei Nc Ni ct lance ht 27 Appendix l Debugging Qltractor ooococccnnccnnnnnnnncccccnononancnnnnnanos 28 Appendix Il Changelog cccssscccssseeeccseeeeeeeseeeeseeeesseeeeessenseseas 29 Appendix Ill Manual Changelog ccccccssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 3 of 38 1 Abstract Qtractor is an multi track Audio and MIDI sequencer application written in C around the Qt4 toolkit using Qt Designer The initial target platform will be Linux where the Jack Audio Connection Kit JACK for audio and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ALSA for MIDI are the main infrastructures to evolve as a fairly featured Desktop Audio MIDI Workstation GUI specially dedicated to the personal home studio fhometnchoitmp Funkit ol 2 gtr Qtractor
29. erial only resulting in the merging and concatenation of selected MIDI tracks and clips into a single MIDI file SMF Format 0 or 1 Open Audio Files 2004Mix 5 Lead13_M24 WAV E WAN File 8 29 04 4 31 PM 2004 Mix 5 Lead14 M24 WAV WAV File 8 29 04 4 31 PM 2004Mix 5 Lead15 24 WAV WAV File 8 29 04 4 31 PM 2004Mix 207 M24 WAVW WAV File 8 29 04 4 31 PM 2004Mix 212 24 WAV 106 7 MB WAV File 8 29 04 4 31 PM 2004Mix 916_08 04 22 20 15 WAV 61 3 MB WAV File 8 29 04 4 31 PM Bells 24 WAV 51 5 MB WAV File 8 29 04 4 31 PM XmasinTheMountains3M WAV 31 5 MB WAV File 8 29 04 4 31 PM XmasinTheMountains6M 48KHz WAV 9 9 MB WAV File 8 29 04 4 31 PM XmasinTheMountains M 48KHz WAV 2 4 MB WAV File 8 29 04 4 31 PM Files of type Audio Files w64 aif ogg wav aiff mp3 Figure 20 The Import Audio Window 21 Keyboard Shortcuts Editor Keyboard shortcuts are useful for the power user in such that it provides for a quick mechanism for performing often used commands quickly without the use of your mouse Keyboard shortcuts may be customized to your preference by using the Shortcuts Editor qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 21 of 38 This editor may be found in the Help menu Keyboard Shortcuts New session file Open session from file Save session to file Save current session with another file name Edit current session properties Exit this application program Undo last action Redo last action Cut se
30. es as fundamental the now usual multi track composing techniques for modern music making It aims to be intuitive and easy to use yet powerful enough for the serious recording enthusiast Qtractor is designed to be the heart of your home studio Even though built on a monolithic application architecture Linux kernel this is not the whole of it Besides its name it should be noted Qtractor is not a music tracker type of program However it has all the potential to do that job if needed Qtractor is a non destructive sequencer and arranger It does not affect alter or modify in any way the audio and or MIDI files that are displayed as Clip Objects What is destructive are files resulting from capture and recording operations and explicit changes made through specialized Clip editing e g MIDI Editor atractor 0 1 3 user manual 4 of 38 Currently the Qtractor project is simply the hobby of one developer Development was started April of 2005 initially as a Qt3 application Since October 2006 it is officially a Qt4 2 application Qtractor is natively hardwired and exclusive to the JACK 3 audio infrastructure and the ALSA 4 sequencer for MIDI thus currently being a Linux only application Qtractor is free open source software licensed under the GPL and is welcoming all collaboration and review from the Linux Audio developer and user community in particular and the public in general atractor 0 1 3 user manual 5 of
31. even worse drifting being detected to much of great despair specially after recording and or bouncing audio tracks from MIDI sequenced material Credit must certainly go to Christian Schoenebeck on splatting this sloppy one on the face MIDI editing actions while playing now get immediate feedback this was possible to some internal interface redesign of all MIDI editor accessory Classes making the MIDI clip now being the main editing target object instead of just the MIDI event sequence as it was previously Simple as it could ever be the build executive summary report is now given on configure The internal decoded frame list for MPEG lAudio Layer III mp3 audio files ie via libmad has been made one time cached as global shared objects benefitting from the fact that the list is always completely re built during the peak file computation and thus speeding up all frame accurate access operations seek over this specific audio file format More eye candy is sneaking in the MIDI editor there s new view options on the View menu Note Color and Value Color affecting note event colors according to pitch and or velocity New view option on the MIDI editor on menu View Note Duration Switches whether events are shown proportional to their durations or as simple vertical candlesticks New snap per beat divisors are now available Beat 3 6 12 24 and 48 giving support for triplets for the very first time
32. files are automatically converted on playback in real time to the host sample rate via libsamplerate 8 This method while it works very well is not the recommended method due to possible errors in the real time sample rate conversion Realtime sample rate conversion is also going to use quite a bit more valuable CPU resources Please note It is NOT recommended you record audio tracks while in this sample rate conversion mode Rui Nuno Capela is working toward eliminating this shortcoming by taking control of JACK from within Qtractor and restarting it using the Session s project parameters This will ultimately reconnect any plugins set the proper sample rate etc Until this feature is available please follow the recommendations listed above 8 2 Time Signature and Tempo Although you may select any time signature and tempo for your Session by present design Sessions can only contain a single constant tempo Tempo must be regarded as a global setting of a Session Qtractor does not presently support Tempo Mapping but may eventually do so A new feature which applies to existing audio clips will reflect all tempo changes with a corresponding time stretching effect Time stretching is thus applied in real time at the buffering level as a custom WSOLA algorithm based and derived from the SoundTouch 12 library 8 3 Session Properties To access the Session Properties access the File Properties menu item Here you can name your
33. h org vorbis qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 25 of 38 7 libmad High quality MPEG audio decoder http www underbit com products mad 8 libsamplerate The secret rabbit code C library for audio sample rate conversion http www mega nerd com SRC 9 LADSPA Linux Audio Developer s Simple Plugin API http www ladspa org 10 QjackCtl JACK Audio Connection Kit Qt GUI Interface http qjackctl sourceforge net http sourceforge net projects gjackctl 11 Cakewalk Powerful and easy to use products for music creation and recording http www cakewalk com fto ftp cakewalk com pub InstrumentDefinitions 12 SoundTouch Sound Processing Library http www surina net soundtouch 13 rncbc org My personal web presence blog forum and other mundane material http www rncbc org 26 Tutorials Coming Soon qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 26 of 38 27 Appendix l Debugging Qtractor Although Qtractor is a mostly stable program there could be problems that eventually show up This short guide will explain to you how to build Qtractor with debugging code built in making it easier to locate where the code exhibits problems qtractor 0 1 3 user manual Rebuild it all from scratch with configure enable debug amp amp make Enable core dumps in a shell session ulimit c unlimited From the same shell comman line run the program until it crashes You ll see something like this in the output whe
34. he L GPL umbrella New Options Audio Playback Quick seek time stretching global option providing a quick seek mode hierarchical search while doing all audio buffer time stretching Changing session tempo will automatically apply the corresponding time stretch percent factor to all in place audio clips Audio clip dialog also includes a new time stretch property setting Tempo changes are now affecting clip offsets correctly keeping the clip offset constant in time units ticks as are clip start and length properties already Mixer splitter sizes are now properly saved restored when hidden Extended multi selection is now featured on the files widget all drag and drop functionality has been almost completely rewritten SSE optimization is now enabled where available via configure Options for having separate dedicated ports for the audition pre listening player output audio metronome output MIDI control input output and MIDI metronome output are now in place A brand new subtle option sneaks in affecting the drag and drop of the main track view View Options Drop multiple audio files into the same track whether to drop multiple external files into new or existing track as concatenated audio clips The audio metronome makes its debut as an alternative to the MIDI existing one parameters include bar and beat audio sample files accessible from the View Options Audio Metronome dialog
35. lection to clipboard Copy selection to clipboard Paste clipboard contents 2 Delete Delete selection Clip Clip selection mode Figure 21 The Keyboard Shortcuts Editor F2 Ctril 7 Ctrl Shift Z Ctrl Xx Ctrl C Ctrl V It is very straight forward in its use Simply find the item you want to create a shortcut for left click in the shortcut cell and type on the key you wish to be assigned to that function You will then see whatever key or key combination you chose appear in the context qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 22 of 38 21 Menu Items 21 1 File Menu New Creates a new Session Project Open Opens a previously created Session Project Open Recent Contains a list of several of your last used Session Projects Save Saves your current Session Project Save As Saves your current Session Project with naming conventions Properties Opens the Session Properties dialog Exit Exits the program 21 2 Edit Menu Undo Will undo the last action Redo Will Redo the last action Cut Deletes and copies the item to the clipboard Copy Copies the item to the clipboard Paste Pastes the item from the clipboard Delete Deletes the selected item Select Mode Selects the edit mode one of Clip Range or Rectangle Select None Range Track or All Clip New Edit and Split 21 3 Track Menu Add Track Will add either Audio or MIDI track Remove Track Removes a track Track Properties
36. lugin Individual plugin control parameters can be modified in real time through qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 17 of 38 provided dialog windows and maintained as named presets for re usability 15 2 LADSPA LADSPA 9 has been the Linux audio plugin standard for many years There are literally hundreds of LADSPA plugins available for Linux LADSPA plugins give the user many standard options such as Eqs Filtering Reverb Chorus Amp and speaker simulation etc 15 3 DSSI DSSI plugin support is available for DSSI effects plugins DSSI Instrument plugins are not yet supported You must have the core DSSI subsystem installed in order for this type of plugin to function When DSSI is present the DSSI VST wrapper may also be used This wrapper uses WINE hitp Awww winehg org to allow a user to run native Windows VST applications The DSSI paths may be set within the Options dialog under the Display tab or with an environment variable see section 15 5 2 a x x Confirm removals Number of recent files l 5 8 Capture standard output Show complete path of session files __ Auto remove audio peak files X Keep tool windows always on top Drop multiple audio files into the same track Time display format Time X Plugin Paths possi LADSPA DSSI VST Sans Serif 9 Font XX Messages limit 1000 lines E y OK Cancel 15 4 VST Linux Native
37. m for drag and moving content past the current session length specially at the lower zoom levels Clip end time is now also shown on tool tip When armed for recording MIDI tracks are now monitored and filtered through their own output bus thus having the same behavior as audio tracks this also implies that all record armed tracks won t playback their current content material when recording is engaged and rolling track mute and solo qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 28 of 38 states are now honored on record monitoring Audio clip pitch shifting makes its first appearance with the optional help from Chris Cannam s RubberBand library A new MIDI editor tool is available note pitch randomize Avoid re setting the default session directory if a session cannot be open or loaded for some reason Another nastiness bites the dust a subtle but progressive drifting has been swept away from the audio buffer looping zero buffer flushing is now also taken into account which was the Cause for serious drifting on time stretched clips A major digital audio processing bug was tamed audio clip fade in outs are now linearly piece wise applied even at the clip edges giving a much smoother rendering and thus mitigating the nasty click and pop artifacts that were in fact due to some early design optimization with a poor and sloppy implementation 0 1 2 2008 03 23 The Frantic Dame Session length fixed yet again while exten
38. mixer window serves for session control monitoring recording and assistance in mix down operations The mixer is divided in three panes the left accommodates all input buses the center with individual track strips and the right for the output buses Each mixer strip offers a volume and pan control and monitors each one of the respective buses and tracks Audio strips also offers the possibility to chain plug in effects LADSPA 9 Monitoring is presented in the form of peak level meters for audio and note event velocity for MIDI both with fall off eye candy MIDI mixer strips also feature an output event activity LED Audio volume is presented on a dBfs scale IEC 268 10 and pan is applied in approximated equal power effect trigonometric weighting For MIDI tracks volume control is implemented through respective channel controller 7 and system exclusive master volume for output buses MIDI pan control is only available for track strips and is implemented through channel controller 10 MIDI input buses have volume and pan controls disabled qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 16 of 38 14 Connections Patch bay Connections Otractor Audio E Otractor E Otractor CT ae a a Master out_2 e Ya Master in_2 g Metronome out_1 E Metronome out_2 Playerfout_1 Playerfout_2 a Hi playback _3 E E system a EH playback_4 XA capture 1 Ns z playback 5 capture 2 He playback_6 XA capture 3 Hi playback
39. multi track composition arranger Most of the editing operations are made on this track list view window The track list view window has two panes the left one displays the list of tracks with their respective properties and the center right pane is the proper track view canvas window where main multi track composition and arranging activity is pictured and performed As usual tracks are stacked on horizontal strips and clips are layered on a bi dimensional grid in time sequence for each track strip Time is modeled on the horizontal axis and pictured by a bar beat scale ruler at the top of the track view Clips may be conveniently aligned to discrete time positions depending on the current snap mode setting When not set to None the snapping is always carried out to MIDI resolution quantized to ticks per quarter note granularity Each track has its own user assignable colors for better visual identification Audio clips are displayed with approximate waveform graphic with peak and RMS signal envelopes as read from the respective audio file segment MIDI clips are shown as a piano roll like graphic with note events shown as small rectangles depicting pitch time and duration All session track and clip editing operations are undo redo able Discrete view zooming and track vertical resizing operations are also available qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 15 of 38 13 Mixer rg Mixer Oitractor Figure 12 Full Mixer Window The
40. n it happens Segmentation fault core dumped Locate the dumped core file Depending on your environmental settings it might be just named core or something like core 1234 1234 is the process id number of the crashing program located on the last directory the program was current Load the core dump file into gdb gdb qiractor path to core at the gdb prompt just enter gdb gt bt or gdb gt thread apply all bt 2 of 38 28 Appendix Il Changelog Otractor An Audio MIDI multi track sequencer ChangeLog 0 1 3 2008 05 02 The Frugal Damsel As one may find convenient sometimes the global time display format frames time or BBT may now be changed on the main transport time spin box context menu Left clicking on the track list number column now toggles all track content clip selection Prevent audio buffer initialization mashups when editing short audio clips while playback is rolling and within clip region Audio peak files gets a bit simplified dropping the peak frame count from its header peak waveform graphics are now rendered as straight lines when over the end of audio file The drop span option View Options Drop multiple audio files into the same track now also applies when importing tracks as in Track Import Tracks Audio to concatenate multiple audio clips into one and the same new track Audio and MIDI meter level colors are now user configurable as global configuration options View Options
41. n its auto size treat Another audio buffer thread bug was scrubbed off which was causing spurious and audible garbage on certain loop workloads OO 6 2007 10 09 The Tenth Commencement A bit more of precision is achieved over the metronome regular ticking and both the audio and MIDI monitor meters A rudimentary MIDI metronome is now in place parameters like MIDI channel bar and beat accent note velocity and duration are readily configurable from the main menu View Options MIDI Metronome dialog Track properties dialog now gets tightly auto sized depending qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 33 of 38 whether its an audio or a MIDI tracks MIDI clips are now auto extendable when adding or moving events beyond the clip length and while in the MIDI Editor of course MIDI editor current selection can now be step wise moved using the keyboard arrow keys and the enter insert keys as for final placement horizontal step movement is subordinated to current snap per beat setting no less than unity vertical step moves are obviously quantized to the next semitone Get configure to try and detect the correct gmake location and insert it the search order so let the qt4 tools take precedence when with qt option is given and older qt3 ones coexist and are found located ahead in the PATH Drifting correction on audio and MIDI engines was seriously infected in some kind of snafu conception as evidence lead to
42. of its own goals lt s still a work in progress In my own personal agenda priority the following are the ones for taking care in times to come in no special order Check marks w indicate nearly complete or completed features General e DSSI and Native VST Plugin Support LV2 Plugin Support Snap Zoom Menu Accessibility Y Buffer CPU and Under Runs Monitoring OSC or D BUS Interface Integrated Scripting angelscript File Session Project Management File Error Message Handling Redesigned Session Project Dialog Session Project Templates MID JACK MIDI Support MIDI SysEx Librarian MIDI Event List and Filter MIDI Editor Draw Mode MIDI Groove Swing Quantize MIDI Controller Feedback MIDI Sync MTC SMPTE MIDI Clock e Automation Dynamic envelope curves e Auto Cross Fading of Overlapped Clips e Punch in out and Loop Recording eg Takes e File Revision Resource Management e Clip Split Command Y e Clip Locking Muting atractor 0 1 3 user manual 24 of 38 e Clip Plugins e Pitch Shifting of Individual Clips Y e Paste Repeat Command e Clip Linking Mixer e Mixer Presets e Mixer Fader Groups e Effect Aux Send Returns pseudo plug in 23 Conclusion As fundamental as is Qtractor might be just some clone of earlier and existing software being blatantly one of the Cakewalk s 11 Pro Audio series lt is however more than that when regarded from the free open source software development point of view much like some cauld
43. on restore which was discarding the very initial default factory contents Make debian package build depend on libgt4 dev win32 console flag is back to qmake project file MIDI instrument selection e g on track form gets fixed and improved Sorting method for the connections port list has been refactored potential crash bug fix on connections sorting method Messages class accessor methods constness fix Got rid of some autoconf redundand thingies on configure late debian changelog update Desktop categories update AudioVideo README correction OS 2007 06 23 The Seventh Draught Crash fix on the connections widget was a matter of refactoring the refresh clear slots Help menu added to MIDI editor form redirected and same to main form anyway qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 35 of 38 Clip properties form gets its proper sanity check querying any existing clip editor whether its safe to apply the new settings Mixer sliders get their long due valued correction hopefully Transport backward and play stop are now made accessible from the MIDI editor widget through their keyboard accelerator shortcuts backspace and space respectively Transport actions play rec rew and ffwd are now kept stable on a Single point instead of being scattered all over the main form code transport visual feedback might get affected specially regarding the MMC processing Applica
44. ous bug has been fixed audio looping is now a little more glitch free as the mix down buffering was badly broken even since its primordial implementation Rejoice Minor improvements on track view cursor updates and visual tracking while recording MIDI editor windows get their keyboard accelerator shortcuts back in business whether opted as tools always on top or not The infamous Keep tool windows always on top global option is now infecting the Connections Mixer Plugin and MIDI Editor window instances with no probable regrets To be used with discretion of course Session update initialization gets it clean on startup Range selection action Ctrl R is now back in business with the added bonus of being accessible from all MIDI editor instances too Common edit head and tail cursor positions are now under common control and display from all MIDI editor instances the session loop start end points are now also shown on every time line and share the same control behavior across all MIDI editor instances 0 0 4 2007 07 19 The Eighth Wanderer Main toolbar tempo spin box gets loose from keyboard change tracking Qt gt 4 3 custom spin box compilation fix for Om 4 1 Illusive but nasty Connections Patchbay item tooltip crash bug has been hopefully fixed Qt gt 4 3 QComboBox editTextChanged Signal replaces old QComboBox textChanged Combo box setup history has been corrected
45. plicit from the LADSPA PATH DSSI_PATH and VST_PATH environment variables see View Options Display Plugin Paths Clip fade in out lengths are now kept relative to tempo changes and also to clip offset and length changes clip resizes Automatic time stretching for all audio clips when session tempo changes may now be disabled enabled as a global session option see View Options Audio Playback Automatic time stretching Double clicking on an empty area de selects all clips on track MIDI capture record quantization is now an option possibly handy for some jerky performance musicians as the one found in myself see View Options MIDI Capture Quantize The global options dialog View Options has seen its Display tab page being moved back and to the right Major rewrite of the plug in infrastructure adding primordial support for DSSI and native VST plug in flavors Drag and drop of plug in instances are now allowed intra and inter mixer strip chains either on tracks or buses qtractor 0 1 3 user manual 30 of 38 Turning track record off while recording is rolling was leaving the session in a inconsistent recording status now fixed A random but instant crash upon audition pre listening player onset was hopefully fixed 0 1 0 2008 01 05 The Frivolous Debutante Audio clip time stretching makes its debut with code adapted and refactored from the SoundTouch library under t
46. ron framework user oriented programmable pattern sequencer eventually targeted as a potential toolbox and workbench for easy direct live music making and experimentalism 24 Acknowledgements am grateful to the free software open source community in general and to the Linux Audio developers and users in particular who dedicated their valuable time to the development and support of free audio and MIDI software being Qtractor just one humble manifestation of such class of human endeavor Qtractor is free open source software you can redistribute it and or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 or later Qtractor logo icon is an original work of Andy Fitzsimon borrowed from the public domain openclipart org gallery All or some product names mentioned in this document may be trademarks of their respective holders 25 References 1 Qtractor An Audio MIDI multi track sequencer http qtractor sourceforge net http sourceforge net projects gtractor 2 Qt 4 C class library and tools for cross platform development and internationalization http www trolltech org products agt 3 JACK Audio Connection Kit http jackaudio org 4 ALSA Advanced Linux Sound Architecture http www alsa project org 5 libsndfile C library for reading and writing files containing sampled sound http www mega nerd com libsndfile 6 libvorbis Ogg Vorbis audio compression http xip
47. s such as the Mixer window and the Connections window Both these windows can be opened using the F8 key for Connections window Jack PatchBay and the F9 key for the Mixer window These items are also selectable from the View menu Two utility windows are additionally featured the Messages window specially suited for debugging and the Files window where audio and MIDI files are organized and selected on demand Dialog windows for editing session track and clip properties are also accessible in their proper context which will be discussed in their respective sections Finally session and application configuration options are assisted through respective customizing dialogs Buses Instruments and Options 8 Sessions 8 1 Understanding the Session Project A Qtractor Session Project contains all the information about all your Clip Objects placement of Clip Objects Mixer setup Plugins Tempo Time Signature and Connections Patchbay When creating or saving a project all this and any related settings are saved on your hard disk within this Session Project file It is important to note that Qtractor Sessions are locked to a Session Project sample rate This is dependent on the sample rate of the JACK 3 server running at the time the session is created atractor 0 1 3 user manual 9 of 38 Any attempt to convert non matching sample rate sessions will result in a recommendation warning message However individual audio clip
48. t method and squashed thanks lexridge New keyboard shortcuts for toggling the Connections tool F8 and the mighty Mixer tool F9 windows Avoid showing a context menu while right clicking on time rulers Audio clip waveform drawing gets additional closing points It is now possible to change the length size of a clip by dragging its left or right edges while in the main track view Shift drag will also time stretch to the resulting audio clip length Another off by one mistake was corrected which was causing audio clips to go out of syne on loop turnover boundary also changed the loop turnaround strategy now honoring already cached periods A race condition has been mitigated in the audio buffer thread that was exposed and lead to sudden application freezing upon changing some composite audio clip commands Take absolute audio peak values only making peak files a little bit shorter and hopefully faster to load and draw as waveforms 0 0 9 2007 11 30 The Adolescence Prime Drag and dropping of MIDI files without specific track or channel into existing tracks is now rejected The drop operation is now allowed on the track view blank area only meaning the same as the complete MIDI file import into session Record actual MIDI clip length to last play head position instead of time of last event in the recorded sequence Connections item lists gets properly sorted as intended Cle
49. the windows either by double clicking the file name or by click the play button on the lower right hand side of the Files Pool window Audio file format support is provided by libsndfile 5 and supports wav aiff flac au etc Optional libraries provide support for both ogg and mp3 formats libvorbis 6 ogg and libmad 7 mp3 MIDI file support covers the usual SMF formats 0 and 1 through a native home brew implementation gtractor 0 1 3 user manual 11 of 38 10 Clips 10 1 Clip Summary Clip Objects are the elemental items of a session arrangement and can contain either Audio or MIDI data A Clip Object is merely a region of an actual sample or MIDI file A Clip Object is also non destructive and can be copied truncated and time stretched as if it were actual audio midi data Figure 6 An example of an audio Clip with Fade In and Fade Out applied 10 2 Clip Properties Audio Clip Qtractor gt of x Name Clip properties include its label Name File path start time location offset and length in frames fade in File and fade out length in frames and Time Stretch percentage respectively from the start and end of the clip Although fade in and fade outs are always displayed as straight lines the actual audio volume gain and MIDI velocity effect can be opted to be of Eo either linear square or cubic characteristic in as for an ES MOLI approximation to the logarithmic model of
50. tion icon is now officially installed into S prefix share pixmaps Spec file is now a bit more openSUSE compliant just made RPM requirements as exigent as the new debian ones Paste cursor is now properly preserved after leaving MIDI editor views Amazingly why this was not spotted before the main application logo icon has been downscaled to the 32x32 pixel standard icon size MIDI clip editor clipboard gets singleton status and is now shared on all MIDI editor instances Similarly to the main track view shift ctrl left clicking on the MIDI editor views sets the current session play head position A desktop entry file has been included on install at last Clips in main track view get more info in the form of tooltips Major rounding fix to time scaling and most specially on all those internal MIDI I O methods Extended range selection from the time ruler and key list headers is now possible by click and drag the mouse pointer Play head cursor is now also displayed and or set position on all open MIDI clip editors time line view As in the main application form a new local follow play head option is also featured on the MIDI editor view menu and toolbar All MIDI file save operations are now logged to main messages and files are added to the main files list view Initial debianization MIDI capture record file format SMF Format 0 or 1 is now an user option introducing the new MIDI tab
51. wing web sites http www linux vst com http www linux vst com http cern linux vst googlepages com home 6 Configuration Qtractor holds its run time settings and configuration state per user in a file located as SHOME config rncbc org Qtractor conf Normally there is no need to edit this file as it is recreated and rewritten every time qtractor is run atractor 0 1 3 user manual 8 of 38 7 Master GUI Main The Qtractor user interface is a design that is modern and standard for most audio workstations of the present The interface is easy for average user interaction and intuitive enough that you can easily interact and discover the software s full potential of the inner core application Figure 1 shows an overall aspect of the GUI with an example session loaded into the workspace The main Qtactor window is initially laid out in this fashion e Menu and Tool Bars at the top e Track list information on the left e Track audio region data on the right with time scale above it a home hines_j Audio qtractor DontDreamltsOver qtr modified Gtractor O File Edit Track View Transport Help EEES E EA EA o MEE ES Figure 2 The Main Menu and Toolbar The Track Data section is where most of the action takes place and contains visual displays of the waveforms or audio data This section is used for editing Clip objects and maneuvering around your Project Session Qtractor also has other useful window
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