Anvil Studio ™ Release History
Changes in version 2012.01.01:
The free version of Anvil Studio now includes access to a single VST-Instrument. This provides a wealth of new sounds and overcomes latency problems with the Microsoft GS Wavetable synthesizer.
With the Pro-Mix accessory a song can play to several VST-Instruments and MIDI Out ports at the same time.
The free version supports audio sample rates up to 48,000 samples per second.
With Multi-Audio 1/8 accessory, it supports sample rates as high as your soundcard supports, up to 192,000 samples per second.
View / Options / General can now assign Ctrl+V to shortcuts, e.g. Edit / Paste Insert, Edit / Paste Over, Edit / Paste Mix, Edit / Paste Special, etc.
The menus Edit / Insert Rests into All Tracks and Edit / Delete Selection from All Tracks are now also enabled
when editing Audio tracks. When used, they ask if change is to apply to all Audio and/or all MIDI tracks.
It lets you select units from Measures, quarter notes, ... Audio Samples, Milliseconds.
When the Multi-Audio 8/16 is installed, you can record to MIDI and Audio tracks simultaneously.
When multiple display monitors are available, Anvil Studio starts up in the same monitor it was in when it last closed.
In previous versions, it always started up in the primary display monitor.
The new version works with more VST-Instruments including DSK_SF2. Works better with 32-bit int ASIO drivers.
If you have a VST-Instrument or DirectX effect that doesn't work with Anvil Studio,
please let support@AnvilStudio.com know, and we'll address it.
A problem with the Piano Roll / Rhythm editor's Snap-to-grid control was fixed.
Changes in version 2011.12.06:
Added staff note right-click popup menu item Move this and all higher notes to new track.
The menu Edit / Move selection to another track and right-click staff note popup menu Move selection to another track, allow you to move the selection to a new or existing track and allow you to move a subset of the notes based on note pitch.
Problems fixed in this version:
Versions without Pro-Mix sometimes had problems when View / Synthesizers switched between external MIDI synth and Microsoft GS Wavetable synth.
Pressing Play sometimes erased notes in a loop.
Handles [un]plugging USB MIDI devices more gracefully.
It would get out of sync when playback was started part way into a song, where a Tempo change event occurred immediately before the 1st note to be played.
Records Sustain events from external MIDI keyboards more reliably.
Changes in version 2011.12.04:
Added popup menu Change or Delete all instances of this note when you right-click a note in the Staff or Rhythm editor, useful e.g. if you want to increase the volume of a particular drum.
View / Options / MIDI now lets you specify a MIDI controller that controls Master Volume for audio tracks and VST-I output directed to the Audio Out device.
Fixed a problem where updating master volume while a song was playing caused the song to pause.
Does a better job of perserving Track Name and Instrument Name when converting to/from MIDI-0 formatted files.
It is now possible to use the Sync button to specify the MIDI Master port when in MIDI Slave mode.
Changes in version 2011.12.01:
Added new menus Edit / Insert Notation / Dynamics / Pedal and Release Pedal.
Added note popup menu for Arpegiated Chord
Made significant improvements to View / Performer, including a new MIDI Loop tool and support for Audio Samples by the Sound Module tool.
Made improvements to the Music Drills accessory.
Fixed the File / Repair Song menu, which since version 2011.11.01 was not removing as many redundant NotOn and NoteOff events as it could.
Changes in version 2011.11.10:
Better Direct X support.
Improved metronome. Now you can specify Audio clicks or a VST-Instrument to play the metronome clicks.
The metronome uses Latency settings to keep in sync with notes being played/recorded.
Improved File / Print.
Changes in version 2011.11.08:
Added new options to the CopyMe accessory.
The per-track Balance control was not working correctly for tracks assigned to VST-Instruments.
Simplified the options when it displays "The Audio device you have selected for Anvil Studio is different from the default Windows Control Panel device.
Changes in version 2011.11.03:
You no longer need to choose between the staff editor and having loops within tracks.
You can move seamlessly back and forth between the Piano Roll / Rhythm and the Staff editor.
From Staff editor, select the menu Track / Loop this track.
From Piano Roll / Rhythm editor, right-click a loop and select Edit this loop with the Staff editor.
Added 3 more symbols to the end of View / Composer's symbol palette.
When a song is looping, e.g. because it was started by right-clicking the play button, the staff editor cycles through verses each time the song repeats, which can be useful while learning to sing a new song.
Made changes so that files saved by Anvil Studio can always be read by Casio's SMF Converter tool.
Added an octave of additional notes you can select when adjusting guitar tunings via the View / Keyboard & Guitar Properties menu.
Fixed several bugs.
Changes in version 2011.10.15:
File / Export Mixed Audio would fail sometimes when song had VST-Instrument tracks.
Changes in version 2011.10.08:
With Pro-Mix installed, you can now record from more than one MIDI In port at the same time.
When used with the View / Options / MIDI / Record each channel to its own track,
you could simultaneously record 64 or more tracks where each one captured the notes from a different MIDI In device.
This could be useful in a classroom setting.
After using the Sync tool to select a MIDI Master clock, Anvil Studio will calculate the tempo
for the recorded events and insert Tempo changes.
Improved View / Synthesizers / Test MIDI Connections.
Improved the View / Options / MIDI / Master Slave Sync Properties. Now
It lets you select which MIDI In port to use as the MIDI Master clock.
when recording from a MIDI Master, note durations are identical to their duration on the MIDI Master device and tempo events can be recorded.
Problems fixed in this version:
View / Options / MIDI / Record No Rests was not working.
Lyrics were not being printed correctly for some songs with multiple verses and hyphens.
When exporting mixed audio in a format other than the soundcard's default setting, it could generate an Out of memory error.
Error 80041206 was sometimes reported.
Changes in version 2011.10.05:
You can now change the Staff Style property among Treble+Bass, 2 Treble, 2 Bass multiple times per track.
Edit / Undo menu describes action that will be undone. Same for Redo.
Added several options to pop-up menu shown when you right-click a track in View / Mixer's track list.
When right-clicking note(s) in the staff editor, and selecting Move to other track,
it defaults to the previous track you selected.
In previous versions, this moved all notes that occurred at that time, but now if a single notehead is clicked,
it is the only note that gets moved.
When using the staff editor, when selecting a new track, it preserves the time displayed at the left margin, making it easier to compare 2 different tracks.
Changes in version 2011.10.01:
Shows status in toolbar when data is received from a MIDI IN port, and when data is sent to a MIDI OUT port.
Improved Edit / Insert MIDI Event / System Exclusive
Added checkbox Synth is too slow to echo incoming events which replaces the Echo Midi Events to all synthesizers checkbox.
This is set true by default for high latency (slow) synthesizers such as the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synthesizer,
but it can be changed.
If the active track is assigned to this synthesizer, when recording from an external MIDI keyboard:
if this is checked, the keyboard will generate its own tones without delay rather then using this slow synthesizer.
if this is unchecked, the keyboard generates no sound, and Anvil Studio uses the active track's synthesizer, program, and channel to play the notes.
To do this, Anvil Studio sets the external MIDI keyboard's Local Control setting.
When a song is played back, Anvil Studio always uses the Synthesizer assigned to the track to generate sounds.
The tracks can be kept in sync in spite of the synthesizer's high latency by using the View / Latency screen.
Added a new icon at the top of the View / Mixer screen has red arrows that show when a MIDI event has been sent to a MIDI port, or received from a MIDI port within the last half second.
For the View / Synthesizers screen included with the Pro-Mix accessory:
Added button Assign all tracks to this synth, which when pressed, assigns all tracks in the current song to be played on the selected synthesizer.
Added button Set Default Synth, Bank..., which allows you to select the synthesizer, MIDI bank, and MIDI program to use when creating new tracks.
For synthesizers that support them, added the ability to refer to 128 different drums in the Rhythm editor rather than the set of 47 General MIDI drums.
It no longer asks you to decide where to save an untitled song file immediately after recording an audio track,
or when selecting the File / Export Mixed Audio menu. You can now leave the song Untitled until you exit, select File / New, or load another file, at which time you will be prompted to save it.
Problems fixed in this version:
It was leaving around files named UntiXXX.wav which it now cleans up.
Sending System Exclusive messages to external synthesizers sometimes failed.
Playing starting to play a long, starting in the middle, where the song had with lots of notes,
Anvil Studio would sometimes incorrectly report unable to play this song in perfect sync when the song finished, even though it did play it in perfect sync.
File / Repair Song sometimes reported non-errors.
When loading a song file with audio tracks, it would sometimes incorrectly report that an audio track's file was in use by another program.
Quite a few minor problems.
Problems fixed in version 2011.09.05:
Fixed some problems with playing back System-Exclusive MIDI events.
File / Print when the TAB view was active would cause measure lines to get drawn in the wrong location.
Some Mouse & keyboard selection problems were fixed.
You can now select and delete an Up Beat notation.
Since version 2011.09.03, after deleting a VST-Instrument, it sometimes displayed The MIDI-Out device Microsoft MIDI Mapper cannot be opened and may be in use by another application, error code 8004100E.
Since version 2011.09.01, some beam lines incorrectly sloped down instead of up.
Since version 2011.08.14, when using ASIO mode, recording an audio track did nothing if the song did not already have existing audio tracks.
Problems fixed in version 2011.09.03:
When Sustain Off occurred at the same time as Sustain On, the Sustain Off event was getting filtered out, leading to way too much sustain.
In version 2011.09.01, a bug was introduced that frequently caused it to ignore attempts to change a track's instrument.
Problems fixed in version 2011.09.01:
You can now tie triplet or quintuplet notes.
When recording a MIDI track, recording began at time 0 rather than the current song position.
When editing an unquantized recorded track, selecting rests and deleting them sometimes deleted an adjoining note.
Changes in version 2011.08.07:
Improved Piano Roll / Rhythm editor scrolling.
When you click an instrument in the instrument selection window,
a brief sample of the sound is played so you don't need to click OK just to find it is not the instrument you wanted.
This can be turned off with a checkbox in the same window.
The Edit / Redo menu item was added.
Problems fixed in this version:
Adjusting the volume of a selection of notes, the volume of the first next note (outside of the selection) was also changed.
when deleting a selection of notes, the first next chord label (outside of the selection) was getting deleted as well.
When going back from a note after measures of rests, it sometimes ignores the rests and goes directly to the previous note.
Times were displayed and parsed as Measures:QuarterNotes:Ticks, and now they are displayed and parsed as Measures:Beats:Ticks.
When using the Left Arrow key at the left margin, it sometimes skipped over one or more measures of rests, going directly to the previous note.
Ctrl+Right Arrow would sometimes not cause scrolling past the right margin.
Changes in version 2011.08.05:
When the mouse hovers over volume and balance controls, their current values are displayed.
When mouse hovers over a note, note info is displayed as a popup.
The track column resizing control now only appears when the mouse is over the top row.
The menu File / Repair Song now works well on files that have rhythm / Piano Roll tracks that have loops.
Problems fixed in this version:
The text displayed to the left of the volume and balance controls while they are being adjusted sometimes disappeared.
Open and Play, after changing folders, sometimes reported File cannot be found.
File / Print / Conductor's Score / Track list was partially blocked.
When using Core Audio, adjusting master volume while a song was playing sometimes caused the song to pause.
The menu Track / Insert Chord Labels was sometimes ignoring the checkbox Name labels as if track was in the key of C Major.
The menu Edit / Set Record+Play Start+End times was sometimes ignored when recording.
Problems with the Music Drills / Exercises accessory's menu Practice / Scales / Key Signatures, and Practice / Timing / Drill.
A measure that contains a Time / Key signature can now be combined with Begin / End Repeat, Double Bar, and Double End Bar notation.
PacketTooLarge error sometimes occurred when using ASIO with some soundcards.
Problems fixed in version 2011.07.09:
Fixed some MIDI and Audio sync problems.
It was not responding to changes in View / Options / Audio / #output buffers.
Since version 2011.06.10, a bug caused device latency settings to be ignored.
Added button to remove a VST from the list of frequently-used VSTs.
Problems fixed in version 2011.07.04:
With some VST-Instruments, only the first few bars could be heard.
View / Options / MIDI / shortcuts could not be set.
With Percussion tracks, sometimes a very low note would be displayed as a tie.
Fixed several places that reported You have uncovered a bug in Anvil Studio...
Changes in version 2011.07.01:
Note Properties' Move notes to other clef checkbox is now enabled when more than one note selected.
Added View / Option / Staff checkbox In grid mode, click on staff to insert note.
When not checked, clicking just repositions the insertion point.
By placing the cursor at the end of the current song before selecting File / Merge,
it gives the option to merge all tracks of the new song so they
begin playing after the currently-loaded song ends.
Added a checkbox to ASIO Properties Twice as many mono ASIO input devices.
When not checked, ASIO inputs are treated as half as many stereo devices.
When editing the percussion staff, the Add new instrument to palette
button has more options.
Problems fixed in this version:
The Add new instrument to palette button was always setting the drum to High Bongo.
Right-arrow at right margin with zoom=2 was not advancing the staff cursor.
Begin Repeat symbol was misplaced when combined with a NewLine symbol.
Corrected some audio problems that caused it to generate the message You have encountered an error.
Print Sheet accessory would sometimes could allow the 1st line left / right headers to be set to blank.
Changes in version 2011.06.15:
Dragging a note on staff highlights the drum, piano note, or guitar string & fret.
View / Options has a new checkbox to check for and optioanlly install new versions of Anvil Studio and its accessories every time Anvil Studio starts up.
Versions 2011.06.10->12 were reporting an error during File / Exit based on a localization bug that only occurred in a few countries.
Changes in version 2011.06.09:
Track / Add Chord Labels now lets you indicate that chords should be named as if they were in the key of C-Major, even if they are in another key.
In Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can now [un]plug a USB sound adapter and Anvil Studio will react gracefully.
If a track has more than one Program Change MIDI event, the correct program will now be displayed in the track list based on the song's position.
With the Pro-Mix accessory, clicking on the Device or Instrument column, and then the Synthesizer list, a new entry add new synthesizer
lets you add a VST-Instrument or MIDI synthesizer without selecting View / Synthesizers.
Edit / Insert Notation / Repeat / ... can now be added to the same measure that has an Up Beat symbol.
When window is resized while the Piano Roll or Loop Editor is active, Anvil Studio now does a better job of reallocating screen space to various functions.
Problems fixed in this version:
If a VST-Effect and VST-Instrument had the same name, e.g. Kore Player, Anvil Studio could only load one or the other.
Now it can add both to the same song.
Keyboard sometimes flickered.
Beginning with version 2011.05.05, editing a tempo map had sluggish response, but no longer does.
Loading songs with multiple MIDI channels in the same track could sometimes become very slow, to the point where the computer appeared to be hung. It is now nearly instantaneous.
Problems fixed in version 2011.06.03:
The menu View / Edit lyrics in window with no notes now works with Karaoke files.
The menu Practice / Ear Training / Voice was not working correctly.
The menu Track / Split Track into multiple .WAV files was not working correctly.
Fixed a problem with menu Edit / Paste to all Tracks.
Changes in version 2011.06.02:
Improved screen layout
Added menus Edit / Copy from all Tracks and Paste to all Tracks to Piano Roll and Rhythm editors. They were already in the Staff editor.
When printing single-clef tracks with several lines of lyrics, the bottom lines of lyrics were not always visible.
It is now possible to Edit / Insert Notation / New Line and
Edit / Insert Notation / Repeat / ... on the same measure.
Practice Notes sometimes incorrectly reported errors
Added new drag & drop icon for Prima Volta combined with Seconda Volta.
Added menu items View / Ring Tone (SP-MIDI), and
View / Active Track's Highest Polyphonic Demands
to make it easier to generate mobile phone MIDI ring tones.
Changes in version 2011.05.09:
Added menu item Edit / Stretch or Compress time which lets you select a range of notes and stretch/compress by an absolute or fraction amount. For example, select 3 quarter notes and change them to a set of 3 triplets.
Made more improvements in the layout of beamed notes.
Made improvements to the Note Properties window.
Minor key signatures were getting drawn twice.
Changes in version 2011.05.08:
Added trusted certificate authority signed code to protect the code from modification, and so browsers won't complain about downloading from an unknown source.
Problems fixed in this version:
Some spacing/layout problems with printing sheet music.
A limited number of MIDI-0 files got loaded with 2 channels on one track.
Beamed 16th notes were sometimes displayed as 8th notes.
The menu Track / Align notes with measures sometimes did nothing.
Changes in version 2011.05.05:
The Edit / Insert MIDI Event menu has been enhanced and all features of it are available in the free version.
File / Print Problems fixed in this version:
Per-track and per-file settings are saved consistently so they default to the values used the last time the track / song was printed.
Sometimes when End-Repeat notation occurred at the end of a line, it was slightly off.
Beamed notes take less horizontal space and the angle of beam lines is never large.
Other Problems been fixed in this version:
It was sometimes thinking that a VST was really a VST-Instrument.
Changes in version 2011.04.07:
Added View / Options / Staff / Smooth jagged lines, which can be turned off if you prefer a sharper staff.
Added View / Options / MIDI / option that can be set to:
Only record events from the active track's channel
Record events from all channels to the active track
Record each channel to its own track
Problems fixed in this version:
File / Export Mixed Audio sometimes generated an empty file if song only had MIDI tracks.
Several Problems that caused Anvil Studio to display You have uncoverred a problem in Anvil Studio...
When MIDI controllers were used for VST parameter Automation, it was only responding to MIDI events from Channel 1.
When beams included 8th, 16th, and 32nd notes, the beam lines sometimes incorrectly extended half way to adjacent notes.
Changes in version 2011.03.06:
Takes full advantage of CoreAudio functionality in Windows 7 and Windows Vista.
Export Mixed Audio works with every soundcard.
Arrow keys now work when selecting from a combo box.
Problems fixed in this version:
Bug in version 2011.03.03 prevented editing lyrics with some keys.
Changes in version 2011.03.03:
With the Multi-Audio 1/8 or 8/16 and a compatible soundcard, you can now record 24-bit at rates up to 192,000 samples per second.
Updated some help files and fixed some Problems.
Changes in version 2011.03.01:
Simplified View / Mixer and View / Options screens.
View / Options now lets you specify a template file,
which will be used when File / New is selected.
For example, every time File / New is selected, the new song can have 4 audio tracks,
each already associated with a different audio source.
It now detects your computer's Locale and selects an appropriate font for lyrics, including East Asian fonts.
Problems fixed in this version:
In some situations the program stopped working when outputting to MIDI Out ports.
In some situations it was not showing the cursor advancing while recording audio tracks.
Changes in version 2011.02.12:
Problems fixed in this version:
In some configurations, it was unable to change which MIDI In port was used.
Lengthening a note that was immediately followed by the same note said it was not possible, while now it shifts the following notes if Insert Mode is enabled.
It was not drawing ties at the left or right margin in the staff editor.
Screen layout was overcrowded when Control Panel / Display / Settings / Advanced / Large size (120 DPI) was set.
With Multi-View, when using Scrollable range of tracks, the scroll bar was not responding properly.
Sometimes, typing the space key in a lyric or comment field would start the song playing.
Measures were not lining up properly in Multi-View or Print-Sheet conductor's score.
Some songs were causing Anvil Studio to inappropriately display this message Computer is not fast enough to play this song.
Changes in version 2011.02.02:
Added a button Edit MIDI Routing for this song to the Pro-Mix accessory's View / Synthesizer page. This lets you add any number of routing commands that cause MIDI events received from any MIDI In port to get routed to any MIDI Out port or VST-Instrument port. This can be useful during either a recording session or live performance.
Added a menu item File / Open and Play which displays all of the song files contained in a given folder, which can be opened and played with a single mouse click.
Added information to the Help / Tutorials menu that describes how to Use Anvil Studio's Pro-Mix accessory to control synthesizers during a live performance.
Several Staff editing and display problems were fixed.
Changes in version 2011.01.07:
View / Tablature would sometimes display a blank grid.
When changing the tempo, it would sometimes warn that tempo was not constant when it was constant.
It would sometimes erroneously report Error getting SFMAN Function Table
Changes in version 2011.01.04:
Added Track / Properties... menu and checkboxes to disable display of Triplets and Quintuplets.
Added Split into two notes popup menu in the Staff editor.
Fixed problems related to:
Setting Time / Key signatures.
View / Composer / Lyrics Font button.
Display measure number accurately in tracks with multiple time signatures.
Position of dot that follows notes with stems up.
File / Export Mixed Audio.
New features in version 2011.01.01:
View / Composer
Finer control over size of text and notes on screen.
Added zoom control to change the size of the staff editing area.
After changing the field that says --no grid-- to 16th notes, or the smallest note you will be working with,
you can click anywhere on the staff to insert a new note of the current note length.
Lyrics, track names, and comments can now be in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other languages.
Added View / Note Properties to make it easier to select one or more notes and view or change their properties.
Select a range of notes and adjust the Volume slider to change the vol of selected notes.
Select range of notes, Stacatto, Louder, Softer, ...
Drag and drop notation like grace notes, trills, repeats, caesura from a palette to the staff.
Added Copy / Paste / Undo to pop-up menus.
Percussion editor employs standard percussion notation
Select the menu Track / Create / Rhythm Track (Staff editor), or
in the Composer window, change the track's Style property from Treble + Bass to Percussion.
Right-click on the drum palette to define the symbol and MIDI note for a new percussion instrument.
File / Print
Better print preview
More control over staffs per page, zoom, measures per bar, size of staffs and notes.
More options when printing a Conductor's score.
Effects
When Pro-Mix accessory is installed, Anvil Studio can now act as a Rewire master.
Native effects editors are no longer modal - they can remain open and dynamically edited while the song is playing.
When the Pro-Mix accessory is installed, native effects work with Automation, the same way VST effects have in previous versions, allowing you to record non-destructive effects modifications while the song is playing.
Effects can be disabled with a checkbox, but they still retain their properties.
Added a check box to the View / Option / MIDI screen so a track can have multiple Program Change events.
To copy and paste between 2 song files, start two copies of Anvil Studio with different songs loaded, and copy and paste between them.
View / Performer - Sound Module tool can map keys to sampled sounds
Added a Font button to View / Options so you can change Anvil Studio's font.
Added tutorials for
aligning notes with beats and measures,
stretching / compressing notes over time,
using Anvil Studio with VST-Instruments,
compensation for MIDI and Audio device latency and working with low-latency ASIO and Virtual Instruments.
using Anvil Studio with ReWire-compatible applications.
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