Rick's b.log - entry 2023/10/15

SimpleSeq v0.12

I would have done more, but I spent longer than I wanted to trying to battle with a problem in the new RODLtd internet stack. It seems as in the 7.03 release (on their website) has - for some unknown reason - decided to throw errors at boot. It looks like the origin of these issues may be the SLAAC module. Because RISC OS' error handling is a bit naff, this problem trickles up until something higher up crashes and burns. This is usually either Pinboard2 or the Freeway module (which takes out ShareFS).
It was working fine for ages. No idea why the Pi2 has suddenly started acting up like this. And even weirder, the 3B+ is running without any problems.
I'm still using the ROD stack. The "fix" was to disable IPv6.
It bothers me that it's one machine and it's just suddenly started to act up. However I think I can rule out issues with other software - I took everything out of Boot:Choices.Boot.Tasks and left only enough in Boot:Choices.Boot.PreDesk to get the stack running.
And it still crashed.
If you're interested, this is the dump of state when it crashed at boot.

Back to the scheduled programming... The "fconvert" program has been updated to convert both older types of file (the original ancient v0.01/v0.02 files; and those from v0.03 to v0.11), however you shouldn't need to use it since SimpleSeq has been through enough public releases now that it would simply be incompetent to only be able to handle the newer file format.

Therefore, when you load an older file (created with v0.03 or later), you will see this message:

Your file has been upgraded.

Saving the file (^S) will make the change permanent.

The reason this was necessary was to support the new channel controls.

If you press ^G you can set the stereo position of the channel. This offers seven positions, from -3 being full left, to +3 being full right. The default, obviously, is 0 in the centre.

Setting the stereo positions.

If you have created music, then you will only be asked to set the stereo position for channels that are in use, and they will be marked by the instrument names to aid you.
If there is no music and no channels are in use, you'll be asked to set up all 16 channels (listed by channel number).

Note that it seems, at least for my keyboard, that the drum channel (#10) appears to ignore this and just sit in the middle. Maybe percussion works to different rules?

If you press ^H you can set the volume of the channel. This offers the full control, from 0 (silent) to 127 (maximum). When translating from earlier files, the volume is set to 127. However in a new file, the default is 96 (loud but not maximum). If you enter any out of range value (like 999), it'll be clipped to 127.

Setting the channel volume.

Other changes are that the stereo position and volume are also included in MIDI export, and the keyboard setup prior to playing will now only set up the channels that are actually used rather than configuring all sixteen.

Here's the download:

Your comments:

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jgh, 17th October 2023, 05:20

OOoo, with a breaking change I think I'd have bumped the version straight up to v0.20.

Rick, 17th October 2023, 13:29

It's only a breaking change with respect to using newer files on *older* versions of the software.  You can use older files on newer software, which is why the version wasn't bumped. Also, note that the *file* version ID also remains at '1' as it is broadly the same format (all "fconvert" does is copy data adding in some extra words where necessary for the extensions to the file).    I don't consider this a major issue as newer (capable) versions are always available, so it's more a technicality. You shouldn't be using new files with older software.    The initial releases did have an annoying message that popped up at the beginning to warn of this possibility, but I removed that as it was annoying ;) and the software became "essentially feature complete" a few releases back. What I'm doing now is enhancing it beyond that original plan.    Guess what, I'm working on another release right now. ;) Just taking a break while my chips are in the air fryer...

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