Beta 0.5.0

• Updated Alpha's Audio File Player to remove its thread-blocking operation when a new audio file is being loaded
• Updated Alpha's Audio File Recorder to use offloaded buffer files
• Added Midi File Player unit to the SoundBridge collection
• Added "Boyne Electronics" and their unit "Multi Track Recorder 4"

I know in the last article I talked mainly about working on midi stuff for this update, but I got side-tracked by a podcasting project I'm working on. But lets first talk about the Midi unit I did add.

Finally, A Midi File Player

_{The SoundBridge Midi File Player}

Its been a while coming, but finally there's a way to play midi files in Alchemy. This unit is rather basic - simply a way to play a midi file - but comes with a few useful features, such as a playback speed control, looping and the ability to jump to different sections of the file.

All very basic, but useful none the less. Plus the development of this unit has also involved the development of midi playback systems within Alchemy, making future midi sequencers a little easier to create.

Boyne Electronics

The inspiration for this brand stems from the question "what would an irish electronics brand look like?" I decided to use the traditional triple-spiral symbol and named the company after the river Boyne in the north east of the country. It seemed fitting that in a different timeline such a company would have been formed in that location. I like the idea of developing a different timeline in which many new companies exist from different countries, all happily working together for the betterment of everyone.

For now, Boyne Electronics is focusing on recording equipment, and we start with their 4-track recorder.

It is essentially the same as Alpha's Audio Recorder but with extra features designed specifically to help with podcast recording.

• Firstly, four tracks allow for four individual audio streams to be recorded simultaneously, meaning that live performances can be recorded and modified as required, but post-production edited can still easily be done. I envision an example situation in which three people are using microphones. Those three streams can be routed into this recording unit while a third stream of music is routed into the fourth. These four streams can also be duplicated and combined to produce a live mix which is routed to the earphones of the three people.

• The other major feature of the unit is for when things go wrong. In the past, if someone was using the Audio Recorder unit and Alchemy crashed, the entire recording was lost. This unit comes with a protection mechanism where segments of the recorded audio are saved to disk while the recording it happening. Meaning that if Alchemy did crash, you would also lose the most recent segment. This is called "Offloading". The default length of a segment is 5 seconds, but any duration can be selected. Additionally, one can select where such segments are stored and if the process is active at all. If all goes well, the storage location will be automatically emptied.

  Another handy side-effect feature of this, is that the entire audio recording is no longer stored in memory - only the active segment - meaning that RAM usage is kept under control.

Fixes And Improvements

Following the development of the Multi Track Recorder, Alpha's Audio Recorder has also been upgraded to use the Offloading concept, placing the segments in a hardcoded temp folder near the executable. The Audio File Player has also been improved, pushing the audio file loading process onto a separate tread, relieving the main thread and stopping the interface from freezing whenever you tried to load a file.

I've also made some pretty big changes to the internals for Orchestrator and other layers, which will make it much easier to add in services to Orchestrator in the future, like networking for example.

Future Plans

I'm going to get back on the plans I talked about in the last update; starting out with a list of midi message modifiers and routers.

See you soon!