kronos.factory BETA 0.5 Preview

[Derek Cook]

Hi, all

I was determined to make another preview release before the end of the year, and here is the 0.5 BETA preview, which will be the final preview before the first release.

This has been a very long journey due to limited spare time to devote to programming (and a very fine summer cut it down even more!) and the flexibility (read complexity) of the Kronos file format to have any permutation of banks in it.

Also, following feedback from beta testing, it came apparent that my plan to only support OS 3.0 file formats would exclude a lot of files. In my own collection of files, I found I had the following breakdown of files:
19 % V1.0/V1.1
17 % V1.5/V1.6
30 % V2.x
34 % V3.x

I.e., I would have been excluding 66% of my own files if I only supported V3.x That was quite a surprise statistic

Therefore, I dived into understanding the differences between the different OS versions, which opened up another world of complexity, particularly with V1.5 files and how they extended the format to maintain compatibility with V1.0 files - which all then disappeared in V2.0 and above!

So, what is in this release

• Full support for all known OS file format versions.
• Wave Sequences are further decoded to allow you to see the individual steps (and move and copy them) and the sample each step is using
• Ability to drag and drop from older version files to newer versions with the appropriate version migrations taking place
• More visual feedback on what is happening during complex/lengthy operations
• Drag and drop support extended down to all visible objects
• Not a program feature itself, but my testing regime expanded to test read/copy/write operations of as many files as possible and checking 100% perfect results. Over 200 files are being successfully tested.
• Minimum Java version is now Java 8 as Java 7 is no longer getting security updates as Oracle have dropped public support for it.

Also, a reminder that a key feature that I am quite proud of is drag and drop reordering of banks, or you can renumber a bank, if there are spare banks available. Of course if you do this, anything referencing data inside the banks is updated to reflect the change.

kronos.factory is effectively in beta preview, and you can download via the following links
Windows Installer
OS X Installer and any Java system
Linux Installer

Instructions on how to install are here http://xfactory-librarians.co.uk/installation.html , and if you do not already have Java on your system, then follow the guide here http://xfactory-librarians.co.uk/java.html

Finally, a public thanks for Galf2, who has been assisting me in the beta test process and who has provided invaluable support.

===

Known issues

• The screen resolution issue if working on a device with a hi definition monitor (I will sort as part of a later java migration)
• The software (and all my librarians) is NOT compatible with Java 9 and above. Java 9 introduces a major change to Java which broke several libraries that I was using. I have now migrated away from those and was making good progress with making my applications Java 9 compatible until I discovered a major bug in Java 9 MIDI Port Naming on Windows (OS X is fine!) that corrupts port names, which needs fixing by Oracle (Java vendor) before I can complete the migration
• Now that I have introduced reference checks, then there is a performance hit when opening some tree branches. It is OK for most items on a reasonably fast computer, but there is a huge delay when opening KSC drum sample branches due to the number of items to check to see if they are referencing any sample on display. I need to look into how I can optimise for this. I have added in progress monitoring, so you will know what is happening.
• Copy referenced objects requires suitable free data spaces, and currently fails silently if non are available. I will add error reporting in a later release and also the options to create data banks if space is available. I will also add some menu items to allow you to query a selection and see how much space is required for referenced items (e..g a Set List is using XXX Combis, which are using YYY HD-1 Programs and ZZZ EXi programs, which are using NNN Wave Sequences, Drum Kits, etc.)

===

My future roadmap is as follows. Hopefully 1.0 will be out by end of Jan with the current progress I am making.

• 0.6 - 0.9 bug fixing. Completion of documentation
• 1.0 First release
• 1.1 Song file support
• 1.2 Writing of KSC and KGE files (they are currently read only to "peek" at the data in them)
• 2.0 Library Support
• 3.0 MIDI Support (if the demand/interest is there)

Feedback and comments are welcome.

===

Why, the heck is it taking so long to produce this software, and then why are some operations lengthy? All the permutations and things to check! For example in a PCG file , there are

• 20 Program (Voice) banks (x 128 Programs) that may or may not be there in any combination...
• But after Bank I-F there are the preset GM banks (9 of them!) before the other User banks carry on from U-A onwards
• And Program banks can be either HD-1 (ROMPLER) or EXi (Virtual Instrument) banks
• There are 14 Combi Banks that may or may not be there in any combination...
• There are 15 Wave Sequence banks that may or may not be there in any combination, and the first bank has 150 Wave Sequences, the rest 32 (so lots of fun if you move a 32 element bank to the first one and vice versa)
• There are 15 Drum Kit banks that may or may not be there in any combination, and the first bank has 50 Drum Kits, the rest 16 (so lots of fun if you move a 16 element bank to the first one and vice versa)
• Drum Pattern Tracks are totally free form, there may be up to 1,000 of them and they do not have to be sequentially numbered....
• The only thing fixed is Set Lists where there are 128 of them with 128 entries

I think you can see from that there is a fair bit to work through and ensure it is all working, and it then gets interesting if you are trying to keep references linked when you move things, or you wish to copy referenced objects when you copy data to another file (e.g. copy a program and have the programs copied as well). For example if you move a wave sequence and want to update Program references to the Wave Sequences

• Is a Program Bank a HD-1 Bank?
• Yes, are any of the 128 Programs in a Program Bank a Normal Voice or a Drum Voice?
• Normal Voice, check oscillator 1 always and only oscillator 2 if it is a double oscillator voice
• For each of the 8 trigger zones in an oscillator, is it off, a sample or a wave sequence?
• If Wave Sequence then has it been affected by the move?
• If so then remap the Wave Sequence reference to take account of the change (and just to make life interesting you need to convert between a single index in the trigger zone and the Wave Sequence Bank/Wave Sequence Number (with the first bank being 150 elements in length and the rest 32

and of course the "move" within a file can be

• A wave sequence move inside a bank
• A wave sequence move to another bank
• A reordering of the banks
• A renumbering of a bank!

So, this is the most complex synth I have ever worked through in terms of writing a patch librarian for!

[thiagotgc]

Cool, but what is the purpose of the program?

After the tests and feedbacks, when to launch the final product, will it be sold?

[Derek Cook]

Cool, but what is the purpose of the program?

After the tests and feedbacks, when to launch the final product, will it be sold?

Hi,

The purpose is to allow you to organise your Kronos data, including being able to move and renumber banks, and all data remains referenced.

For example, you can renumber a program bank from U-A to U-AA (if U-AA is not used in the file) and all Combi Timbres and Set List slots referring to programs in U-A will be updated to point to U-AA.

Same applies if you just want to change the order of banks, sinply drag and drop them to the order you want and all data references will be updated.

Something I've wanted for a long time.

And you can drag and drop data between files. Big deal? Will, as an example, if you copy a Setlist slot that refers to a Combi. It's referenced Combi will be copied. The programs referenced by the Combi will be copied, as will the Waves Sequences, Drum Kits and Drum Patterns.

Eventually it will have the library function of my current librarians, and MIDI support.

In basic features it is a bit like PCG Tools, but more specific to the Kronos, which means you can "drill down" into the Kronos data structures. E.g. you can go right down to a Program, select a specific trigger zone in a HD-1 Oscillator and see what sample it is using from the comfort of your PC.

And being Java based it will run on any operating system supporting Java: I have users on PC, OS X and the odd Linux user as well.

I hope to be able to release it within the next month, and like my other librarians it will be for sale at the same uniform price of £20 GPB, which is a one off purchase: all program updates are free after that.

[Track 7]

Interesting. How does this differ from this procedure?

https://www.kidnepro.com/blog/korg-kron ... und-banks/

And what about moving several sounds from different banks into the same bank? For example, assembling a few dozen sounds -- strings, pianos, organs, synths, etc. -- for a given project and placing them all together in one bank? Would this be drag and drop?

Also, is your software for use on a computer? Or in the Kronos? If the former, will there by a Chromebook version?

[Derek Cook]

Hi,

I think that option only works on Program Bank references in Combis and Songs?

I.e. it does not cover Combi references in Setlists, Song References in Setlists (that will be coming later, once I have decoded the Song format), Wave Sequence References in Programs, Drum Kit references in Programs, Drum Pattern References in Programs and Combis, nor you moving things within banks.

And you have to do all the adjustments manually with that procedure. In kronos.factory it is all automatic once you have performed a drag and drop.

Yes, you can drag and drop individual items to create a single bank or moving items into different banks and keeping the references to them updated (kronos.factory supports that as well).

The software is for computer. Whilst I cannot vouch for it, it appears you can install Java 8 on a Chrome Book. If that works, you could download and try the unregistered version of kronos.factory first to see if it will run.

[LewTheKeyboardGuy]

I'm looking forward to this, please keep me updated on this.

May I ask as to why you still use JAVA? when Java on current macs isn't a good idea from a security point? I would have thought that using XCode for the mac with it's various resources would prove more beneficial for mac users. sorry, just a little concerned that installing JAVA as an X11 sub source on a mac, which then relies on terminal shell functions, just seems a bit over done. surely a standard mac shell would be better.

Anyway, good luck and get stuck in.

lew

[Derek Cook]

I'm looking forward to this, please keep me updated on this.

May I ask as to why you still use JAVA? when Java on current macs isn't a good idea from a security point? I would have thought that using XCode for the mac with it's various resources would prove more beneficial for mac users. sorry, just a little concerned that installing JAVA as an X11 sub source on a mac, which then relies on terminal shell functions, just seems a bit over done. surely a standard mac shell would be better.

Anyway, good luck and get stuck in.

lew

Hi,

Thanks for the interest

To answer your question on why Java? I started this journey of writing software for my synths with the Yamaha EX5 way back in 2001. I had written some utilities on my old Commodore Amiga in the "C" language to do remapping of Elements to change them pointing at RAM memory to FLASH memory and vice versa (try doing that on the synth for 256 voices, each with up to four elements, that is very laborious!).

When that little application started growing and growing and I was looking to move into the PC world (the Amiga was pretty much dead by then - a huge shame), I also wanted to target the MAC as well due to its dominance in the music world (certainly at the time). I looked at using C/C++ and cross platform GUI toolkits, but then evaluated Java, which was like C++ but without all the esoteric features that programmers abuse, don't understand or never use!) and it gave me the option of "writing once, deploying on many platforms". And (apart from a few things you need to be aware of) it lives up to that paradigm. It is free and allowed me to target PC, MAC, but also other OS. I even had one person reporting that ex.factory worked quite nicely on Sun Solaris.

I used to develop on PC and have friends test on OS X, but after borrowing a MAC from a mate back in 2007 to do the deeper native integration, I decided my next computer would be a MAC (a far more pleasant experience!). So , since 2012, I now develop on Mac and test on PC. But the early genesis was PC development with no mac in sight (I have since learnt the error of my ways )

I stick with Java simply due to the investment in the code base (probably a few million lines of code now across all the librarians), and it would be too much to try and move to another language, and I don't think I need to. I wrap the applications up for the PC and MAC platforms, and a friend did a launcher script for Linux.

On the PC that means native launchers. For the Mac, I package the Java up as an APPLICATION BUNDLE, so a user does not need to get anywhere near a command line. You simply download the installer package and run it.

Apple no longer support Java, and haven't done so since Java 6, which is now deprecated and no longer installed as part of the OS. However support went over to Oracle, who now do OS X versions of Java, so you simply get the OS X DMG installer from Oracle and install before installing the librarian.

I use XCODE occasionally as I am joint author of CoreMIDI4J which fixes a long standing problem with Apple Java implementation (carried over into Oracle!) which stops SYSEX communication with external devices. So I am familiar with XCODE and to be honest, I much prefer programming in Java. Probably due to familiarity after nearly 20 years, but an important factor is that I do this in my spare time, so would never have the time to do a major port to another platform - maybe once I am retired!

Just to pre-empt another question, I do not include Java as part of the application bundle, despite it being recommended (and actually a pre-requisite for the Apple APP store). This is for the simple reason that one of the drawbacks of living in a most beautiful part of Wales is appalling broadband speed. I only get about 2mpbs and of course far slower upload speeds. So I want to keep the size of uploads small, and bundling Java in the app would quadruple their size! Once (if ever!) I get decent broadband, I might re-evaluate that). It's a problem for me, as whilst a user might only be interested in downloading a single product for a single platform, when I do product updates, I need to upload six products each with three installer variants, which probably result in a 2GB upload requirement.

[LewTheKeyboardGuy]

I'm looking forward to this, please keep me updated on this.

May I ask as to why you still use JAVA? when Java on current macs isn't a good idea from a security point? I would have thought that using XCode for the mac with it's various resources would prove more beneficial for mac users. sorry, just a little concerned that installing JAVA as an X11 sub source on a mac, which then relies on terminal shell functions, just seems a bit over done. surely a standard mac shell would be better.

Anyway, good luck and get stuck in.

lew

Hi,

Thanks for the interest

To answer your question on why Java? I started this journey of writing software for my synths with the Yamaha EX5 way back in 2001. I had written some utilities on my old Commodore Amiga in the "C" language to do remapping of Elements to change them pointing at RAM memory to FLASH memory and vice versa (try doing that on the synth for 256 voices, each with up to four elements, that is very laborious!).

When that little application started growing and growing and I was looking to move into the PC world (the Amiga was pretty much dead by then - a huge shame), I also wanted to target the MAC as well due to its dominance in the music world (certainly at the time). I looked at using C/C++ and cross platform GUI toolkits, but then evaluated Java, which was like C++ but without all the esoteric features that programmers abuse, don't understand or never use!) and it gave me the option of "writing once, deploying on many platforms". And (apart from a few things you need to be aware of) it lives up to that paradigm. It is free and allowed me to target PC, MAC, but also other OS. I even had one person reporting that ex.factory worked quite nicely on Sun Solaris.

I used to develop on PC and have friends test on OS X, but after borrowing a MAC from a mate back in 2007 to do the deeper native integration, I decided my next computer would be a MAC (a far more pleasant experience!). So , since 2012, I now develop on Mac and test on PC. But the early genesis was PC development with no mac in sight (I have since learnt the error of my ways )

I stick with Java simply due to the investment in the code base (probably a few million lines of code now across all the librarians), and it would be too much to try and move to another language, and I don't think I need to. I wrap the applications up for the PC and MAC platforms, and a friend did a launcher script for Linux.

On the PC that means native launchers. For the Mac, I package the Java up as an APPLICATION BUNDLE, so a user does not need to get anywhere near a command line. You simply download the installer package and run it.

Apple no longer support Java, and haven't done so since Java 6, which is now deprecated and no longer installed as part of the OS. However support went over to Oracle, who now do OS X versions of Java, so you simply get the OS X DMG installer from Oracle and install before installing the librarian.

I use XCODE occasionally as I am joint author of CoreMIDI4J which fixes a long standing problem with Apple Java implementation (carried over into Oracle!) which stops SYSEX communication with external devices. So I am familiar with XCODE and to be honest, I much prefer programming in Java. Probably due to familiarity after nearly 20 years, but an important factor is that I do this in my spare time, so would never have the time to do a major port to another platform - maybe once I am retired!

Just to pre-empt another question, I do not include Java as part of the application bundle, despite it being recommended (and actually a pre-requisite for the Apple APP store). This is for the simple reason that one of the drawbacks of living in a most beautiful part of Wales is appalling broadband speed. I only get about 2mpbs and of course far slower upload speeds. So I want to keep the size of uploads small, and bundling Java in the app would quadruple their size! Once (if ever!) I get decent broadband, I might re-evaluate that). It's a problem for me, as whilst a user might only be interested in downloading a single product for a single platform, when I do product updates, I need to upload six products each with three installer variants, which probably result in a 2GB upload requirement.

Well well well, you're not far from me geographically speaking and yes broadband in Wales isn't so hot. JAVA is a useable system for the most part, there does become an issue for certain users where accessibility of JAVA on the mac with Voiceover (screen reader) just doesn't work, hence the question of whether you could consider making a pure mac version of this software which would give sight impaired customers the kind of support needed.?

cheers

lew

[Derek Cook]

I'm looking forward to this, please keep me updated on this.

May I ask as to why you still use JAVA? when Java on current macs isn't a good idea from a security point? I would have thought that using XCode for the mac with it's various resources would prove more beneficial for mac users. sorry, just a little concerned that installing JAVA as an X11 sub source on a mac, which then relies on terminal shell functions, just seems a bit over done. surely a standard mac shell would be better.

Anyway, good luck and get stuck in.

lew

Hi,

Thanks for the interest

To answer your question on why Java? I started this journey of writing software for my synths with the Yamaha EX5 way back in 2001. I had written some utilities on my old Commodore Amiga in the "C" language to do remapping of Elements to change them pointing at RAM memory to FLASH memory and vice versa (try doing that on the synth for 256 voices, each with up to four elements, that is very laborious!).

When that little application started growing and growing and I was looking to move into the PC world (the Amiga was pretty much dead by then - a huge shame), I also wanted to target the MAC as well due to its dominance in the music world (certainly at the time). I looked at using C/C++ and cross platform GUI toolkits, but then evaluated Java, which was like C++ but without all the esoteric features that programmers abuse, don't understand or never use!) and it gave me the option of "writing once, deploying on many platforms". And (apart from a few things you need to be aware of) it lives up to that paradigm. It is free and allowed me to target PC, MAC, but also other OS. I even had one person reporting that ex.factory worked quite nicely on Sun Solaris.

I used to develop on PC and have friends test on OS X, but after borrowing a MAC from a mate back in 2007 to do the deeper native integration, I decided my next computer would be a MAC (a far more pleasant experience!). So , since 2012, I now develop on Mac and test on PC. But the early genesis was PC development with no mac in sight (I have since learnt the error of my ways )

I stick with Java simply due to the investment in the code base (probably a few million lines of code now across all the librarians), and it would be too much to try and move to another language, and I don't think I need to. I wrap the applications up for the PC and MAC platforms, and a friend did a launcher script for Linux.

On the PC that means native launchers. For the Mac, I package the Java up as an APPLICATION BUNDLE, so a user does not need to get anywhere near a command line. You simply download the installer package and run it.

Apple no longer support Java, and haven't done so since Java 6, which is now deprecated and no longer installed as part of the OS. However support went over to Oracle, who now do OS X versions of Java, so you simply get the OS X DMG installer from Oracle and install before installing the librarian.

I use XCODE occasionally as I am joint author of CoreMIDI4J which fixes a long standing problem with Apple Java implementation (carried over into Oracle!) which stops SYSEX communication with external devices. So I am familiar with XCODE and to be honest, I much prefer programming in Java. Probably due to familiarity after nearly 20 years, but an important factor is that I do this in my spare time, so would never have the time to do a major port to another platform - maybe once I am retired!

Just to pre-empt another question, I do not include Java as part of the application bundle, despite it being recommended (and actually a pre-requisite for the Apple APP store). This is for the simple reason that one of the drawbacks of living in a most beautiful part of Wales is appalling broadband speed. I only get about 2mpbs and of course far slower upload speeds. So I want to keep the size of uploads small, and bundling Java in the app would quadruple their size! Once (if ever!) I get decent broadband, I might re-evaluate that). It's a problem for me, as whilst a user might only be interested in downloading a single product for a single platform, when I do product updates, I need to upload six products each with three installer variants, which probably result in a 2GB upload requirement.

Well well well, you're not far from me geographically speaking and yes broadband in Wales isn't so hot. JAVA is a useable system for the most part, there does become an issue for certain users where accessibility of JAVA on the mac with Voiceover (screen reader) just doesn't work, hence the question of whether you could consider making a pure mac version of this software which would give sight impaired customers the kind of support needed.?

cheers

lew

Hi,

I am afraid that would be a rewrite/port of a very large 20 year old code base, and then different variants to support, so not likely to happen.

[timg11]

Derek,

I'm interested in your software. I've dabbled in developing software tools for the Kronos, too.

FYI, the link in your first post for installation throws a 404 error because the trailing comma is included in the URL.


For Java on Windows, my system reports:

Code: Select all

c:\>java -version
java version "1.8.0_181"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_181-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.181-b13, mixed mode)

You talk about Java 8 vs Java 9, but the version reports version 1.x Is the second digit the one you're using?

Kronos Factory installed and comes up and runs. I went through the menus and preferences dialog, and I don't see any setting related to MIDI. Since the Java issue was related to MIDI I was expecting to see some setting for the MIDI ports. I was able to open a PCG file on disk, though.

The program is unlicensed, so I can't do much. Are you planning to provide a temporary license to forum members that want to try it out? At the end of the beta, you plan to sell it for 20 GBP like your others?

Thanks,
Tim.

[Derek Cook]

Derek,

I'm interested in your software. I've dabbled in developing software tools for the Kronos, too.

FYI, the link in your first post for installation throws a 404 error because the trailing comma is included in the URL.


For Java on Windows, my system reports:

Code: Select all

c:\>java -version
java version "1.8.0_181"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_181-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.181-b13, mixed mode)

You talk about Java 8 vs Java 9, but the version reports version 1.x Is the second digit the one you're using?

Kronos Factory installed and comes up and runs. I went through the menus and preferences dialog, and I don't see any setting related to MIDI. Since the Java issue was related to MIDI I was expecting to see some setting for the MIDI ports. I was able to open a PCG file on disk, though.

The program is unlicensed, so I can't do much. Are you planning to provide a temporary license to forum members that want to try it out? At the end of the beta, you plan to sell it for 20 GBP like your others?

Thanks,
Tim.

Hi, Tim

Thanks for pointing out the URL problem in the main post. Now fixed.

Java numbering has always been confusing, although I think going forward in Java 9 it will be more consistent. You are correct. The reference to Java 6, 7, and 8 can be correlated to 1.6, 1.7 and 1.8 versions. Don’t ask! It’s always been this way since the days of Sun and the early Java releases.

There is no MIDI in kronos.factory yet. That will hopefully come later, especially when I do the librarian module and I will want to just file data straight over to the Kronos. MIDI wasn’t a priority for me in the first release of kronos.factory (contrasted with synths like my AN1x, FS1r or TG77 where MIDI is the only option for getting patches in and out) as I FTP PCG data to/from my Kronos SSD. I was mentioning MIDI in a post above in a side context about Java MIDI issues on OS X, which I wrote a program to resolve. That will become important in later releases of kronos.factory on OS X when I do introduce MIDI!

My try/buy model for 15 odd years is to provide enough functionality in an unlicensed version for people to see what they can do in terms of data manipulation, which I think you can do, with only save/export type functions being disabled, which seems to have worked well enough. You can load/import, use the drag/drop/copy/paste functions to test the value of the software to you. With my old licensing system, it would not have been possible to do time limited evaluation licenses, but with the scheme I am now using, it should be possible, but I would need to check that. I’ll look into it. TBH I’ve only ever had one person ask in 15 years, and when I offered to look at creating such a license they never responded.

Finally, yes the price will be £20 GPB (different currencies are supported in the store, but it will be that currency equivalent of this GBP value). I may do some introductory discounting for a limited time period.

[timg11]

Derek,
Thanks for the quick reply. I was intrigued by the possibility of MIDI. As a disk-based librarian, I find that PCGtools is quite capable, but MIDI is one aspect that another librarian such as yours could support. The MIDI function could let me quickly audition program banks without having to find a place to store them. (There is actually a work-around for that. If you open a bank on the Kronos disk, you can open the PCG and drill down with "open" to the program level, you can audition the programs. Doesn't work for Combi's though). Your program could provide added value by providing the ability to audition programs and Combis too (from the computer), by specifying a "workspace" in program banks where the programs could be temporarily stored during the auditioning of the combi in the edit buffer.

I looked at how you can examine deeper into the programs or combi. It is more than PCGtools, but still a limited depth, so I'm not sure how useful that is.
I would like to see a combi/program "browser" that highlights all parameters that are non-default. I'm often frustrated trying to figure out what's going on when I'm editing an existing program. This is particularly needed for modulation routing.

For this forum, you might want to make a clear list of what functionality kronos.factory offers that is not provided by PCGtools.

Thanks,
Tim.

[timg11]

Derek,
While I was playing around with kronos.factory, I opened a bank, and created a new bank. I then copied program banks IA through IF over to the new bank.
I like your drag-drop interface - it is clean and easy to understand what's going to happen.
I dropped the banks, and a dialog appeared "copying moving data please wait".
That dialog has been displayed for about 30 minutes now and is still working. This is on an I7 system. Resource Monitor shows no CPU usage - system is effectively idle.

Edit - I let it run for over 2 hours, and the dialog remained unchanged. I clicked X to close the "please wait" dialog. It closed, as well as the entire application.

Thanks,
Tim.

[Derek Cook]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback.

I do plan to add MIDI, but figured it was not essential for the first release, and it's taken me long enough to sort out the file handling. Whilst the PCG format is nice, structured IFF the flexibility is what adds the complexity, as was my decision to support the older OS file formats.

The issue you report, could be due to an exception that was thrown not being handled correctly.

My Support Page shows how you can report problems and provide me the log files. A step by step description of what you were doing would be useful, and if the source file can be provided (respecting copyright of course) then that is useful.

I'll be looking into temporary licensing for evaluation over the weekend, andwill report back on that

[timg11]

Derek,

Thanks for the update. The PCG source file I tested with is my full backup set which contains both factory and purchased programs.

Don't go to any special trouble for temporary licensing. I haven't found any feature compelling enough to lead me to license or purchase the current version, based on what I see now. When you have the beta for the MIDI-enabled version, I'll give it a try again, and maybe I'll take advantage of a temporary license for beta testers if you have it at that point in time,


Thanks,
Tim.