v0.2.0 - Threadripper edition

What's Changed

The overall audio quality have been significantly improved since v0.1.0:

• Added cubic interpolation for proper resampling (thanks to @mmontag)
• Fixed looping of partials with ping-pong loop mode to avoid popping noise (thanks to @mmontag)
• Added full support for pitch envelopes
• Added initial support for filter envelopes (needs more work)

Additionally, some smaller improvements & bug fixes where done:

• Added support for debug messages to stdout / stderr on Windows when started from a console
• Added support for directories with non-ASCII characters on Windows (already supported on Linux and macOS)
• Added scripts for creating self contained app bundle and dmg-installer on macOS
• Fixed some bugs related to setting BufferTime, PeriodTime and SampleRate in Audio settings
• Improved MIDI device naming on macOS (thanks to @mmontag)
• Fixed bug preventing proper MIDI decoding when several MIDI messages appeared in the same packet on macOS (thanks to @mmontag)
• Some other minor fixes

Full Changelog: v0.1.0...v0.2.0

Regressions from v0.1.0

• The biggest regression is the increased CPU requirement for running EmuSC, especially when playing many simultaneous notes. A modern desktop CPU is required to run all MIDI files properly.
• Instrument Crystal (capital instrument 99) has clipping issues due to erroneous filter (TVF) values.

Known issues

General

• If you play many instruments with much chorus and / or reverb effects you will get clipping (crackling noise). This happens because the output of reverb and chorus effects are added on top of the original audio signal without any audio compression. A workaround if you experience this is to lower the master volume in the Synth Settings dialog (Master Settings). Note that the volume knob in the main GUI can be set to 100% as it wont impact this issue.
• The SC55mkII ROM files seems to trigger a memory bug in certain situations causing EmuSC to use wrong sample data for certain instruments. A workaround is to use ROM files from the original SC55.
• QT Multimedia audio output is not in a working state and should not be used.
• EmuSC has been reported to change pitch in certain situations (see #50)
• Very high CPU load

Linux

• Pulse Audio output is not in a working state and should not be used.

Windows

• The windows version requires a MIDI device to exist, please refer to the README file for more information.
• There seems to be some timing issues on Windows, but not always noticeable.

MacOS

• Selecting MIDI devices in the Preferences dialog does not always work as intended. Please try to stop and start EmuSC (press space twice) to see if that helps if you encounter this problem.

v0.1.0 - The very first

First release

This is the very first release of libemusc and the emusc client 🎉

Please note that this project is still in development and that the quality of the generated synth audio is far from being as good as the original hardware.

Known issues

General

• If you play many instruments with much chorus and / or reverb effects you will get clipping (crackling noise). This happens because the output of reverb and chorus effects are added on top of the original audio signal without any audio compression. A workaround if you experience this is to lower the master volume in the Synth Settings dialog (Master Settings). Note that the volume knob in the main GUI can be set to 100% as it wont impact this issue.
• The SC55mkII ROM files seems to trigger a memory bug in certain situations casing emusc to use wrong sample data for certain instruments. A workaround is to use ROM files from the original SC55.
• The CPU usage is high due to the current implementation of reverb and chorus effects. Any modern CPU should not have any problems, but a raspberry pi and similar devices will most likely not be able to run emusc properly at this time.
• QT Multimedia audio output is not in a working state and should not be used.

Linux

• Pulse Audio output is not in a working state and should not be used.

Windows

• The windows version requires a MIDI device to exist, please refer to the README file for more information.
• There seems to be some timing issues on Windows, but not always noticeable.

MacOS

• Selecting MIDI devices in the Preferences dialog does not always work as intended. Please try to stop and start emusc (press space twice) to see if that helps if you encounter this problem.

Contributors

The main author for this release was @skjelten

In addition, the following contributions where made by other contributors:

• Update autogen.sh by @mmontag in #14
• Add Github Actions CI pipeline by @nmcgill in #7
• Added SCC-1 Support by @DMJC in #10
• configure.ac: Look for alternate Qt5 versioned roc/mcc executables as… by @Cacodemon345 in #17
• Various memory/efficiency improvements for control/PCM ROM loader by @dwhinham in #19
• Fix compilation when Qt Multimedia isn't available by @Cacodemon345 in #18
• Fix acsite.m4 test lambdas with M4 escape sequences by @kode54 in #22
• Fix CMake builds on Fedora by @Cacodemon345 in #24

Full Changelog: https://github.com/skjelten/emusc/commits/v0.1.0