news!

0.939 Released [16 July 2001]

    GDAM-0.939 is now available for download.   Skin files accidentally
    left out of the 0.938 release have been replaced.  The device and
    event polling has been rewritten, which should solve everyone's problems
    with unresponsive clients and frozen time labels.

0.938 Released [21 May 2001]

    GDAM-0.938 is now available for download.

Mono Cue [21 May 2001]

    A popular request, mono cue mixes down each stereo stream to a mono 
    channel.  This allows use of the left channel for a mono room mix,
    and the right channel to cue new tracks.  Run gdam-launcher with 
    "--define mono_cue" to activate.

EQ Crossfade [21 May 2001]

    Recent versions of GDAM have included 2-d "panners" to simultaneously
    control the cutoff frequency and filter depth of equalization filters 
    with mouse motion within a rectangle.  Now the bluetone 'wheels'
    skin contains a panner which drives two eq filters on two different
    turntables.  By setting one filter to high-pass and the other to 
    low-pass, this central panner can be used to crossfade in eq-space.


Lack Of News [21 May 2001]

    The long stretch of time since the last news item does not mean
    that development has stalled.  GDAM has made quiet but significant
    progress.

    Changes include: resolved FreeBSD compile problems (see user manual for
    instructions), support for usb control devices (keyboard, trackball,
    etc), more flexible input binding (logarithmic and inverted response 
    curves, bind to skin handlers, modify rather than set arg value),
    various skin improvements, and breaking GDAM into seperate packages 
    to relieve dependency problems.

    Currently development is focused on:  a sampler (roughly, 
    recycle+cubase), and a groovebox-style skin for step sequencing.
    (run gdam-launcher with "--define unstable" to see what is in
    the works)

  
Turntable, Wheels Hotkey Bindings [9 Aug 2000]

    It is no longer necessary to edit the skin xml files to change
    key bindings for the turntable and wheels interfaces.  The bindings
    are stored in files 'wheelhotkeys.xml' and 'wheelshotkeys.xml'
    which are installed with other skin files.  Users can copy those
    files into ~/.gdam/skins/ and edit them.  Those copies will be used
    whenever a turntable or wheels is created.
    

XMMS Visualization Plugin Support [24 Jun 2000]

    The cvs version now contains rough, working support for XMMS
    Visualization plugins.  gdancer, blurscope, sanalyzer, and jakdaw
    all work.
   
New Features [6 Jun 2000]

    A few user requests have been implemented.  They are currently in
    the cvs tree, and will be included in 0.930 and future versions.
    We like feedback and suggestions.

    In the `bluetone' turntable, it is possible to change the time display
    to show time left until the end of track, or to count down to/up from
    the first beat location.  The button to do this is to the right of
    the time label, marked `...' for the moment.  A button may be added
    to the default skin as well.   

    A notebook page of visibility controls has been added to the
    song selector.  There are several visibility options, which
    are applied one after the other.  You can choose to hide or
    show songs by default, show or hide songs with unknown bpms,
    and show or hide songs which also exist in a different gdam
    song database.  


Documentation Consolidation [4 Jun 2000]

    We've begun collecting and expanding documentation into a 
    users guide, available online in the docs section.

Four-Channel Sound Card Success [30 May 2000]

    Alsa allows me to open multiple subdevices on my hoontech sound card
    (4dwave nx, uses the trident 4dwave chipset.)  As each subdevice is
    opened by the gdam server, volume and pan controls for that subdevice 
    become available in alsa-enabled mixers.  In gamix, the `pcm playback' 
    and `pcm1 playback' panels pops up, each with two vertical sliders to 
    control the front and back volumes and a horizontal pan control.  I 
    turn down the back volume on pcm and the front volume on pcm1, leaving 
    me with two discrete stereo output streams.  There are several benefits 
    of this setup.  The two subdevices are fed in sync, and sources
    continue to play in perfect time as they are switched back and forth
    between subdevices.  In addition, if i'm using one stream for
    cueing (say, plugging headphones into the rear speaker jack)
    i can choose to increase the volume of the other stream (playing from
    the front speaker jack to the stereo) on the rear output, making it easier
    to monitor what is happening with the room mix.
    

ALSA Works! [29 May 2000]

    Finally we support ALSA (tested with version 0.5.7).  We look forward
    to trying out some of its powerful features.  Uncomment and review
    the alsa device entries in the server config file.


New Filters [23 May 2000]

    Several visualization filters have been added recently.  The oscilloscpe
    provides snapshots of the waveform.  The spectrum filter shows the
    power of different frequencies at any moment, while the scrolling
    spectrum shows the power spectrum over time (also called a `voiceprint').


Queue/Turntable Interface Consolidation [23 May 2000]

    The contiguous queueing and playlist abilities formerly available
    through the `queue' component have been merged into to normal turntable.
    One benefit of this is that when playing continuous-mix albums, it
    is possible to mix from one track to the next (although it's not 
    yet possible to nudge back and forth across the track boundary.)
    The intelligent file and directory sourcing features from gdam123
    (automatic ordering of tracks according to playlist or cddb file)
    are now available in the turntable component.

LinuxPPC Success [23 May 2000]

    We've recently gained access to a linuxppc machine, and have verified
    that gdam compiles and functions.  The only known problems are 
    related to the readline substitute, gdam123,gdamcli are affected.

Under Development... Skins [8 May 2000]

    We've been expanding and improving the skinnability of gdam's interface.
    The new skin (`bluetone' in the cvs source code) is mostly complete.
    Once finished, it will serve as an example for those who'd like to 
    design new skins.   The skins can be launched by clicking on the
    small icon buttons next to `turntable' and 'wheels' in the launcher.

Readline Abandoned [8 May 2000]

    We have abandoned the readline library completely in favor of getline,
    a lightweight replacement used by ncftp.  Readline was the most
    common cause of configuration problems, and this change resolved the
    problems some people were having.

24-Bit Processing [7 May 2000, updated 22 May 2000]

    Gdam now does all its internal processing in 24 instead of 16 bits.
    Full volume is represented by 24 bits, leaving eight for overflow.
    This means that audio data will no longer clip if it isn't
    compressed into 16 bits at each step.  A bunch of endianness cleanups 
    were done at the same time.

FreeBSD Support [28 Apr 2000]

    Gdam now compiles on FreeBSD (with gnu-make).
    (Versions of gcc from <10.1999 were giving internal compiler
    errors -- just upgrade if you need it.)

LADSPA Plugin Support [20 Apr 2000]

    Gdam now supports LADSPA plugins, an open format for 
    simple audio plugins.  Plugins can be loaded, and 
    mininetwork configurations can be compiled into LADSPA
    plugins.

Loop Descriptions in Song Database [20 Apr 2000]

    The cacheable source now has the ability to save descriptions
    of loops to the song database, and load them. This makes it easy
    to quickly recreate your favorite loops.

New Features [16 Apr 2000]

    A few user-requested features have made their way into
    recent releases.  Right-clicking on the `bpm' column header
    of the song selector will hide/show songs for which the 
    tempo is unknown.  Control-clicking on the song selector
    launch button will launch an empty song selector, which
    can be filled with a short playlist.

Autolaunching [19 Apr 2000]

    Now the server is automatically run if it isn't
    available upon startup.

Daily Builds [10 Apr 2000]

    we are creating debians and redhat packages automatically
    from cvs nightly now.

    [update: due to underwhelming interest and confusion,
    we've stopped making these...]

Gdam 0.924 is up [10 Apr 2000]

    this is the first release using automake,
    and for the first time debian and redhat packages are also
    available.  These have not been very well tested; we would
    very much appreciate hearing from anyone who installs 0.924.

we've converted to automake [10 Apr 2000]

    Among other benefits, this will allow us to make deb and
    rpm packages.  Some files have been renamed (most notably,
    the gdam server from `gdam' to 'gdam-server') and there
    may be install problems for the moment.

new additions to the cvs repository [10 Apr 2000]

    the walker and gong sources.  Walker performs a random
    walk back and forth across a buffer.  The mean length for
    which sound is played forward or backward can be adjusted.
    Progress will eventually be made, but the position within
    the buffer can also be set by hand.  Gong simulates a
    gong being struck.  Two models currently exist, for a
    free-hanging gong and a clamped plate.  The volume, decay
    rate and primary tone can be adjusted.

mininetwork [10 Apr 2000]

    An exciting new addition to the cvs repository is the
    filter mininetwork.  The mini-network provides a graphical
    representation of a collection of filters, and allows users
    to connect them together by drawing lines between them.
    Complex feedback loops and filters can be constructed by
    hand.  Current collection of one-to-one filters available
    within the mini-network includes gain, delay, variable
    delay, modulator, mix, sine triangle and square waves,
    noise source, constant source, level meter, frequency
    estimator, balance, and gate.  Once the kinks are worked
    out, it'll be included in a release.

Gdam 0.923 released [10 Apr 2000]

    this version might be considered unstable as several
    vital sections have been rewritten.  Most notably, the
    mix source has been rewritten to prevent it from adding
    any latency.  Realtime mode is more fully supported, and
    is automatically activated when the server is run as root.
    This might be rewritten in a safer fashion, especially
    if there are reports of realtime mode causing lockup.
    However, in spite of these changes all seems stable.

Thanks (10 Apr 2000)

    Thanks to everyone who notified us of install problems on
    their systems.  We haved fixed a slew of minor problems
    with permissions and paths, and more people are reporting
    successful installs.  Recent debian and redhat systems
    should have no problems.  Some success has been reported
    with mandrake and slackware.  If you've had
    problems or success with these or other distributions,
    let us know.
