LAST NIGHT HOMEPAGE
Older news
February 14, 2001
- FAQ and comments from users about megafont are implemented.
January 24, 2001
- Life Amp v1.1 is released and available for download. A pair of bugs fixed: random crashes with APS drivers and incorrect behaviour of the panning separation control. Also a "Life debug panel" placed in download - the application allowing to see internals of LifeAmp.
- New section in megafont part of page - other projects intended to ease SoundFonts loading.
January 17, 2001
- megafont v1.24.2 is released and available for download. Nothing new but a few minor bugfixes. The main of them is that I fixed the bug which prevents Editor from running in versions 1.24 and 1.24.1.
January 14, 2001
- All major bugs are squashed and now megafont v1.24.1 release is now available for download. The main bug preventing megafont from running in NT 4.0 is fixed.
- There is a good site opened devoted to Emu10k1 programming. Some unique utilities for SBLive! and APS are available there too.
January 11, 2001
- I'm still working on bugfixes... No new corrected version for the time being.
- New dirty bug reported - something prevents version 1.24 release SoundFont Device Interface to work with Cubase 5.
- And one more bug discovered in 1.24 release - sometimes tree auto-refreshing in Editor occurs on every user move. Probably it appears only when preview is on. This is quite unexplored now so I need more _detailed_ reports about it. Though I don't know exactly which details I need.
January 03, 2001
- Happy New Year!
- There is a bug in megafont v1.24 release preventing MF_TOOLS.EXE from running under NT4.0 ("Required DLL is missing!" or "Can't find entry point" messages). Though it works fine under NT 2000. The origin of this bug is already located (namely: SHELL32.DLL version 4.71 or greater is needed); fixed version will be available soon. Until then I do not recommend downloading of latest release for those who are running NT 4.0.
A quotation from MSDN Shell And Common Controls Help:
"All systems with Internet Explorer 4.0 or 4.01 will have the associated version of Comctl32.dll and Shlwapi.dll (4.71 or 4.72, respectively). However, for systems prior to Windows 98, Internet Explorer 4.0 and 4.01 can be installed with or without the integrated shell. If they are installed with the integrated shell, the associated version of Shell32.dll will be installed. If they are installed without the integrated shell, Shell32.dll is not updated."
No comments ;) Stupid me.
December 12, 2000 (well... really a week or two later ;)
- megafont v1.24 release is now available for download. The most significant new feature is that now help files are included in package. Also the most of the 1.24 pre-release bugs fixed. For those people who experienced fatal crash problems with editor in v1.24 pre-release... I didn't found the bug since I have no computers near me where it happens. But I've made some changes which I hope could prevent this bug.
- BAmp project closed. See the reason below.
- New project started - Life tracker engine. It allows tracker files (XM,IT etc) to be played using MIDI and SoundFonts on SBLive! and APS. I.e. this is MIDI/hardware mixing tracker engine, which is created with a long-range goal in mind: to implement MIDI&SoundFont-based tracker... No sample editors (we have Vienna, SoundForge etc.) but envelopes, vertical and pattern-based song structure, no "audio", only MIDI output. As a first application of this library there was made a new Winamp plugin - Life Amp (LAmp).
- I've created some tools which would be useful for SoundFont modifying, making some things much easier. At least those tools are useful for me when I making SoundFonts.
- Site was restructured. A new Links page is available. Here I placed some links I love, even if they are not connected with music.
June 29, 2000
- megafont v1.22b seems to be quite stable so it can be renamed to "release" :-)
For those who like stability more than new betaversions there is patch for v1.22b available. This patch solves a pair of problems: crashes under NT 4.0 and Bank Select 32 message filtering ( appears when sent both BS0 and BS32, result is unability to use banks other than #0, for example in older versions of Evolution sequencer ).
- megafont v1.24 beta pre-release is now available for download.
This release is made just because I'm completely out of business for next month
( July 2000 ). I think some users like the incomplete program today more
than state-of-art program tomorrow. Moreover I'm in need of testers already
at this stage... ;)
So, don't hesitate to send bug reports or suggestions at "lastnight@mtu-net.ru" but
do not expect fixes or aswers till August 2000. I think the first thing after
bugfixes will be writting help. But I will be _very_ appreciative if someone with
native or almost native English could write it.
There are many new things and bugfixes here but there is no help for now and most
icon sux, since we have no time to really draw all of them ;(
What's new
• New logo and tray icons. CheeseCow design.
• Toolbars. ( Ross Burridge request. )
• Fixed error caused crashes under NT 4.0 ( thanks to KostaS ).
• Multiple simultaneous mappings support.
Kurt Penca was the second who suggests it. The first one was me :)
• .WAV files support. So, every waveform that can be loaded from AudioHQ can be
used now with Megafont.
Waveforms ( both, mono and stereo ) can be assigned to a bank/program number in any
mapping, can be previewed, can be activated and played thru MIDI ( sequencer, MIDI
player or keyboard ), can be exported along with common presets to SoundFonts.
Thanks to Ross Burridge for idea.
• More native SBLive! support. This allowed to remove "127 melodic patches/ one
drum set" limit, to get rid of the "True bank" concept, to implement _real_
"Clear all" command and "Max. cache size" option. But old routes are no more
valid because of this.
• More native APS drivers support. But EMU drivers are far less stable than
Creative when dynamically loading/unloading presets and therefore this change
seems to be quite useless.
• Winamp plugin allowing to pre-cache presets before the first note of MIDI file
will be played. This is really a breakthrough for Megafont, because playback of
MIDI files with this plugin should be like that with static loaded bank, and
there is no more "lost notes". Must have for all Live! MIDI listeners.
Many people asked for something like that but to make Winamp plugin was
CheeseCow idea.
• Megafont now supports SoundFont Device Interface ( for sending preset and bank
names to user apps ). So Cubase 3.7 or higher or another program that supports
SoundFonts now treat the routed thru Megafont loopback port as a SoundFont device
and should see all mapped preset names.
This is a result of a long correspondence thread with Dean Crawford.
• Mapping export to Evolution ( thanks to Ivan Apostolski ), Encore and to HTML tables
( Ross Burridge idea ).
• Randomizer function, allowing to randomly choose presets or mappings when plaiyng MIDIs.
• Mappings integrity checker ( appears when the one of files used in mapping can't be found ).
Made by Ross Burridge request.
• Every bank can now have its own color in editor. It was also a Ross Burridge idea.
May 7, 2000
- megafont v1.22 beta now is available for download. This is probably the last beta and there will be no major changes in release. Don't kill me if it won't work at all. Together I hope we will work it out. But at present there is no manual or the description of new functions exists. Soon...
What's new:
• Interface slightly changed
• Many bugs fixed, there is no more serious memory leaks
• Ability to change mapping in realtime (for example, one GM bank to another)
• MIDI reset now works
• MIDI channels displayed in cached window (Kasper Olsson idea)
• User can save combined SoundFont files from Monitor or Mappings editor. You can use this function if you have Vienna installed (v2.3 works); otherwise you should use SFEDT32.DLL available on downloads page. Thanks to flipside for his request.
• Emagic Logic support (copying preset names to clipboard) (Kasper Olsson idea)
• Preview function in Editor is now more convenient to use
April 26, 2000
- There is one problem with w2k, LiveWare 2k and MIDI Yoke gathered together. When one trying to configure default MIDI output, choosing MIDI Yoke
for MIDI in "Sound and Multimedia Properties" and restarting Windows he get the
old A:SBlive! MIDI Synth as a default device again and again. There is a solution for this problem - editing 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\MIDIMap\CurrentInstrument' key. Program which does it automatically is available in Downloads. One can place it in Startup folder.
April 25, 2000
- New bug reported: Everything that one does in Mappings Editor will be applied only after megafont.exe reloaded. On every system. Will be fixed soon.
April 24, 2000
- Fixed bug when megafont wasn't able to restore itself from the tray. Thanks to Kasper Olsson who was not only the first to report about this bug but the one who really find a way to fix it. Fixed version is available as 1.21.7.
- Re:"Unload preset if unused for..." didn't work even in tynyfont 0.9.6. Now there is version available where this feature is finally works (I hope :) - 0.9.7 alpha. This is an intermediate version and not an object for bug reports.
April 23, 2000
- "Unload preset if unused for..." option never worked both in megafont and tinyfont. Now it's fixed and patched versions of both programs (1.21.6 and 0.9.6 accordingly) are available.
April 22, 2000
- "Don't displayed SoundFonts" bug fixed. (It turn out, that if you got any program installed which is associated with '.sf2' files, they can be displayed only if "Hide file extensions for known file types" checkbox in Explorer settings (View|Folder Options|View tab) is unchecked).
I fixed this bug and currently new fixed version of megafont (1.21.5) is available. People who don't want to download 300kb again might just change their Explorer settings or enter *.* in Files/Filter... box that was implemented in v1.21.
No more system descriptions needed.
- New main icon in v1.21.5.
April 19, 2000
- I got some reports that my program works. I like it :)))
- Strange bug reported: folder browser in mappings editor don't display SoundFonts. And still I have no idea where the problem is. So, if anyone expirienced the same problem please send me description of your system (including version of Explorer), for example SysInfo log.
- Fixed bug when tinyfont don't run at all (wrong compiler options).
- megafont now works with Windows 2000 and LiveWare for Windows 2000. There were some NT-related bugs fixed and new version (1.21 beta) is available. But it's not recommended to use it if you don't use NT since some code parts in v1.21 still in development and some functionality may absent. Use v1.21 only if you are encountered problems with v1.20 and NT/2000.
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