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Qtractor, free multi-track recording and sequencing software just released version 0.5.12 with many great new features.

As you may know, Qtractor is an audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer application written in C++ with the Qt4 framework. Target platform is Linux, where the Jack Audio Connection Kit (JACK) for audio and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) for MIDI are the main infrastructures to evolve as a fairly-featured Linux desktop audio workstation GUI, specially dedicated to the personal home-studio.

The latest Qtractor 0.5.12 contains below changes:

Fixed another off-by-one MIDI plugin chain timing bug, delaying the actual playback of the first MIDI event, whenever it started at the same and as long as the initial play-head position (after another ticket by Holger Marzen, thanks again).

A new LV2 host convention is in effect on plugins that expose multiple AtomPort’s in either direction: only the first input or output declared AtomPort is eligible to convey regular MIDI data events (introduced while trying Frank Kober’s forthcoming QmidiArp LV2 suite of plugins,thanks).

Zooming with shift/ctrl+mouse-wheel and pointing over the main tracks view or MIDI clip editor time ruler header’s now fixed.

A rare freezing loop condition has been fixed on the oldest of MIDI file save/write routines (after a ticket and solution by Tuomas Airaksinen, thanks again).

Copy/paste now preserving clip names (ticket by Holger Marzen, thanks).

Scaling of whole tempo map with a given factor has been added, through a spin-box and button in Tempo Map / Markers dialog, after a long overdue patch by Tuomas Airaksinen, thanks again.

When issued from main tracks view (ie. Clip/Tools menu) MIDI clip tools are now a bit more crash-resilient re. undo/redo-ability.

Session auto-save / crash-recovery support is now on trial as in View/Options…/General/Session/Auto-save current working session every 10 minutes (default on).

Plugin-list chain context-menu now includes MIDI instrument audio output options to existing non-dedicated output buses, any other than the previous hard-wired default (eg. Master).

Tracks export now allows for the mix-down/merge of multiple audio/MIDI output buses (Track/Export Tracks).

When adding new tracks, try preserving the last selected bus names, while not the default Master ones (after a suggestion from danboid aka. Daniel MacDonald, thanks).

More preparations for Qt5 configure build.

Brand new thumb-(over)view toolbar widget added to MIDI clip editor window (aka. piano-roll overview).

General MIDI RPN/NRPN 14-bit controller support is now being introduced on real-time MIDI input parsing, on standard MIDI file I/O, on MIDI Controller options and, of course, on MIDI clip and event list editor.

Pretty innocent nitpick on most thread cleanup routines.

Download & Install Qtracktor:

The DEB packages for Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Debian, RPM packages for Fedora, OpenSUSE are available in qt-apps.org

The free multi-track recording and sequencing software Qtractor has released 0.5.11 with many improvements and bugfixes.

What’s New in Qtractor 0.5.11:

Adding a track now inserts it after the current one, if any; one can also drag and move a track below the last one in the track list (main view left pane).
Extended Edit/Select Mode/Automation: multi-selection mode, cut, copy, paste and delete of current track’s automation curve nodes, now reached implementation ready status.
Another old silent bug bites the dust: changing track names were dropping any track gain/volume and panning automation curves when saving the session.
A primeval processing bug has been sorted out: aux-sends to audio output buses that just appear to be after the input bus where they’re inserted were being left muted and silent (on a ticket follow-up by Holger Marzen, thanks).
Fixed a sure crash bug exposed when processing of aux-send plugins when inserted too early on audio input buses chain (after a ticket report by Holger Marzen, thanks).
Allow the build system to include an user specified CFLAGS (patch by Cristian Morales Vega, thanks).
Shift/Ctrl keyboard modifiers now set to extend current clip selection while in main track view’s Edit/Select Mode/Range, Rectangle modes.
Main Edit/Select Mode/Automation icon retouched to look a bit more obvious and intuitive, hopefully ;)
Allow to change the velocities/values of the current selected events which have the exact same onset times and hide beyhond each other on the MIDI clip editor’s pane below the main view piano-roll (ie. the one that represents MIDI event values as a bar chart).
Fixed some problematic playback/export muting and annoying cleanup freezing, due on audio tracks with too many clips eg. more than hundred clip splits (hopefully fixes an issue reported by Louigi Verona, thanks).
LV2 UI resize feature support/control added.
Fixed dedicated MIDI control and MIDI metronome port connection restore conflict (thanks to jhammen catch & patch:).
New user preference option added: reverse middle-button role to Shift/Ctrl keyboard state, in special regard to edit-head/tail vs. play-head positioning while on the main track and MIDI clip editor (aka. piano-roll) views.