CHANGELOG.md

Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

[2.0.0] - XXXX-XX-XX

Added

• PortMidi driver does open a input/output port which can be discovered and connected to by other applications when port was set to "None" in the Preferences (not supported on Windows).
• All keyboard shortcuts including the virtual keyboard can now be customized in Preferences > Shortcuts.
• Most actions available via MIDI or OSC can also be assigned to a keyboard shortcut. If those actions require input arguments, they are retrieved using popup dialogs.
• Align to grid action in Pattern Editor to align existing notes to current grid.
• Switching drumkits, replace the current kit by a new one, as well as adding, deleting, and renaming drumkit components can now be undone.
• Pattern and drumkit properties can be edited by double clicking the corresponding name in the header of the Pattern Editor.
• new OSC commands:
  • NEW_PLAYLIST
  • OPEN_PLAYLIST
  • SAVE_PLAYLIST
  • SAVE_PLAYLIST_AS
  • PLAYLIST_ADD_SONG
  • PLAYLIST_ADD_CURRENT_SONG
  • PLAYLIST_REMOVE_SONG
  • LOAD_PREV_DRUMKIT (cycling through drumkits)
  • LOAD_NEXT_DRUMKIT (cycling through drumkits)
  • COUNT_IN
  • COUNT_IN_PAUSE_TOGGLE
  • COUNT_IN_STOP_TOGGLE
  • HUMANIZATION_SWING_ABSOLUTE
  • HUMANIZATION_SWING_RELATIVE
  • HUMANIZATION_TIMING_ABSOLUTE
  • HUMANIZATION_TIMING_RELATIVE
  • HUMANIZATION_VELOCITY_ABSOLUTE
  • HUMANIZATION_VELOCITY_RELATIVE
• new MIDI actions:
  • LOAD_PREV_DRUMKIT (cycling through drumkits)
  • LOAD_NEXT_DRUMKIT (cycling through drumkits)
  • COUNT_IN
  • COUNT_IN_PAUSE_TOGGLE
  • COUNT_IN_STOP_TOGGLE
  • HUMANIZATION_SWING_ABSOLUTE
  • HUMANIZATION_SWING_RELATIVE
  • HUMANIZATION_TIMING_ABSOLUTE
  • HUMANIZATION_TIMING_RELATIVE
  • HUMANIZATION_VELOCITY_ABSOLUTE
  • HUMANIZATION_VELOCITY_RELATIVE
• .h2playlist files are now backed up by and can be restored from autosave files as well.
• CLI options:
  • kitToDrumkitMap: to extract a .h2map file from a drumkit.
• Patterns are now independent of Drumkits and the latter can switched without the need to adjust the patterns. Mapping between the two will be done using "instrument types".
• <instrumentComponent> and <instrumentLayer> elements in drumkit XML definitions contain two new elements: <isMuted> and <isSoloed>.
• Notes not rendered by the audio engine are now highlighted in the pattern editor (can be disabled in Preferences > Appearance > Interface > Indicate note playback).
• Notes stopped by stop notes or the mute group feature are now rendered with a tail showing their effective length in the pattern editor (can be disabled in Preferences > Appearance > Interface > Indicate effective note length).
• Custom colors for 'mute' and 'solo'.
• When activating per-track JACK outputs, Hydrogen does now provided additional ports for metronome, playback track, and sample preview (#1150).
• Button in main toolbar indicating both MIDI input and output signals and opening a dialog showing the latest MIDI events.
• Instruments can now be duplicated via popup context menu (#1925).
• Midi:
  • A MIDI control dialog listing all incoming and outgoing messages is now accessible via a button in the main toolbar.
  • Hydrogen does now only act on MIDI START, CONTINUE, and STOP messages, if "handling MIDI transport" is checked in the settings. Using this option it does now support SONG_POSITION_POINTER and SONG_SELECT as well.
  • SONG_SELECT messages will choose a pattern in pattern mode and a song from the current playlist in song mode.
  • When activating "handling MIDI clock" Hydrogen will adopt the tempo provided via MIDI Clock.
  • Only with both "handling MIDI clock" and "handling MIDI transport" activated Hydrogen will offer compliant MIDI sync support (#1598).
  • Hydrogen does also send MIDI Clock, START, CONTINUE, and STOP messages if the corresponding settings are checked.
  • The channel for MIDI feedback (and clock messages) can now be configured as well (setting it to "Off" makes Hydrogen drop those messages) (#779).
  • Whether or not Hydrogen is sending or writing Note-Off messages can now be configured in the MIDI control dialog (#63).
  • Changes in the MIDI Action table can now be undone.
  • MIDI actions can be mapped to the currently selected instrument (by scrolling beyond 0) (#459).
• Changes in the Sample Editor can now be undone.

Changed

• Drumkit handling was reworked. Each song will now hold a proper drumkit. Tweaking its name, instruments etc. does not affect the kits in the Sound Library (user and system drumkit folder) unless it is explicitly saved to it. All actions in the Main Menu > Drumkit only affect the song's kit. All actions in the Sound Library do only affect the selected kit and not the one of the current song (except loading).
• .h2song file format changed. (forward compatible only with v1.2.4 and newer).
• Drumkit format changed:
  • Adjustments done in the Sample Editor are now stored in the kit as well (previously, this was only possible in songs).
  • Drumkit components (<componentList>) were dropped.
  • sampleSelectionAlgo was moved from instrument node into instrumentComponent nodes.
  • There is no upper limit for the layers within an instrument component anymore.
• (Instrument) Components are now independent of each other and can be added separately for each instrument.
• Notes in .h2pattern files as well as instruments in .h2drumkits/drumkit.xml do now have a new property type.
• Prerelease version suffix (alpha, beta, rc..) are now appended to the shared library of the core, libhydrogen-core-X.X.X.so/.dll.
• Preferences dialog can now be smoothly resized.
• MIDI:
  • Actions >>_NEXT_BAR and <<_PREVIOUS_BAR - as well as their OSC counterparts - do now wrap transport around the beginning and end of a song if loop mode is enabled. In pattern mode they move transport to be beginning and next is updating pending stacked patterns.
  • All MIDI settings, which do not require a driver restart, were moved into the MIDI control dialog.
  • The MIDI channel presented in the Instrument Editor and the Settings is now zero-based (previously, it started at 1).
  • TAP_TEMPO is now using a cumulative average (reset on tempo deviations larger than 20 bpm) to increase precision and is supported on Windows as well.
  • Precision of handling TAP_TEMPO and BEAT_COUNTER have been improved.
  • Mapping of input and output MIDI notes can now be done in a dedicated tab in the MIDI control dialog.
  • Input channels for MIDI notes and actions can now be assigned separately.
  • Instead of "Option" > "Input Mode" and "Preferences" > "Use output note as input" there is now a drop down for different input mappings in the MIDI control dialog (featuring a new mode to assign individual notes/channels).
  • Mapping of incoming and outgoing message can now be enabled/disabled or set to a global channel for the whole drumkit at once.
  • MIDI action handling can now be disabled by setting the corresponding channel to "Off".
  • Instruments without any samples can now send Note-On and Note-Off MIDI messages as well (#63).
  • Note-Offs are now only send or written right before a Note-On in case "Auto-stop Note" is checked in the instrument editor.
  • Both MIDI note number and name are now displayed in the corresponding spin boxes (#435).
  • Note-Off messages are now always send at the end of custom note lengths even if they exceed the length of the underlying sample(s).
  • Hydrogen no longer sends Note-Off MIDI messages for all instruments when stopping playback. Instead, it sends them for all unpaired Note-On messages of the last 15 seconds followed by an "All Notes Off" CHANNEL_MODE message on the MIDI feedback channel (#2285).
• PlaylistEditor:
  • All actions can now be undone and redone.
  • Songs can be loaded by keyboard selection and pressing Enter key.
  • Playlist can be rearranged using drag and drop.
  • Default shortcuts have been changed to be unique throughout Hydrogen and can be now used in all other windows as well.
• NSM:
  • Drumkits are no longer linked into the session folder
  • All drumkits in the session folder (proper drumkit folders containing samples. Linked ones are not supported) as available as session kits in the Sound Library.
  • New action in Main Menu to save kit to session folder.
• Online import dialog now allows for multiple downloads at once (#1143).
• userVersion element was added to .h2song, .h2pattern, and drumkit files. It can be set using the corresponding properties dialog and can help to tell different artifact versions apart.
• formatVersion element was added to .h2song, .h2pattern, .h2playlist, drumkit and config files. This integer will be increment each time the format will be changed.
• pre-fader gain does now include component gain as well.
• SongEditor:
  • Single cells can now be dragged and are affected by right-click popup menu without prior selection.
  • Switching between left-click selection or drawing was moved into the main toolbar.
  • Duplicating a pattern will duplicate all grid cells of the corresponding row as well.
  • Pattern Fill Dialog was reworked.
• PatternEditor:
  • Handling is now centered on interaction with existing notes. Only adding of new notes is dependent on the current grid.
  • The quantization button does now affect keyboard and mouse inputs too.
  • Alt key modifier can be used to temporarily turn off quantization.
  • Instruments of the current kit and instrument types of all notes in a pattern are now handled separately in the sidebar.
  • Single notes can now be dragged or altered using right-click popup menu without prior selection.
  • Notes not associated with an instrument of the current kit are now visible and can be handled like regular notes.
  • Pattern name is now shown together with other active patterns tab bar.
  • Property drawing in the properties ruler is now only bound to right mouse button.
  • Right-click drag in drum pattern and piano roll editor does not alter note properties anymore but draws notes instead. Use the edit mode button at the very left of the toolbar of the pattern editor to access this behavior using left-click drag.
  • Whether left mouse button interactions to select, draw, or editing existing notes can be set by buttons in the left-most part of the toolbar.
  • In edit mode notes of custom property can now be created using left-click drag too (no prior creation required).
  • Note editing does now alter either note length or property. Not both.
  • Cursor, selection lasso, and selected and hovered notes are now synced between among all editors.
  • Property changes based on wheel and key event on the same set of notes as well as property drawing can now be undone/redone in a single action.
  • PianoRoll does now have a proper sidebar including per-line action in right click popup menu.
  • The hear notes button does now also affect sounds triggered by clicking the sidebar of the pattern editor.
• InstrumentEditor:
  • The "Layers" tab was replaced by a "Components" one containing collapsible versions of the previous view for all components.
  • Both components and layers can now be muted and soloed.
  • Adding, deleting, and replacing of layers can be undone.
  • Layers can be rearranged using drag and drop.
  • (Multiple) samples can be added as layers by dragging them into Hydrogen and the Layer Preview widget.
  • The sample of the currently selected layer can be replaced by dragging another one into Hydrogen on the wave display.
  • Layer overlap is now properly handled in the header.
  • The default background color of the header was changed to red to help the user to find "holes" between layers.
  • Layers and components can now be duplicated.
• JACK per-track output ports are now mapped on drumkit switch or manipulation on instrument with same type. Ports of instruments without type aren't mapped at all (same as for notes) (#1071).
• Per default JACK per-track output ports are named according to the instrument types. But via Preferences > Audio > "Enforce instrument name instead of type" the previous naming scheme can be used.
• MIDI and audio drivers are now restarted separately in Preferences.
• Main toolbar was redesigned:
  • Status messages, CPU load, and number of XRuns were moved to the very bottom of Hydrogen.
  • Instead of showing text, all buttons are now icon based.
  • New buttons to switch between selection and drawing mode in Song and Pattern Editor.
  • New visibility buttons for playlist dialog, director, automation, playback track, and preferences dialog have been introduced.
  • The previous "S"/"P" button of the BeatCounter has been converted into a tap button. Press long to switch between the two beat counter modes or the usage of the plain tap tempo and use regular clicking to adjust tempo.
  • If JACK Timebase support was disabled in Preferences, the button is now hidden instead of disabled.
  • The play button does now have two modes: regular start and count in. When in count in, Hydrogen triggers metronome notes matching the length of the current pattern before starting playback (#2194).
• Metronome and sample playback in SampleEditor are no longer affected by instrument mute/solo state.
• Playback track does now respect looping and is update on tempo changes.
• Sample files in the audio file browser can now be loaded via double-clicking.

Fixed

• Components can now carry arbitrary names and name duplication is handled properly.
• Fix sample selection in the presence of multiple components.
• Fix rendering of clicked layers in the Instrument Editor (#1350).
• Paths to songs and scripts are now properly saved relative to a .h2playlist file (in case the corresponding option was set).
• Stop notes do now stop all notes of the same instrument at the same position (e.g. in chords or using multiple patterns).
• MIDI export:
  • Does now respect virtual patterns (#513).
  • Does now add tempo changes and tags in case the Timeline is used (#933).
  • Does now add time signature events based on the length of the longest pattern within a column (#1680).
• MIDI import is now able to trigger multiple instruments using a single Note-On event (#1765).
• Fix mixup of JACK per-track output ports on instrument reordering (see Changed section for new behaviour) (#71).
• LADSPA aux do now respect instrument/component/layer mute and solo states.
• Playback track does respect main volume.
• Instrument peaks are no longer affected by main volume.
• MIDI Note-Off events are now properly send for all notes regardless of their pitch.
• JACK MIDI and audio ports are now part of the same client. But JACK MIDI can now only be used in combination with JACK audio driver. (#422).
• Note-On and Note-Off messages send via JACK MIDI should now be (almost) frame accurate (#535).

Removed

• Preferences options restoreLastSong and restoreLastPlaylist were dropped. Instead, both will always be restored automatically. In order to start with a blank song/playlist, load a new one before quitting.
• Component mixer strips have been dropped.
• LASH support has been dropped (#1649).
• cmake option MAX_NOTES, MAX_COMPONENTS, and MAX_INSTRUMENTS have been dropped. Instead, an arbitrary number of components and instruments is allowed.
• Property <pitch> of <note> in .h2pattern file was dropped.
• User-defined note lengths are no longer automatically changed based on pitch during recording or editing (#63).

[1.2.7] - XXXX-XX-XX

Added

• Support for songs and drumkits created with version 0.9.3 (#2193).
• Linux man pages for the h2cli and h2player applications have been added.

Changed

• When timeline is activated or tempo is synced to an external application, tempo changes via keyboard shortcuts, MIDI, or OSC commands as well as Beat Counter and Tap Tempo are now discarded.
• Big update of the hydrogen man page.

Fixed

• OSC endpoint /Hydrogen/SAVE_PREFERENCES does now actually save the preferences (instead of the song).
• Keyboard events for settings values on rotaries and faders are not shadowed by the virtual keyboard anymore.
• Using bpm, beat counter, and tap tempo MIDI actions or OSC commands while timeline is activate does no longer result in countless popups.
• Pattern loading and deleting via the Sound Library has been fixed.

[1.2.6] - 2025-07-29

Added

• The AppImage version does now provide all drumkits in /usr/share/hydrogen/data/drumkits/ and /usr/local/share/hydrogen/data/drumkits/ via the "Sound Library" as session kits.

Changed

• Sample loading in songs has been made more portable.

Fixed

• Fix velocity automation for patterns that are not of size 4/4 (#2171).
• Fix saving and loading of sample files introduced in 1.2.5 (#2174).

[1.2.5] - 2025-07-17

Added

• CLI options --log-colors and --no-log-colors to enable and disable ANSI colors in log messages.
• CLI option --user-data for both hydrogen and h2cli to provide an alternative user-level data folder.
• CMake option -DWANT_QT6 to build Hydrogen using Qt6 instead of Qt5.

Changed

• The shortcut for starting/pausing transport can now be used while focusing spin boxes (like the BPM one) too (#2098).
• Combo boxes do not accept focus (and preventing shortcuts) anymore.
• LASH support has been deprecated and will be removed in version 2.0 of Hydrogen (#1649).
• Allow to select and copy version in About dialog (#2127).
• Number of parallel build jobs in build.sh is now set dynamically to number of virtual processors (#2128).
• Changelog was renamed CHANGELOG.md and converted from GNU-style changelog to markdown similar to https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/.
• Hydrogen no longer uses XSD files to validate XML files during loading or via h2cli --check but uses direct XML inspection instead.
• Minimal CMake version was bumped to 3.5.
• Option -qt5 was introduced to native Windows build script windows/Build-WinNative.ps1 to build against Qt5 instead of Qt6 (default).
• build.sh script compiles against Qt6 per default.

Fixed

• Fix compilation with LASH support enabled (#2076).
• Fix Hue slider in Preferences > Appearance > Color (#2081).
• Show the Crash Reporter and exit with return code 1 on unhandled exceptions.
• Fix crashes in SampleEditor (#2092).
• Fix track names in multi track export. When using just the file extension, the raw instrument names will be used (#2096).
• Fix import bug for drumkits created in version >= 2.0.
• Fix memory leakage for songs created in version >= 2.0.
• Fix memory leakage for notes with probability < 1.0.
• Fix incoming MIDI NOTE OFF handling.
• AppImage build folder is now removed on build.sh r (#2129).
• Fix potential crash with JACK audio driver on startup, teardown, or song/drumkit loading.
• In case the beginning of one note and the end of another coincide, Hydrogen now ensures to send Note-Off events before new Note-Ons (#2290).

Removed

• Qt XmlPatterns is no longer a dependency.
• Folder linux/debian containing outdated Debian package rules used by the previous development team to distributed Hydrogen as .deb package.
• Option -32bit was dropped in native Windows build script windows/Build-WinNative.ps1.

[1.2.4] - 2024-12-07

Added

• Forward compatibility for .h2song, .h2pattern, .h2playlist, and drumkit changes introduced in version 2.0.
• MIDI and OSC commands:
  • CLEAR_SELECTED_INSTRUMENT: to remove all notes of the selected pattern associated with the currently selected instrument.
  • CLEAR_PATTERN: to remove all notes of the selected pattern.
  • INSTRUMENT_PITCH: to adjust the pitch of an instrument.
• OSC commands:
  • Note-On and Note-Off: which are handled like incoming MIDI events without triggering their associated actions.
  • CLEAR_INSTRUMENT: to remove all notes of the selected pattern associated with the provided instrument number.
• CLI options:
  • -O/--osc-port: to use a custom OSC port in both hydrogen and h2cli.
  • -L/--log-file: to provide a path to an alternative log file.
  • -T/--log-timestamps: to add timestamps to all log messages.
  • --config: to use a different user-level config file.
  • --compression-level: for h2cli to set the trade-off between max. quality (.mp3 and .ogg)/max. speed (.flac) (0.0) and max. compression (1.0) for exported audio files.
• Adding support for importing and exporting audio files of format .mp3, .opus, .au, .caf, .voc, .w64. Drumkits containing those formats can be loaded with older versions of Hydrogen too. libsndfile >= 1.1.0 is required on your system for MP3 support. (#2023)
• X-NSM-Exec entry added to org.hydrogenmusic.Hydrogen.desktop by @grammoboy2 (#2042).
• Delete key does now remove selected notes and notes under cursor in note properties ruler.

Changed

• Brazilian translation updated.
• Grid lines in the Song Editor are now rendered dotted to emphasize that this is the space the patterns in rather than objects in their own right.
• Virtual keyboard strokes are now mapped exactly as incoming MIDI Note-On events (respecting both "Use output note as input note" and hihat pressure groups). But do not trigger associated actions (#1770).
• CLI option -d understand driver names regardless of capitalization.
• h2cli option -V is now able to handle whitespaces between flag and argument.
• h2cli long option for -k is renamed --drumkit -> kit in order to align the naming with the one used in hydrogen CLI options.
• Smaller keyboard cursor size with resolution set to off.
• Rename "J.Master" button into "Timebase".

Fixed

• Fix potential segfault on ill-formated notes in .h2song files.
• Fix buzzing sound during startup when using Port Audio (#1932).
• Fix build failure without precompiled headers (e.g. on Gentoo) (#1944).
• Fix persistent of hihat pressure group settings while changing/restarting MIDI drivers.
• Fix mapping of Note-Off MIDI messages in hihat pressure groups.
• Fix segfault when using MIDI sense button in table of Preferences > MIDI after removing rows above it from the table.
• Fix synchronization problems while using JACK Timebase support (#1953).
• Fix compilation error on macOS with case-sensitive filesystem (#1938).
• Fix usability with large QT_SCALE_FACTOR (#1933).
• Fix MIDI, WAV, and LilyPond export as well as drumkit import and export with with non-ASCII filenames (#1957).
• Paths to songs and scripts are now properly saved relative to a .h2playlist file (in case the corresponding option was set).
• Fix grid line rendering with resolution set to off (#2015).
• Fix handling of adjacent tags with same content in Director by @aldimond (#2036).
• Fix copy/cut/paste in Piano Roll Editor.

Removed

• Windows 32bit support dropped (due to upstream limitations).

[1.2.3] - 2024-01-12

Added

• Forward compatibility for .h2song and drumkit changes introduced in version 2.0.

Fixed

• Restore mute button state of master mixer strip on song load.
• Recorded MIDI notes were inserted ahead of the beat (#1851).
• Drumkit Property Dialog:
  • Images were written regardless whether one hits the ok or cancel button.
  • When using Save As to create a new drumkit, the added image was put in the old drumkit folder instead and not properly copied into the new one.
• Allow to Save As drumkits derived from kits not found on the current system.
• Audio Engine: In Song Mode with Loop Mode deactivated Hydrogen missed notes very close to the end of the song.
• Fix crash on playing back notes with custom length (#1852).
• macOS: fix naming of CoreMIDI header (#1865).
• Fix various rendering issues with custom length notes.
• Fix potential crash/failing startup on Windows in case PortAudio or PortMidi device is already occupied (#1893)
• Fix crash on shutdown, song export, or driver changes in the Preferences while using JACK on Linux (#1902, #1867, #1907)
• Pattern Editor:
  • Only delete stop notes clicked by the user. (#1859)
  • Proper undo of moving notes out of Drum Pattern Editor. (#1859)
  • Custom note lengths are now only drawn till the next stop note. (#1859)
  • Highlight selected stop notes too. (#1859)
  • Update selected notes visually on left and right keyboard movement. (#1859)
  • Fixed stop note color which was no different than the default note color (#1854).
  • Fixed grid line rendering on rational pattern size nominator.
  • Fixed grid line colors on very fine resolution.
• Fix broken file browser dialogs on Linux when using translations (#1908).
• Fix drumkit export on Windows (#1927).
• Timing drift (and artifacts) in playback track rendering on some hosts is fixed (#1920).

[1.2.2] - 2023-09-09

Added

• Hydrogen is now released as AppImage for Linux as well.
• Playlist dialog can now be resized and remembers geometry, position, as well as visibility.
• Save and restore Director position, geometry, and visibility.
• New and properly licensed AppStream metainfo files org.hydrogenmusic.Hydrogen.metainfo.xml replace old org.hydrogenmusic.Hydrogen.appdata.xml.
• Hydrogen shows an error dialog and exits on the first invocation with no hydrogen.conf file present on user and system level (application was not properly installed).
• A new cmake option WANT_DYNAMIC_JACK_CHECK was introduced. When set Hydrogen does check on startup whether jackd, jackdbus, or pw-jack is installed and disables JACK support in case none of them was found. This is intended for bundled builds, like AppImage and Flatpak, and can be overridden by setting the audio driver manually to "Jack" in the hydrogen.conf or by passing the -d jack CLI option.

Changed

• Spanish translation updated.
• Minor tweaks in French and German translation.
• On Linux the order of audio drivers tried when selecting Auto changed from "JACK > ALSA > OSS > PulseAudio" to "JACK > PulseAudio > ALSA > OSS".

Fixed

• Style combo box in Preferences > Appearance > Interface is working again.
• Fix segfault on hitting "Panic" button while transport was rolling.
• Instrument/strip-specific actions, like MIDI action STRIP_MUTE_TOGGLE, did void the instrument selection of the Instrument Editor if the specified instrument was not the currently selected one.
• Do not start playback at cursor when cursor in Song Editor is beyond the current song length.
• Fixed compatibility with PortMidi version 217 (Hydrogen v1.2.1 was incompatible). All versions of Hydrogen >=1.3 will, however, require on a more recent PortMidi version (at least v2.0.1) (#1795).
• Fixed allowed range of MIDI output notes to be [0,127] again (introduced in v1.2.0) (#1828).
• Hydrogen does now successfully startup even if no data folder is present on user and system level.
• Allow an arbitrary number of notes in a pattern (#1827).
• Fix playback track volume fader (#1449).

2023-06-08 the hydrogen team hydrogen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

[1.2.1] - 2023-06-08

Changed

• Update French translation

Fixed

• Fix reopening of last used Playlist. In addition, in case the PlaylistDialog was opened at the end of the last session - when "Reopen last used playlist" is checked in the Preferences - the dialog will be reopened too at the same position.
• Fix spurious marking of opened songs as modified.
• Fix MIDI (output) feedback for metronome toggling and pan setting.
• Fix superfluous MIDI event - Action bindings. An incoming MIDI event can be mapped to an Action only once.
• Fix tool tips of MIDI-learnable widgets. All bounded MIDI events will be shown.
• Fix MIDI note output for channel 16 (previously only channel 1-15 were accessible in the InstrumentEditor).
• Fix spurious tempo changes to 120bpm when switching songs or between pattern and song mode (#1779 and #1785).
• Support START, CONTINUE, and STOP type System Realtime MIDI messages in PortMidi and CoreMidi.
• Fix MIDI action binding to incoming MMC_DEFERRED_PLAY event.
• Fix missing MIDI driver restart when adjusting corresponding parameters in Preferences.
• Fix MIDI Machine Control (MMC) event type handling on Windows (#1773).
• Fix loading of legacy drumkits. All layers but the first one were dropped during drumkit upgrade (#1759).
• Fix MIDI input handling with "Discard MIDI messages after action has been triggered" checked. Incoming NOTEON message were dropped without triggering a sound (#1751).
• Fix beat and bar calculation in pattern mode (#1741).
• Fix compilation in GCC with -Werror=format-security (#1739).
• Explicit usage of Python3 in stats.py script.
• Fix build against Musl by @nekopsykose.
• Omit git commit hash in displayed version of release builds.

[1.2.0] - 2023-04-07

Added

• Introducing keyboard shortcut for the Open Pattern dialog.
• Allow for opening more than one Pattern at once.
• Implement missing EFFECT_LEVEL_RELATIVE MIDI action.
• Drumkit properties dialog does now feature a table listing all contained samples and associated licenses.
• OSC commands:
  • /Hydrogen/LOAD_DRUMKIT
  • /Hydrogen/UPGRADE_DRUMKIT
  • /Hydrogen/VALIDATE_DRUMKIT
  • /Hydrogen/EXTRACT_DRUMKIT
  • /Hydrogen/BPM
• h2cli options:
  • --upgrade: to upgrade a drumkit.
  • --check: to validate a drumkit.
  • --extract: to extract the content of a drumkit.
• Crash reporting: Fatal errors will now show a GUI report including details to report and potential hints about the cause.

Changed

• Remembering paths in all export/import/save/open dialogs.
• If the Timeline is activated, the tempo set using the BPM widget, BeatCounter, Tap Tempo, or MIDI/OSC commands is used left of the first tempo marker.
• The tempo provided by an external JACK timebase master overwrites all internal tempo settings.
• The BPM widget switches to read-only mode and displays the current playback speed when the Timeline is activated.
• Activation of the Timeline is now stored in each individual .h2song file.
• Autosave files will be hidden. The interval they are stored with as well whether there is an autosave at all can be set via the Preferences. Hydrogen will inform the user whether there are unsaved changes to recover taken from the autosave file.
• Hydrogen is now able to recover changes applied to a new and empty song in case they are discarded or the session end untimely (using autosave files).
• Multiple actions can be assigned to a single MIDI event.
• The virtual keyboard is now decoupled from the "Hear New Notes" button in the Pattern Editor and can be used to play back notes in song mode with playback rolling too.
• Mutable warning dialogs are shown when saving/exporting a drumkit containing samples of mismatching license and when saving/exporting a drumkit or song containing a copyleft license or one requiring an attribution.
• All actions accessible via right-clicking in the SoundLibrary do affect the stack drumkits and not the instrument list of the current song.
• All actions accessible via the Drumkits tab of the main menu do affect the loaded drumkit using the current song's custom instrument and component list.
• GUI:
  • Improved scalability (most PNG images were replaced by SVGs, hardcoded PNG labels are now directly drawn by Qt, and spin boxes, buttons, and combo boxes are now based on native Qt widgets).
  • Improved internationalization (all labels are translatable now and support UTF-8).
  • Improved accessibility (widgets were increased to fill available space, preference option to (de- and) increase font size).
  • All colors can be altered via the preferences.
  • Input widgets (rotary, fader, combo box, spin box, button) do support both mouse and keyboard input (e.g. setting numerical values).
  • Input widgets are faintly highlighted when hovered and more strongly highlighted when clicked (focuses). Only the focused widget can receive keyboard input.
  • MIDI-learnable widgets now show their corresponding MIDI action and it's binding in the tooltip.
  • It's now possible to jump to the beginning of the currently playing pattern by clicking its position on the ruler in the pattern editor.
  • The length of patterns can now be changed while transport is rolling.
• PreferencesDialog > Appearance tab overhaul:
  • Drop previous font options in favor for three different levels of font (without exposing their point sizes).
  • Ability to decrease or increase the overall font size.
  • All settings in the Appearance tab - except the overall layout and the scaling policy - take effect immediately (no restart required anymore).
  • Drop the "fixed" coloring methods and rename "steps" to "Custom".
  • Via a colored button the particular line color can now be adjusted using a QColorDialog.
  • Custom color tab to alter all colors in the GUI (big thanks to the Muse4 team for the original code).
  • All options set in the Appearance tab can be imported and exported into and shared via dedicated .h2theme files.
  • Overhauled MIDI Table:
    • Per effect or layer setting are now done in dedicated spin boxes instead of providing individual actions for each.
    • Only spin boxes for parameters required for a particular action are shown.
    • Rows can be removed by unsetting both the Event and Action combo box.
  • Clicking the widget showing the status messages does now open a dropdown menu displaying the last 100 messages.
• Set CoreAudio (macOS) buffer size to control latency
• New fast exponential ADSR envelope processing
• Start/end/loop frame slider selection and motion as well as velocity/pan envelope editing in Sample Editor have been reworked.
• SongEditor UX improvements:
  • Tags can now be inserted at all possible columns.
  • Hovering a Tag displays its content.
  • Changed behavior of the Tempo Marker dialog: When clicking an existing Tempo Marker it can be moved, edited, or deleted. Clicking a column with no Tempo Marker present allows to create a new one at an arbitrary location.
  • Timeline is deactivated automatically when switching to Pattern Mode or a JACK timebase master is present.
  • The tempo used left of the first tempo marker is painted in a darker color.
  • The currently used Tempo Marker gets highlighted.
  • Tags have been moved into Timeline (next to the Tempo Markers) in order to make room to accommodate the cursor in the ruler to highlight the current position.
  • Tags can be inserted by left-clicking the bottom area of the Timeline (above the ruler).
  • Clicking the ruler is now always enabled and automatically switches transport into Song Mode.
  • Full-size playhead.
  • The icons in the pattern list indicating whether a pattern is playing in stacked pattern mode are now colored and can have four different states: on, off, off next (pattern is played till the end and then turned off), and on next (pattern is played as soon as transport is looped again).
  • In song mode the pattern editor can be locked meaning that always the bottom-most pattern of the current column the playhead resides in as well as all other playing notes are shown. Pattern selection is done automatically when moving into a different column.
• PatternEditor UX tweaks:
  • Relocating transport by clicking the ruler is now supported (like in the SongEditor) and automatically switches transport into Pattern Mode.
  • Full-size playhead.
  • The ruler was decoupled from the currently selected pattern. It always has the size of the largest playing pattern and always shows the transport position using a playhead. Whether or not the current pattern is played back is indicated by a full-height cursor.
  • All note properties except of the note key can now be altered in both the drum pattern editor and the piano roll editor by right-clicking and dragging a note.
  • All notes of the currently playing patterns will be hinted in stacked pattern mode, when selecting a virtual pattern, or in case the pattern editor is locked in song mode. Even those notes exceeding the length of the current pattern are shown.
• OSC commands /Hydrogen/STRIP_SOLO_TOGGLE/X and /Hydrogen/STRIP_MUTE_TOGGLE/X can now be called without any argument too.
• h2cli: Drumkit supplied using -k option can now be either the name of an install kit or an absolute path to a kit (does not have to be located in the Hydrogen's drumkit folder).

Fixed

• All available audio drivers can now be chosen via CLI.
• Fix dithering of SongEditor when viewing the playback track and resizing the application or for very small size (#1379).
• Fix rewinding to beginning of pattern in pattern mode with no pattern inserted in SongEditor (#932).
• Fix display of tags and tempo marker while loading a song (introduced in 1.1.0) (#1393).
• Default MIDI driver is now picked with the system's capabilities in mind.
• Remove unwanted samples at the end of the exported song (to .wav) (#946).
• Fix undefined tempo before first tempo marker (#416).
• Fix Song export to keep writing till all notes and FX have faded out.
• Notes at first ticks in pattern were missed when relocation transport using the position ruler.
• Fix playhead glitches when adding toggling patterns at the end of the song after transport was loop at least once.
• Deactivating loop mode result stopping transport at the end of the song even if transport was already looped at least once.
• Relocation of the playhead use JACK is now also support in case transport is not rolling.
• Hydrogen is now able to handle multiple drumkits featuring the same name in the SoundLibrary. The drumkit's absolute path will be used as unique handler from now on.
• Mixing instruments from different drumkit in one Song works again.
• Hydrogen shows a now a warning dialog when exporting/saving date to read-only folders.
• Fix text overflow in Director.

[1.1.1] - 2021-12-05

Fixed

• Fix preferences dialog "OK" button behaviour (#1375).
• Fix rewinding to beginning of pattern in pattern mode with no pattern inserted in SongEditor (#932).
• Fix display of tempo marker while loading a song (introduced in 1.1.0) (#1393).
• Fix LADSPA issues, most audible on PulseAudio (#1403).
• Fix window placement when screen sizes change (#1369).
• Explicitly set latency target for PortAudio (Windows) audio driver, enabling much lower audio latency on Windows.

[1.1.0] - 2021-09-04

Added

• Keyboard cursor-driven pattern, song and note properties editing.
• Note selection and movement in pattern editors.
• New OSC commands (new song, open song, save song (as), quit, toggle looped playback, toggle timeline, toggle JACK transport, toggle JACK timebase master, add/delete timeline marker, toggle song/pattern playback mode).
• Custom pan law support in mixer.

Changed

• NSM support reworked.
• Deprecating JACK-session.
• Instrument main pitch shift offset.
• Custom pattern size support with representation in note values.
• Allow audio device selection for CoreAudio and PortAudio.
• Attempt to find fallback Audio drivers if user preferred driver fails, as if the "Auto" driver option were selected.

Fixed

• Many bug fixes including application crashes and audio glitches.

[1.0.2] - 2021-04-11

Added

• User-selectable translation language.

Fixed

• Bug fixes including critical startup bug on macOS Big Sur.

[1.0.1] - 2020-08-29

Changed

• Disabled "development mode" warning.

Fixed

• Fixed compilation with libtar.
• Fixed JACK transport tempo drift when using non-integer bpm values.
• Fix crash on saving ladspa settings.

2020-08-03 the hydrogen team hydrogen-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

[1.0.0] - 2020-08-03

Added

• QT 5 support.
• New default drumkit: GMRockKit.
• Probability note property.
• Velocity automation.
• OSC support.
• MIDI feedback.
• Fullscreen mode.

Changed

• Menu redesign.

[0.9.7] - 2016-11-01

Added

• The color of the SongEditors squares is now configurable.
• Added support for MIDI cymbal choking.
• Added support for MIDI hihat pressure control.
• Added hihat pressure groups.
• Added basic non session manager (NSM) support.
• Added instrument components.
• Basic lilypond export.
• New windows cross compilation script.
• Support for soundlibrary images.
• Configurable sample selection algorithm.
• Donation dialog.
• MIDI action:
  • SELECT_PREV_PATTERN_RELATIVE.

[0.9.6] - 2014-08-03

Added

• New build system (cmake).
• Add undo for song/pattern editor.
• Jack-session support.
• Jack-MIDI support.
• Several bug fixes.
• Tabbed interface.
• Several small changes to the GUI.
• Improve ExportSong add use of TimeLineBPM, RubberbandBatch processor and different types of resample interpolation.

[0.9.5] - 2011-03-15

Added

• Multi-track export.
• LADI support.
• Maximum number of bars is now configurable.
• Added czech translation.
• Added .ogg, .flac, .aiff export support.
• Added some new commandline parameter for no-GUI version.
• Added rubberband-cli support.
• Added NO_GUI_SUPPORT to build a version of hydrogen without a GUI.
• Added support for app bundles on OSX.
• Non destructive sample editor.
• Piano roll editor.
• Instrument midi out.
• Destructive MIDI recording.
• Support for MIDI "note off" messages.
• Virtual patterns.
• Time line to change song tempo and add tags.
• Director.

Changed

• Load playlists at startup.
• MIDI-learn works now with shift-click on some GUI elements.
• Several improvements on sample editor.
• XML handling is now done by QtXml instead of TinyXML.
• Improved support for non-ASCII filenames / strings.
• Remove direct dependencies to libflac.

Fixed

• Fixed several export song failures.

[0.9.4] - 2009-09-12

Added

• QT4 port.
• Autosave.
• Mute groups for instruments.
• New drumkit manager (with downloadable drumkits).
• Save and load patterns.
• JACK transport master.
• Beatcounter.
• Playlist editor.
• MMC.
• Lead / lag (pattern editor).
• Audio file browser.
• MIDI Autosense.
• Change post master fader fx return to pre master fader fx return.
• Several new translations.
• New manual.
• Switched buildsystem from autotools to scons.
• Soundlibrary browser.

Changed

• JACK port follows instrument names.

Fixed

• Tons of bugfixes.

[0.9.3.1] - 2008-02-05

Added

• Added LASH support (Jaakko Sipari).

Fixed

• Patch from Lubomir Kundrak - Compilation with gcc-4.3.
• Compilation fix for new libFLAC++.

[0.9.2] - 2005-07-23

Added

• New graphics.
• Automatic audio driver selection.
• New PortAudio and PortMidi drivers.
• Mac Os X port.
• Random pitch variations.
• New instrument editor.
• Low pass filter.
• Insert/delete a range of patterns in song editor.

Changed

• Follow playhead in song editor.
• Pattern size increased up to 4 bars.

Fixed

• Bug fix in export song (using JACK driver).
• Bug fix in export song (wrong samplerate).

[0.9.1] - 2004-11-28

Added

• New ALSA driver.
• New french tutorial and manual page (thanks to Pierre 'AlSim' Chapuis).

Fixed

• Various bug fixes.

[0.9.0] - 2004-09-08

Added

• Multi layer support for instruments (up to 16 samples).
• Multiple patterns playing at once.
• Added FLAC files support for songs and drumkits.
• Added pitch and gain properties per instrument.
• Added a new selectable user interface (single panel).
• Ability to set the note length in pattern editor.
• Export song to standard MIDI file.

Changed

• Improved song and pattern editor (selections, copy/move, etc..).
• Better jack-transport support.

[0.8.2] - 2004-03-15

Added

• Audio file preview in load instrument dialog.
• 4 Ladspa FX send per instrument.
• Show recent used songs.
• QT Style selection option in Preferences Dialog.
• New keybindings.
• LRDF support (optional).
• Virtual keyboard (using qwertyuiop...).
• Ability to record midi-in or virtual keyboard notes in a pattern.

Changed

• JACK transport improvements.
• Several GUI improvements.
• Better MIDI-in support.

Fixed

• Bug fix in load/save song.

[0.8.1] - 2003-12-18

Added

• MIDI and CPU activity widgets.
• JACK transport slave mode.
• Multiple JACK outputs.
• Resizable song editor.
• Seek in song clicking in the song editor.
• New mixer.
• 32 instruments.
• Custom pattern size.
• Per instrument output (JACK driver).
• MMC/MTC support (experimental).
• i18n support.

[0.8.0] - 2003-05-25

Added

• Delay FX.
• Assignable JACK ports in preferences file.
• Assignable MIDI-in channel (1..16, ALL).
• Drumkit support (load, save, import, export).
• Acoustic drumkit included.

Changed

• Various GUI improvements.

Fixed

• Bug fix in ALSA MIDI Driver.

[0.7.6] - 2003-03-24

Added

• Humanize function.
• Swing function.
• New child frame interface.
• Stereo peak visualization in mixer.
• New song editor.

Changed

• Improved pattern editor.

Fixed

• Bug fix in note velocity editor.

[0.7.5] - 2003-02-23

Added

• Song loop button.
• Velocity bar in pattern editor.
• Instrument pan in mixer.
• Demo songs.

Changed

• Better graphical user interface.

Fixed

• Thread safe audio engine.