[clam-devel] CLAM 1.4.0

[David García Garzón]

The CLAM project[1] is delighted to announce the long awaited 1.4.0 release of 
the C++ framework for Audio and Music, code name '3D molluscs in the space'.

[1] http://clam-project.org

In summary, this long term release includes a lot of new spacialization 
modules for 3D audio; MIDI, OSC and guitar effects modules; architectural 
enhancements such as typed controls; nice usability features for the 
NetworkEditor interface; convenience tools and scripts to make CLAM experience 
better; enhanced building of LADSPA plugins and new support for LV2 and VST 
plugin building; a new easy to use application to explore songs chords called 
Chordata; many optimizations, bug fixing and code clean ups.

Many thanks to the people who contributed to this release, including but not 
limited to the GSoC 2008 students and all the crew at Barcelona Media's Audio 
Group.

Some highlights of the release:

* Chordata is a new CLAM application which offers a user friendly way to 
explore the chords of your favourite songs, using already existing technology 
in the CLAM framework but with a much simpler interface. [2]

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVmkIznjUPE

* The spacialization module and helper tools, contributed by Barcelona Media 
[3] audio group, turn CLAM in tandem with Blender and Ardour, into a powerful 
3D audio authoring and exhibition platform.[4] 

[3] http://barcelonamedia.org 
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSfqJUIAiXk

* Typed controls extend CLAM with the ability to use whichever C++ type as the 
message for a control. So, not just floats, but also bools, enums, integers, or 
envelopes can be sent as asynchronous controls. Examples on boolean and MIDI 
controls are provided.

* NetworkEditor has been ported to the QGraphicsView [5] framework. Dealing 
with heavy networks such the big ones used in Barcelona Media have pushed many 
usability enhancements into its interface: multi-wire dragging, wire 
highlighting, default port and control actions, network and in-canvas 
documentation... [6]

[5] http://doc.trolltech.com/latest/qgraphicsview.html
[6] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kt0WDmvMwo

* It also made necessary to provide a tool such clamrefactor.py to perform 
batch high level changes to clam network XML files such as renaming processing 
types, ports, or configuration parameters, changing configuration values, 
duplicating sets of processings, connecting them...

* Music Annotator application now is designed to aggregate several sources of 
descriptors and update them after edit. Descriptors are mapped to a work 
description schema that can be graphically defined. Also semantic web 
descriptor sources to access webservices such as MusicBrainz have been 
implemented.

You can download sources, windows, debian and ubuntu packages from the 
download page[7]. Contributed binaries for other platforms are welcome.

[7] http://clam-project.org/download/ 

See also:
Screenshots: http://clam-project.org/wiki/Development_screenshots
Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/group/clamproject
Detailed changelog: http://clam-project.org/clam/trunk/CLAM/CHANGES
Version migration guide: http://clam-project.org/wiki/Version_Migration_Guide



-- 
David García Garzón
(Work) david dot garcia at upf anotherdot edu
http://www.iua.upf.edu/~dgarcia