V5.3 New Features, Upgrades and Bug Fixes

[admin]

New Features and Upgrades

[li]Add Copy Segments From... command - With a project open, this will allow opening a second project to see its list of segments. Selecting a segment allows making a copy of it in the open project. When copying complex, combined segments, all underlying audio layers are copied. Thus, uncombining a copied layered segment operates normally.

[li]Update Save As... dialog boxes - The Save as SF, Wave, Aiff, Project and Segments as Files command dialog boxes have been upgraded to the new explorer dialog box.

[li]Restore the Skip and Amp Zone dialog boxes prior operation - The changes made in V5.2 are being removed to restore the prior Zone operations. The location of the dialog boxes will be persistent, with each sharing the same location last moved to. The Zone Defaults command has been restored, and the Display Defaults command entries for zones remain.

[li]On-screen Fader controller - The display/hide state is now persistent. When Microeditor is exited, the state is stored and appears when the Microeditor is opened.

[li]Modify the Open File Locate Operation - When a project or any sample files it uses are moved, when opening the project the sample files must be located. This use to be one at a time. This is changed to now search all paths currently used in the project. Thus, once a file has been located, all others in that same path will automatically be located.

[li]Maximum Open Audio Files Now 400 - The number of sound or wave files that can be used in a project was 58 file. This is now 400 files.

[li]Limit Sample Files at 2GB - Checks have been added to prevent any sound file, default sound file or wave file created by Microeditor from exceeding 2GB. In the past, static mixing, recording, or effects layers could cause a sample file to exceed 2GB and become unusable. This allows safely using third-party (not Microsoft) FAT-32 drive formatting to exceed 2GB logical drive partitions. Thus, a 45B hard drive can be a single partition (i.e. 45GB) and Microeditor will automatically prevent its files from growing over 2GB.

[li]Combine Group Segments Hot Key- This is now the C key.

[li]Install Program Creates a Desktop Icon - The prior Install program did not create a Microeditor Icon on the Windows Desktop.

[li]Direct-X Plug-in... Command - This new command is the major addition to V5.3. It allows running up to 8 plug-ins to simultaneously process the input audio stream. It allows live adjusting one plug-in properties dialog box at a time. It requires a multimedia audio card to operate, playing out that card during live adjust. This is required because the Krystal DSP sound card is tied up processing the segment or project audio stream live on the fly without delay. It allows these additional source and destination filters:
[UL]
[li]Input Selected Segment or Whole Project - When using a selected segment, its edited audio stream is processed. When using the project, the mix of all the edited segments in the open project are processed. The output for either case can be any selection available.
[li]Handle 24-bit Files - Extra coding has been done to process 24-bit files, and error checking was added to detect if 16 or 24 bits were involved.
[li]Hide Unwanted Filters - A means was added for you to hide direct-x filters that you don't want to see when you select a filter.
[li]Name Segment dialog - This popup dialog box appears when creating a segment to allow adding a name. When processing a selected segment, the default name is the same as the selected segment. When processing the whole project, the first time used the name is blank, but subsequent segments have the last name entered as the default.
[li]Mono Segments Panned Stereo - Direct-x can only process the original file stream. Thus, if a mono sample file is used in a segment which is changed to play stereo, direct-x processing will create a mono processed stream again. The selected original segment edits are applied. The only tradeoff made is only one gain change can be used. Thus, the gain setting on channel 1 (or A) is used and the other ignored.
[li]Track Assignments - Segments created with the Direc-X Plug-Ins have channel assignments the same as the selected segment.
[li]New Segments Align to Selected Segment - Created segments position in the project at the same starting location as the selected segment when this is the input source.
[/UL]

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Bug Fixes

[li]Default menu, Display Defaults command - Max Scan Display Setting - This now comes from the microsnd.ini file to retain your selection for the length of time waveforms can appear before showing as a dotted line.

[li]VU meters in Edit Segment View - The VU meters now work the same way in Edit Segment View as they do in the Project Waveform View. Earlier they did not function except while playing.

[li]Update Virtual Device Driver - New sound cards available on the market dynamically change interrupts after the computer is running. Our VXD driver was upgraded to prevent other drivers from overwriting Krystal's IRQ.

[font color=red]WARNING! Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live card adds so much noise on the PCI backplane that MTU's Krystal DSP Engine cannot perform reliably with this card installed.[/font]

[wayupnorth]

Does that mean I'll still need to add a multimedia card to my workstation even if I only want to use DNoise 3.0 with ME5.3?

[wayupnorth]

I saw some reference to this problem (Microsoft FAT 32) earlier on the MTU website. Can you clarify what "(not Microsoft) FAT-32 drive formatting" means? Is it the format, or the formatting software that is at fault?

Will I be able to use Power Quest's Partition Magic to convert (and consolidate) my existing FAT16 partitions to 32 bit, or does PQ yield the same format as the Win98 converter? If PQ doesn't work, what 3rd party formatting software will do FAT32 without problems for MicroEditor?

[admin]

Audio Card Requirement - To listen to the processed direct-x audio output while you are adjusting a plug-in's parameters, you will need a multimedia sound card. Krystal is fully used for creating the edited segment (if a segment is selected in the project and chosen for processing), or the project mix. It cannot be used for audio output at the same time.

If you don't have an audio card, you can do the processing (without hearing it), save it to the hard drive, create a segment and hear it in Microeditor 5.3. The audio card allows you to hear while you are adjusting live.

FAT32 Operation for Audio - Partition Magic works fine for FAT32 formatting, where Windows FAT32 will cause several problems.