23rd December 2023

General releases for all librarians

• Improved registration process. You now no longer have to quit the program to activate the disabled features.
• Provided a workaround for the OSX Java file selector bug that reports a non existent directory when you have double clicked a directory to select it.
• All librarians have been updated to the latest versions of Java and support libraries to help maintain security.

I am pleased to announce the first release of summit.factory, my new librarian for the amazing Novation Summit and Peak Synthesizers.

After ten years of operating my Fast Spring Store, I have reluctantly had to put up my prices for the first time for new Customers. This is because of price increases of the development tool subscriptions used to create the librarians, and also new annual costs coming in such as identify verification on the store, etc. I have however increased the permitted license activation count from two to three.

See the Products Page for the latest downloads.

10th September 2023

Some bug fixes and improvements for fs.factory, montage.factory and sy.factory

• fs.factory IMPROVEMENT: support for manual bulk dump imports from the FS1R, which are much faster than commanded transfer requests
• fs.factory BUG FIX: Fixed a bug in the database view that was preventing selection of different database views.
• fs.factory BUG FIX: Fixed a bug in the open/save workspace function that was preventing Librarian Windows being saved/restored by the workspace file.
• montage.factory IMPROVEMENT: Added a new feature that disables any edits to a file when a file is as read only. Drag copy, and clipboard copy and Save As are still enabled.
• montage.factory IMPROVEMENT: Added a new feature that when enabled in Preferences creates JSON files when a file is opened or saved.
• montage.factory BUG FIX: Fixed a problem with files and live set references when migrating older version files to the latest file version.
• montage.factory BUG FIX: Fixed a problem with JSON file creation when the Montage performance name has invalid characters at the start.
• montage.factory BUG FIX: Fixed a problem which was stopping files from opening when there is no library header in the file.
• sy.factory BUG FIX: Fixed an issue with the import of TG77 Multis.

See the Products Page for the latest downloads.

22nd December 2022

First release of montage.factory. See the Products Page for the latest downloads.

20th December 2022

This release of librarians is to cover some general bug fixes and enhancements across all librarians and some specific feature enhancements for some librarians. See the Products Page for the latest downloads.

General bug fix: Fixed a bug in drag and drop (most noticeable in kronos.factory and montage.factory due to file sizes) where drag and drop operations were occasionally failing and providing an error message about copy and paste not being possible.

General bug fix: Fixed a bug where using the View/Refresh menu option killed drag and drop.

General enhancement: Updated the status bar's file name display to show a truncated path (with the filename fully visible) if the the full path will not fit in the available space.

px.factory enhancement: You can now double click in a table to select lower level tables rather than using the context menu. (e.g. Program Bank Collection, Program Banks) and px.factory will move down to the next level until you get to discrete objects (e.g. Program) You can double click with the ALT key (OPTION key on OS X) held down to traverse upwards

kronos.factory enhancement: You can now double click in a table to select lower level tables rather than using the context menu. (e.g. Program Bank Collection, Program Banks) and kronos.factory will move down to the next level until you get to discrete objects (e.g. Program) You can double click with the ALT key (OPTION key on OS X) held down to traverse upwards

kronos.factory bug fix: Fixed a "class cast" exception bug when copying a selection of set lists.

sy.factory enhancement: Add an export sample menu option to allow internal SY99 samples to be saved to WAV files.

17th May 2022

New installers for all librarians for PC, OSX and Linux (Debian).

The Java runtime is now embedded in the application, so there is no longer a need for Users to separately install Java.

The OS X Disk Image (DMG) downloads are now "Notarized" for compliance with OS X's new security policies.

That doesn't sound a lot, but it has been six months of work on and off to migrate to a new build system and tool chain and learn about Apple Notarizaton!

Now this change to the build process and packaging is out of the way, I can get back to finishing off the first release of montage.factory!

Things have been very quiet on the x.factory front for a while, due to very hectic work demands and more focus on actually making music! However, work on the librarians is ongoing.

I have been intending for a while to look at the installers and operating system wrappers as what I am using is currently getting a little old and behind the times. Also, now I have reasonable broadband speeds (at last!) via a 4G solution, I am looking at embedding the Java run time in the applications, so that users no longer need to worry about it. I couldn't do this before as my upload speeds on my landline were pitifully slow.

The move to embedded Java is pretty much necessitated on OS X because its security model is getting tighter, and my current MAC application package is failing on the latest OS X versions, but trying to work a solution for that and remaining backwards compatible with earlier OS X versions was proving impossible where the Java run time is standalone. I also think an embedded Java Runtime will vastly simplify the experience, and I know that the application works with that Java runtime.

Therefore, over Christmas I put a lot of work into migrating how I package the applications (including installers), and I now have that working nicely for OS X for ex.factory, because i develop first on OS X. The installation experience is now also more OS X like, as you download a disk image (DMG) file, and the software is also now "notarized" so that Gatekeeper is aware of it.

My next steps are:

• Setup a "Virtual Machine" System on OS X so I can run Windows and Linux on the same machine. This will be essential as the new way of building installers can only be done on the target OS (my old scheme could build all installers on OS X).
• Build the new installer package for ex.factory for Windows and test.
• Build the new installer package for ex.factory for Linux and test.
• Migrate all librarians to the new scheme.
• Test and release.
• Finally, I have spent the last few years of what development effort I have had on devoping a librarian for the Yamaha Montage. This is close to being finished, however it is on hold until I have the new build scheme working. Hopefully it will not be long after that before I can release a preview version of montage.factory!

New release of all librarians that fixes the problem on Mac OS X Mojave and Catalina which was preventing access to protected folders.

Made the following fixes/enhancements to sy.factory:

• Fixed checksum calculation bug that was stopping samples being imported into empty WaveBlade BIN files.
• Added an error check to prevent Wave Card files greater than 2MB being saved.

Made the following fixes/enhancements to both ex.factory and sy.factory:

• tritonus sample libraries are now provided with the application package, as Java 11 no longer seems to recognise external libraries on OS X in the /Libraries/Java/Extensions path.

New release of sy.factory: More improvements to WaveBlade Java 11 compatibility and other WaveBlade enhancements

• The file checksum is now computed and shown in the status bar when editing a WaveBlade BIN file.
• Added improved status reporting and logging for WaveBlade support.
• WaveBlade uploads and downloads are now checked to ensure the transfer has been successful by comparing the upload/download against the checksum that is computed by the WaveBlade.
• In WaveBlade Preferences you can set the delay parameter for WaveBlade downloads.

New release of sy.factory: Updated the serial port library required for the Sector 101 WaveBlade for Java 11 compatibility.

Fixed a bug in the default library path, which was causing a blank library to be created inside the current library. If you have been hit by this bug, DON'T PANIC! Your library data has not been lost! please get in touch with me via email at support@xfactory-librarians.co.uk so that I can guide you through resetting your library path.

All librarians are now updated to be compatible with Java 11 and above. This is a significant step forward for long term support, which is necessary as Java's licensing model has changed (see the Java page for details) and its update frequency is increasing.

All librarians now support MIDI data logging (to assist me in any remote problem diagnosis), and they all have a new convenience feature where double clicking a Voice in an open file or the library will send the Voice to a synth's edit buffer. A triple click will also open the MIDI router after sending the Voice to the synth. These are features that have been in sy.factory for a little while, which I have now rolled out to all librarians.

This release has cleared the decks to allow me to focus on writing a new librarian for the Yamaha Montage!

fc.factory 1.0 for the Roland FC300 is released.

px.factory 1.0 for the Sequential Prophet X is released.

sy.factory 3.12 is released.

• If you double click on a voice in the Library view, a Tree View or Table view, it will automatically be exported to the SY edit buffer.
• There is a new option in the Library view that, when set, allows you to automatically export a voice to the SY edit buffer when it is selected.
• You can now select multiple Voices in the Library and set Comments, Ratings, Category in one step.
• You can now load 512KB SY77 Wave Card BIN images to the WaveBlade Programmer.
• Added support for reading SY77 Data Card BIN images
• Added support for importing DX7 data in MIDIQUEST SQ or SQL formats.
• Fixed a bug when importing DX7 data and the resulting JNN was corrupt if the sy.factory DEVICE type was set to SY99. sy.factory now correctly creates an SY77 or SY99 JNN file depending on the DEVICE setting.

kronos.factory 1.0 is now released!

Development of this application has been quite a long journey due to the flexibility (and complexity of the PCG file format), so it has taken much longer than expected (and during a time when I have a lot going on music wise).

sy.factory has some small bug fixes applied to it, and also has a new option for logging MIDI data to assist me in diagnosing any MIDI problems on a user's system. This option, when enabled will write the MIDI traffic that sy.factory sends and receives into the log file. I plan to build this into all applications in the next release cycle.

All applications have been rebuilt using new build and deploy tools, as some of the ones that I was using are no longer supported.

The minimum Java version for these new builds is now Java 8 as Oracle no longer support Java 7, and no longer provide public security updates for Java 7.

My main focus remains on getting kronos.factory finished and released, which is nearly there now. This has been a very complex and long journey! Probably the longest I have ever spent on any librarian due to complexity and flexibility of the file formats.

I have been looking at migrating beyond Java 8 to Java 9 and above, and that was progressing quite nicely. Unfortunately, it all came to a halt when I learnt that Java 9 on Windows is corrupting MIDI Device names, replacing the final few characters of the name with junk, which means that if you have a device with multiple ports that you might not be able to distinguish them. So I abandoned the migration for now, and will shortly be filing bug reports to Open Java. Oracle will continue supporting Java 8 until 2020 and this remains the recommended version for x.factory librarians until this bug is resolved.

As I haven't posted any news for a while, I thought I would just post that I am working hard at getting a first release of kronos.factory ready, which will of course support the Korg Kronos (V3 software). Once the basic librarian is complete, I will then look at a couple of things I have been meaning to do for a while, which will then flow back into the other librarians. These are: Java 9 support and high resolution monitor support.

I am currently investigating the possibility of a Librarian for the Roland FC300 MIDI foot controller, as trying to do patch management on this powerful device is painful! I've had mine for ten years, but over that time, I have only been gigging in one band (Welsh Floyd) with a static set list, so, to date, editing on the device has not been a problem. But now I am doing other things, it is!

I've been editing the website to ensure that I am compliant with EU GDPR regulations which come into force on 25th May. On the Contact and Newsletter page, you can manually opt into my mailing list, and also unsubscribe if you wish. There are also instructions on how you can request to see the data held about you if you are subscribed to the list.

I have also created Trello Boards for the applications, which allow you to follow status of development, reported bugs, etc. Registered Trello users added as members to the boards will be able to add content such as feature requests and bug reports.

Finally, as part of doing this GDPR compliance, I've finally gotten around to creating a news letter! Now I have cracked how to use the mailing client, I will start providing more regular updates when there is something to announce. If you are not already signed up, you can sign up on the Contact and Newsletter page.

Various minor bug fixes, GUI improvements and migration to CoreMIDI4J (OS X users).

Further improvements to error logging in all applications.

Bug fixes to sy.factory to fix recently reported problems.

All librarians updated to improve handling of MIDI errors when opening MIDI ports, and also on timeouts during data reception.

All librarians updated to support application error logging.

All librarians updated to use latest version of CoreMIDI4J.

sy.factory 3.11.02 released, which corrects a few reported bugs.

sy.factory 3.11.01 released, which corrects a small problem with connecting to Sector 101's WaveBlade programmable Wave Card and WaveBlade Programmer.

All librarians updated to improve database performance when editing items within large databases.

sy.factory 3.11 released, which allows direct programming of Sector 101's WaveBlade programmable Wave Card and WaveBlade Programmer from within sy.factory.

ex.factory 6.9.01 released, which allows sample playback to work with later versions of Java.

All librarians updated to embed CoreMIDI4J for OS X, so users no longer need to install it manually

PLEASE NOTE: The minimum JRE version required for the librarians is now Java 7.

sy.factory 3.9.01 released, fixing a bug when saving SYSEX files

PLEASE NOTE: The minimum JRE version required for the librarians is now Java 7.

Updated all x.factory Librarians to use CoreMID4J on Mac OSX.

Updated all x.factory Librarians to use Launch4J application launcher on PC.

sy.factory: finalised support for the SY "Wave Card" Format for use with Sector 101's WaveBlade programmable Wave Card and WaveBlade Programmer, which allows you to use your own samples with an SY77 or TG77.

PLEASE NOTE: The minimum JRE version required for the librarians is now Java 7.

Updated all x.factory Librarians to use a new automated licensing system.

sy.factory 3.7 released, with support for SY99 Card (CNN) files, and improved sample playback on Java 7.

sy.factory 3.6 released, with support for SY99 User Waves and Samples.

All applications now have a Linux Installer.

I would like to give my public thanks for Sean Magner for working with me to create these Linux installers.

SY99 support extended to allow SYSEX data transfers via MIDI for everything except Wave/Sample data (coming next!).

Improved the import of DX7 data, correcting some algorithm errors and tweaking some parameters to get better results.

Updated sy.factory to allow the conversion of Voices and Performances in DX7 and DX7II SYSEX files to SY77 Voice format. Single files can be opened, or you can batch convert files. The program will also convert DX7II Performances to SY77 Voices.

Updated VL70m import options to allow VL70m Edit Buffer SYSEX files to be loaded (in addition to VL LIB and VL MID files already supported.

Updated sy.factory to provide access to two MIDI devices. For example, I have an SY77 and a TG77 and need access to both.

Updated MIDI Routers in all applications to allow the MIDI Channel to be either the channel sent by the source device, or to be the channel specified in the MIDI Options Dialog.

Updated all librarians to resolve the Java MIDI access problems encountered with later versions of OS X, which are due to problems with Apple's Java MIDI implementation. Note, the use of the MMJ MIDI Extension is required now instead of Plumstone, which is no longer supported. See the Installation Instructions for details.

The librarians have all been tested on OS X Mountain Lion using an Edirol UA-25 USB Interface, or in the case of Motif Factory the latest Yamaha USB Drivers for OS X. PC compatibility has been tested using Windows 7 as the base OS.

Updated all librarians so that the application launchers are compatible with Intel Macs, now that Apple do not install Rosetta (the PPC compatibility layer) by default. The old application launcher was a PPC application, so x.factory Librarians were not launching on OSX Snow Leopard and OSX Lion. The new Application launcher is compatible with PPC and Intel Macs from OSX Leopard onwards.

Released ex.factory 6.2.03, which fixes a bug that was causing the Channel Number setting in the MIDI Preferences page to be ignored meaning that bank and patch change commands were always being sent on Channel 1.

Released an.factory 2.2.03 which fixes a bug that was causing a "NULL" error when saving a file as a different type.

All applications updated with a new installer that detects whether a 64 bit version of Windows has a 64 bit Java Runtime Environment installed on it. If so the PC application launcher will be configured to use the 64 bit JRE, which gives better performance over the 32 bit JRE.

If a PC has both 32 and 64 bit JREs then the application launcher will be configured to use the 64 bit JRE

Released ex.factory 6.2.01 and motif.factory 3.3.01, which fix a few bugs that I have found.

These have been tested on Windows 7, 64 Bit edition, with a 32 bit JRE.

Released new versions of all librarians with additional Library features.

Released ex.factory 6.1 and motif.factory.3.2, which have had library batch import facilities added.

Released sy.factory 3.0, SY99 and TG77 support added, along with other enhancements.

Released fs.factory 2.2, with support for batch import to library

Released an.factory 2.1, with support for two AN devices connected at the the same time (AN1x, PLG150-AN and AN200), voice conversion between different AN types and batch import to library

When a Mixing Template from an ES keyboard file is copied to a Multi in an ES Rack keyboard file, the name of the parent Song or Pattern is used to name the Multi

Added support for converted Mixing Voices to User Voices when copying a Mixing Template from an ES keyboard file to a Multi in an ES Rack keyboard file

When a Mixing Template from an ES keyboard file is copied to a Multi in an ES Rack keyboard file, any parts that were using custom Waves are reset to point a Preset Voice.

fs.factory DX7 import facilities have been updated to include a Batch Import Wizard, which allows you to import many DX7 files in one go.

Corrected problem in dx.factory and fs.factory which was stopping some DX7 files from loading.

A new Guides page has been added, which will reference useful information that other synth users may benefit from.

The first guide that I've added describes how to repair/upgrade a Yamaha SY77 LCD display back light

The forums are currently offline because they have been attacked by spammers.

They will be offline until I can recreate them with a more secure forum package

In the meantime, please direct any support queries to the email addresses given in the x.factory documentation for the librarian that you are using.