Over the past 3 months, we've been raising money to purchase a build server to help us speed up our development cycle, and the response has been overwhelming.
We've raised more money in 3 months than we've received in donations since Mixxx was started in 2003, and for that, we'd like to thank the 43 Mixxx fans who generously donated to our cause, and our broader community for helping spread the message.
Your gracious donations will help ensure Mixxx can continue to grow and provide the open source community with great DJ software. On behalf of all Mixxx contributors, thank you!
We'll post an update on the build server project as we get our hardware and software configurations together. We've got work to do!
The submissions for the T-shirt contest are below. Unfortunately, it seems most of you are much more interested in buying a shirt rather than designing one, so we have only two entries, only one of which is an original design. That said, it's great design, and so we'd like to congratulate Joe Colosimo for his winning entry!
Because one of our developers is going get some stock and handle t-shirt orders for us, we'd still like to know if just a plain Mixxx logo would be a more popular choice. So please take a look at the designs below and cast your vote!
Voting is open until January 10th.
Without further ado, the entries. (Click on each for a larger version.)
Mixxx 1.8 was a big step ahead, bringing new features like hot cues, looping, and a brand new library, but as we speak, many other new features are being developed behind the scenes. These new features are still in the lab, so to speak, but some of them are maturing rapidly and will likely make it into a Mixxx release. Some of them are even stable enough for the brave to start testing. Although, I wouldn't use any of them in a live performance yet... or would I?
Some of these features include:
Samplers
Support for More than Two Decks:
External Mixer Mode
Beat Detection
Vinyl Control Rewrite
Here's a brief overview of some of these new features:
External Mixer Mode (1.9)
Bill Good recently developed this feature through the Google Summer of Code program. With External Mixer Mode, Mixxx will be able to output the audio from each deck through a separate audio channel. This is a heavily requested feature, and is especially handy for vinyl control users. Our internal audio routing code was significantly overhauled during this project, and as a result, we'll be able to add microphone input to Mixxx in the future with relative ease.
Bill has also been helping improve support for FLAC files in Mixxx.
Support for Multiple Decks (1.10)
Since the first release of Mixxx, we've been stuck with only two channels for mixing. Fortunately, we've been rescued by RJ Ryan, who has put in some long hours refactoring anything and everything he can get his hands on so that we can support more channels. Thanks to his efforts, our development version of Mixxx can support any number of decks internally. We're still working on modifying our user interface to support more decks, but it looks like we may rely on 4-deck variants of our skins in the short term.
Sampler (1.10)
Built upon our support for multiple decks, a prototype sampler was developed by Ryan Baker through Google Summer of Code this year. These small miniature decks allow you to play audio samples. For example, you will be able to add sirens, air horns and vocal samples into your mixes. This feature still requires more work on the user interface and some under-the-hood polish, but there's been great progress made so far.
Beat Detection (?)
This feature will use the open source audio library aubio to detect beats. This will allow us to do many things (in theory), including:
Beat Smashing effects, a la Aphex Twin.
Quantized Hotcues: your hotcues could sync up to the beat.
Quantized Loops: automatically create precise loops with X beats.
More precise Auto-Sync.
The main difference between BPM detection, which is what we have now, and beat detection is that each individual beat will be detected and marked and not just guessed from the BPM. Coupled with a good grid editor and other groovy features this could make Mixxx a truly killer program for mixing and mashing songs, especially those with variable tempos.
~
As you can see, future versions of Mixxx have the potential to be pretty exciting! You can help support development of Mixxx by donating to our build server fund or by getting involved directly. Thanks for your support!
This article was written by Mixxx developer Philip "Madjester" Whelan.
The Digital DJ Tips blog has just posted an exclusive interview with Adam Davison, our project manager. The interview goes into the project history and gives some insight into how we view Mixxx from a developer's perspective. Check it out!
This public beta is intended to give (brave) Mixxx users a chance to try out some new features and help us find bugs. We do not recommend using beta software for live performance because there will be bugs. You can help improve Mixxx by reporting any bugs you find.
Important: Mixxx 1.9.0 beta1 will upgrade your library to a new format. This will make it incompatible with Mixxx 1.8.1. In order to try out Mixxx 1.9.0 beta1 you should upgrade to Mixxx 1.8.2, which we are also announcing today. You can switch back and forth between Mixxx 1.9.0 and Mixxx 1.8.2 with no trouble.
Among the new features in 1.9.0 Beta1 are:
Shoutcast / Icecast support
Mixxx can now broadcast over the internet (heavily requested feature)
External Mixer Support
The new Sound Hardware preferences pane allows you to route each playback deck separately, which allows you to use Mixxx with an external mixer.
ReplayGain normalization
A user from our forum worked closely with our developers to fully implement volume normalization, including performing the ReplayGain analysis for tracks which are not tagged.
Waveform Gain
The scrolling waveforms now scale according to the channel gain for better visual feedback.
Key lock buttons
Formerly known as "pitch-independent time stretch", there are now easily accessible key-lock buttons for each for deck.
Revamped default skin
Since the original source material for the Outline Netbook skin was lost eons ago, our artist completely redid it from scratch and tweaked it for better visibility. The new skin has also added EQ kill switches.
HSS1394 support (Windows, OS X)
Mixxx now supports firewire HSS1394 MIDI devices such as the Stanton SCS 1 series.
Improved FLAC support
We're now using libFLAC directly for smoother FLAC decoding.
Revamped metadata parsing
Integration of TagLib allows Mixxx to parse more metadata from songs, and do it more consistently.
Metadata writing
Mixxx can now write changes in song metadata back to disk. This feature is off by default, and can be enabled in the Library preferences pane.
Millisecond time display
The time counters in Mixxx now have an extra millisecond display.
Library improvements:
Played column - The library now indicates whether a song has been played in the current session already, and also counts the total number of times the song has been played.
Better search - Search now searches in more columns, and by-term instead of by-phrase.
Revamped iTunes integration - A rewrite yielded a significant speedup of iTunes parsing.
Faster library scanning - The library scanner should perform much better on large libraries.
Inline Editing - double click any item in the track table to edit its contents.
Record in MP3/Ogg - Now your recordings can be saved in either MP3 or Ogg/Vorbis format.
New MIDI mappings:
Vestax Typhoon
Hercules DJ Console Mk4
Numark MIXTRACK
Pioneer CDJ-350
Updated MIDI mappings:
Hercules DJ Control MP3
Hercules DJ Control e2
Hercules DJ Control Steel
Vestax VCI-100
Reloop Digital Jockey 2
Tons of bug fixes and performance improvements!
Mixxx 1.8.2 has a wide variety of bug fixes, performance improvements, and the same MIDI mapping updates that 1.9.0 beta1 has.
The Mixxx team would like to give a shout out to these up-and-coming contributors who had a huge hand in helping make 1.9.0 awesome (in alphabetical order):
Irwin Céspedes
Vittorio Colao
Joseph Colosimo
Bill Good
Anders Gunnarson
Tobias Rafreider
Owen Williams
Fundraiser
We're making great progress on our 1.9.0 Build Server fund, but we still need your help! This project will finance a dedicated build server that we will use to create nightly builds and automate our release process. This means the development team will have way more time to focus on making Mixxx better instead of dealing with packaging. Money raised will go to cover the cost of the server, and any leftover money will cover other ongoing expenses like web hosting, and otherwise help keep Mixxx rocking!
New Ubuntu PPAs
We've moved our official Mixxx repository for Ubuntu to a new PPA to increase security. The old repository is still online for now, but Ubuntu users will have to follow the instructions on our downloads page (click the Ubuntu download link) to get the new versions of Mixxx we've just released. There's also a separate Mixxx betas PPA, for brave souls.
Bugs
We depend on feedback from our users to guide Mixxx's development, so please file any bugs you find in this beta release on the Mixxx bug tracker. If you don't file a bug for the beta, don't be surprised when it isn't fixed in the final version!
Join Mixxx!
We're always looking for new contributors who are interested in working on Mixxx. If you're a programmer or artist and want to work with a creative, enthusiastic team, hop on our IRC channel (#mixxx on Freenode) or sign up for our developers' mailing list.
While we're hard at work on Mixxx v1.9, we're going to order a batch of Mixxx T-shirts for you to buy but we need something cool to put on them. The plain Mixxx logo would look awesome, but we wanted to open this up to you, our users and fans to see what you come up with that might be even better. The winning design will end up on the shirts and the submitter of the winning design will receive one shirt free!
So here are the rules: PLEASE READ!
The name "Mixxx" must be prominently displayed (but feel free to stylize it however you want)
No obscene, profane, offensive or violent graphics or text. (We want Mixxx to inspire good feelings. If you wouldn't show it to your grandmother, don't submit it.)
All artwork must be original (and/or you must own the rights to use and submit it (and be able to prove it.) If you're not sure or don't have proof, don't use it.) Of course you have permission to use the Mixxx logo.
All submissions become property of the Mixxx development team
Feel free to submit as many designs as you like
The shirts will be printed in full (process) color, so use as many colors as you like
File format: anything The GIMP or Inkscape can open (SVG or other vector format preferred)
Size: 12.00" x 12.00" or 305mm x 305mm or 2100 x 2100 pixels
Resolution: 175 DPI
Specify the background color of the shirt: White, Gray, or Black
Send your submissions in an E-mail message to D.J. Pegasus: spappalardo atnospamplease mixxx.org
The last day for submissions is December 15, 2010 (by 23:59 UTC+1)
The Mixxx team is pleased announce the release of Mixxx 1.8.1!
Mixxx is free, open source software for performing live DJ mixes. Developed by a diverse community of DJs, Mixxx is a complete replacement for a conventional "turntables and mixer" DJ setup, and is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
We're happy to report that we've made great progress with our build server fundraiser, but we still have a ways to go! We're looking to purchase a build server in order to help us speed up our development cycle. With a build server, we'll be able to improve the amount of testing that Mixxx receives by producing nightly builds of various branches.
In other words, brave testers will be able to try new features like our vinyl control improvements sooner, and help give us important feedback while we're developing new features. We'll also be able to decrease the amount of time it takes for us to close bugs, since we'll be able to get confirmation from testers that our bug fixes work on Windows and Mac OS X faster. We're aiming to produce nightly builds of as many branches of Mixxx development as possible, so there should be lots to play with.
But first, we need your financial support to purchase a dedicated build server to enable the production these nightly builds.
Big thanks to everyone who's contributed so far! If you haven't yet had the opportunity, a donation of any amount will directly support Mixxx development and be greatly appreciated!
The Mixxx team is proud to announce the final release of Mixxx 1.8.0!
Mixxx is free, open source software for performing live DJ mixes. Developed by a diverse community of DJs, Mixxx is a complete replacement for a conventional "turntables and mixer" DJ setup, and is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
This new release includes a year's worth of contributions from over 30 developers and artists, and is our most exciting release to date. Mixxx 1.8.0 includes much anticipated features such as looping, hot cues, support for multiple MIDI devices, and a brand new database-powered library.
Since Mixxx 1.7.2 was released, the following changes have been made:
Looping
Loop-in, Loop-out, and Reloop/Exit buttons added to our main skins.
Loop point indicators on main waveforms and waveform summary displays.
Hot cues
Most of our skins gained 4 hot cue buttons, and Mixxx now internally supports up to 32 hot cues per deck.
A brand new database-powered library, with:
iTunes library and playlists access (Windows and Mac OS X)
Rhythmbox library and playlists access (Linux)
A brand new, faster library scanner
Crates!
A simple Auto DJ mode, which crossfades to the next track in the Auto DJ queue.
Analyze view, which allows you to run bulk BPM detection on your songs
Featured Artists bundle (Windows and Mac OS X)
Revamped Song Properties dialog
Re-arrangeable, hide-able columns
Tons of new artwork:
New Deere, Shade, Phoney, and LateNight skins
Better descriptions in tooltips and snazzy new look
MIDI
New PortMidi-based MIDI device backend, supports using multiple devices at once
More intelligent disk access to help optimize audio latency
Optimized waveform rendering at 30 fps
Ramping pitch-bend option, smoothly applies temporary pitch adjustment for nudging
Import comment tags from MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC/WAV metadata.
New library and preferences icons
Improvements to UTF-8 handling
Over 50 bug fixes and more!
Ubuntu Users
We have great news for Ubuntu users: Mixxx 1.8.0 is avaiable in Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) directly from the Ubuntu Software Center! We also have a PPA containing Mixxx 1.8.0 for Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) users, accessible from our downloads page.
Audio Playback Plugins
We've also added an audio playback plugin architecture to Mixxx, which allows Mixxx to playback extra formats with third-party plugins. Since audio formats like M4A/AAC are encumbered by software patents which restrict distribution and usage in certain jurisdictions, Mixxx cannot natively support them. However, the good news is that a licensed third-party can now develop and distribute an M4A plugin for Mixxx. We'll be posting some of our own audio plugins to the Mixxx Add-ons wiki page in the coming weeks, so be sure to check back again soon.
Fundraiser
We realized in the course of packaging 1.8.0 (by hand) that since we're planning on speeding up our release cycles, now might time to purchase a dedicated build server that will allow us to create nightly builds and automate our releases. Money raised will go to cover the cost of the server, and any leftover money will cover other ongoing expenses like web hosting, and otherwise help keep Mixxx rocking!
Bugs
We depend on feedback from our users to guide Mixxx's development, so let us know what you think of the new release! Also, please remember to report any bugs you discover to the Mixxx bug tracker.
Join Mixxx!
We're always looking for new contributors who are interested in working on Mixxx. If you're a programmer or artist and want to work with a creative, enthusiastic team, hop on our IRC channel (#mixxx on Freenode) or sign up for our developers' mailing list.
I'm scraping together a press kit for the new 1.8.0 website and I came across this awesome class diagram in the "The Mixxx Paper". Tue Haste Andersen presented Mixxx and that paper at a conference back in 2003, and this diagram represents Mixxx's internals at the time. You're looking at a snapshot inside one of the earliest versions of Mixxx, which has since grown to be the world's most popular free DJ software.
The diagram you're looking at is a standard tool software engineers use called a UML class diagram, and it lets developers effectively communicate their ideas about code layout. If we had to make a new UML class diagram for Mixxx in 2010, it'd probably cover one of the walls of my apartment. Although the MixxxApp, ControlObject, EngineObject, and SoundSource classes still exist (!) and might even be recognizable from their original incarnations, pretty much everything else has changed drastically.
The Mixxx architecture has expanded to accommodate an arbitrary number of sound devices, MIDI controllers, and soon, and arbitrary number of decks. Good things are in store.
I started doing more Mixxx development on Windows this week and I've been trying to fix lots of little bugs. I'm pretty embarrassed at how badly broken drag-and-drop on Windows was in 1.8.0 Beta 2 - Sorry about that guys, we really didn't do much testing of the library stuff on Windows before the release. It's fixed in our 1.8 code repository, but I have no idea when we're going to make our next release. I think that bug pretty crippling though, so if enough people complain, I'll try to talk our Windows packager into building a new version for you guys.
On Saturday, we woke up to a nice surprise from our downloads.mixxx.org hosting provider. They cut off downloads to Mixxx 1.7.2 for Win32 because we had too many requests to it! We had a couple thousand downloads in one day, and apparently they're unable to provide us with the 5 TB of monthly bandwidth we pay them for because of CPU usage. After scratching our heads for a while, we ended up redirecting users to a temporary download page with links to a mirror site and a torrent. Big thanks to Mark Glines for helping us out temporarily until we find a permanent hosting solution!
Our MIDI guru, Sean Pappalardo, has put a new video this week showcasing the SCS.3d and SCS.3m MIDI controllers in action:
Lastly, check out YouTube user Scratchtometry busting out his SCS.3d hot cueing and scratching skillz with Mixxx in two videos:
The Mixxx team is pleased to announce the second beta of Mixxx 1.8.0! This release brings a large number of bug fixes, performance improvements, and even some small new features.
Massive optimization of the new SQLite database-powered library, including:
Faster searches
In-memory caching layer which minimizes hard disk access
Faster library scanning
Fixed some Auto DJ bugs
Added tooltips to library table
Polished up song Properties dialog
Library search now looks at album names too
Fixed minor library rescanning bugs
Fixed crate and playlist creation bugs
Fixed drag-and-drop from network shares on Windows
Show iTunes playlists as sorted
Audio:
Added plugin architecture for audio playback
Fixed some cueing bugs with pitch-independent time stretch
Improvements to vinyl emulation sound quality
Improved performance by optimizing hard disk access for audio decoding
Legacy 1.7 library importer now imports cue points
Faster MP3 loading
Improved reliability with certain MP3s and OGGs
MIDI:
Improved scratching with the SCS.3d
Timers now available in MIDI scripts
Fullscreen key changed to F11 to conform to de-facto standard.
Tons of other bug fixes!
Hotcues
Since everyone's been waiting ever so patiently for this release, we decided to slip a bonus in for you. Mixxx 1.8.0 Beta 2 adds hotcues, which are cue points that start playing when triggered. These are handy for impromptu drumming and remixing because you can trigger different parts of a song quickly. Although our default "Outline Netbook" skin doesn't yet show the hotcue positions on the main scrolling waveform display, the hotcues do show up in the smaller waveform summary.
The keyboard shortcuts for hotcues are Z, X, C, and V on Player 1, and M, <, >, and ? on Player 2. Now go chop some beats! (Update: Forgot to mention that using the Shift key in combination with the above keys clears the hot cues.)
Audio Playback Plugins
The new audio playback plugin framework lets you to install third-party plugins that give Mixxx the ability to playback extra audio formats. Sometimes support for an obscure audio format is difficult to maintain or may be legally encumbered in certain jurisdictions, either of which would preventing us from supporting it. However, third-party developers can now add support for extra audio formats to Mixxx at their own discretion.
The Mixxx Development Team will not distribute audio playback plugins that carry legal uncertainty for us. The responsibility is solely yours to ensure that you are legally entitled to obtain and use any playback plugins provided by a third-party.
Although we don't have any official audio playback plugins available yet, we'd like to invite developers to post their plugins on the Mixxx Add-ons wiki page.
The Road to 1.8.0
Over the next month or so, we'll be wrapping up development of 1.8.0. We've still got many bugs to fix (and could use your help), but we think this latest beta release is a big improvement over the previous one. Give it a shot, and please report any bugs you find! Enjoy, and stay tuned for more news as we finally approach Mixxx 1.8.0.
Near the end of each release cycle, we try to round up as many developers as we can and have a giant meeting to figure out what we're doing for our next release cycle. And by giant, I mean usually four or five people tops.
This time, however, we managed to get eight Mixxx developers spanning thee continents and five timezones together for a Skype meeting to discuss the future of the 1.8 series and beyond.
If you want to check out the full details of our meeting, we've shared some slides that directed the meeting along with our meeting minutes, but I'll try to briefly summarize what we discussed.
One of the big topics was our project management style. Instead of cramming several large new features into one release, we're going to try to focus on one or two features and try to do stable releases more frequently.
We also talked about our next few set of releases, but the only release we can talk about with any certainty is Mixxx 1.9, which will probably be the release that integrates streaming Shoutcast broadcasting via Icecast. We're also going to try to get this out much faster than our previous releases.
Lastly, we want to actively recruit more developers and artists. We need way more help with Mixxx, and we need to be more active at recruiting new contributors. As part of that effort, we'd like to be more open about how development is progressing, and so we're encouraging our developers to blog more. Rather than posting formal-sounding news updates, we're going to start making the blog a bit more fun. We won't hesitate to ask people for help with projects we're working on, and we're going to try to write up some easy projects on the wiki for new contributors to work on.
And if you read this far, we're working on building Mixxx 1.8.0 Beta2. Hopefully we can get it out this week. We usually have to rebuild our releases a few times after we decide a release is finished (yeah, yeah), and I've already rebuilt the Ubuntu packages 3 times, so that's probably a good sign. :)
The results are in! Google has just announced which students have been accepted into the Google Summer of Code 2010 program. This year, we received many very good applications from students that competed for one of three slots with Mixxx. Due to the volume of applications we received, the application process was highly competitive and we had to make some very tough decisions.
After two weeks of deliberation, we're pleased to introduce our Google Summer of Code students for 2010:
Bruno Buccolo - Effects Units based on existing LADSPA Integration
William Good - Digital Vinyl System (DVS) / External Mixer Mode
Ryan Baker - Sampler
Bruno Buccolo's project involves developing an innovative user interface and control scheme for effects. During our past work on LADSPA effects, we discovered that creating a good user interface with MIDI control would require both more effort and clever thinking than we anticipated. This project aims to simplify effects management and make controlling effects live easy.
William Good will be working on an "External Mixer" Mode to enhance Mixxx's usability with hardware setups. This project will make it easier to connect your hardware mixer to Mixxx and aims to simplify Mixxx's user interface for vinyl control users.
Last but not least, Ryan Baker will develop a sampler allowing DJs to trigger sounds during their DJ sets. A sample bank can increase your flexibility when DJing by allowing you to layer drum loops additional buildups into your mix.
These projects are going to make the Summer extra exciting for our development team, and we hope to give you something to look forward to in a future release! In the meantime, we're fixing bugs in 1.8 and we hope to have an even better Beta 2 release for everyone to play with once we finish up. With 1.8.0 around the corner and some great projects lined up for the Summer, it's an exciting time for Mixxx!
Google Summer of Code is a program that provides students with a stipend to work on open source software over the summer. Students from all over the globe are matched up with mentors from participating organizations and gain real-world software development experience while working on cool open source projects.
If you're a student with C++ experience, an interest in DJing, and enthusiasm about open source software, then we encourage you to apply to work on Mixxx for the summer! Mixxx is a great opportunity to gain useful experience not only with open source software development, but also with multithreading and realtime multimedia applications.
Mixxx previously participated in Google Summer of Code in 2007 and 2008, and saw the success of several projects like the new waveform widget, improved BPM detection, and our first library overhaul. We have an enthusiastic team of mentors supported by a great community of artists and developers, and we think we've got an intriguing list of project ideas for this year.
So how do you get started? Check out the official Google Summer of Code 2010 site, including the FAQ and program timeline to make sure you're eligible and available for the duration of the program. Please note that the student application period is from March 29th through April 9th. Next, take a look at our GSoC 2010 Project Ideas page and if you'd like to discuss any of the ideas with our mentors, check out the contact information on that page and get in touch!
We're very much looking forward to introducing Mixxx development to a new batch of students this year, and if you're interested on working on Mixxx, we hope to see your application!
Mixxx 1.8.0 Beta 1 features a slew of major improvements over our last release, including looping controls, support for multiple MIDI devices, and a completely revamped library.
Although our code for playing M4A files in Mixxx is complete, we were disappointed to learn that we cannot ship Mixxx 1.8.0 Beta 1 with M4A support for legal reasons. We're currently exploring other options to bring you this much-requested feature, but in the meantime, we still wanted to have a public beta release for everyone to play with.
We don't expect the stability of this beta release to be as good as 1.7.2, so if you're planning on DJing live, please don't use the 1.8.0 betas. Please report any bugs you find on our bug tracker - It's very difficult for us to keep track of bugs that are reported on the forums or in comments on the blog, so having all our bug reports in one place makes them much easier to manage. Thanks for your cooperation!
If you're planning on switching back and forth between 1.7 and 1.8, we recommend backing up your Mixxx XML library file. You can find your library file, called mixxxtrack.xml in the following places:
Windows: Click Start->Run..., and paste in: explorer %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Mixxx
Mac OS X: Open Finder, and from the top menu select Go->Go to Folder..., and paste in: ~/.mixxx
Linux: Open a terminal, and paste in:: cd ~/.mixxx
From there, copy and paste your mixxxtrack.xml file to a safe location. When you first run Mixxx 1.8, your library will be upgraded to our new database format and stored in a different file called mixxxdb.sqlite. Your mixxxtrack.xml file will be renamed mixxxtrack.bak, and so if you'd like 1.7 to see your old library again, you will either need to rename mixxxtrack.bak to mixxxtrack.xml, or restore the backed up copy of mixxxtrack.xml from your safe location.
Lastly, we wanted to release a beta version to not only let you help us find bugs, but also as an invitation to get involved and help us fix bugs. If you know C++, we encourage you to dive into our source code and try to fix bugs that affect you. We're perpetually short-handed and we're always looking for more help. The more people that get involved, the more fun it is for us too. We understand that looking at a new codebase can be daunting, so if you'd like some extra direction, we'd be more than happy to help you - Come hang out in our IRC channel (#mixxx on Freenode), and we'll get you started!
