Monday, February 15, 2010

Mixxx 1.8.0 Beta 1 Released!



The Mixxx team is proud to announce the first beta of Mixxx 1.8.0!

This beta release is intended to give DJs an opportunity to play with our new features and help us find bugs.

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!

    24 comments:

    1. So what exactly is the holdup for M4A? I know one needs to pay licensing fees to distribute an AAC codec, but does the codec have to be included in Mixxx? I use Ubuntu with FAAD installed, for example. Mixxx can't use that through G-Streamer?

      It probably serves me right for having the bulk of my music collection encoded in a patent-encumbered format, but I've been waiting a long time for M4A support so I can really get my hands dirty with Mixxx. :(

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    2. You could use the quicktime SDK on windows and mac or Ffmpeg decoder/encoder on windows, mac and linux

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    3. headphone mix (so you can sample the song) doesn't work... something you got to fix

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    4. @ballistic661

      Headphone mix works just fine, are you sure you're using it correctly?

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    5. @Anonymous 9:11:

      OSX has a built-in AAC codec, does it not?

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    6. Re:Andrew:
      I did a quick google and couldn't find anything (I don't own a mac I just assumed apple would make sure the SDK wored on a mac)

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    7. whats happend to sound wave bar at the top its flasg to white on mixxx 1.8.0 so whats wrong with it can anyone help?

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    8. hi!
      when do you realease the final version of mixxx 1.8?
      in the roadmap you said that it will be released in march 2010, is it true???

      thenk you very much!!!!!

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    9. It would be great to be able to assign the two players to different audio outputs, so you could use a real mixer with Mixxx.

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    10. ... There is something about that in the FAQ: http://mixxx.org/wiki/doku.php/faq#is_it_possible_to_use_mixxx_with_an_external_mixer

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    11. Hi Lemone,

      We're currently working towards another beta release, so it's unlikely a final 1.8 will be released in March. We'll keep everyone posted on the blog as we get closer though!

      Albert

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    12. did you noticed that on the landing page it says 1999.

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    13. Just had a play with 1.8.0 Beta 1 and I am very impressed. The crates are a massive leap forward.

      Looking forward to you solving the AAC challenge. Could the AAC capability be added as a plug-in as per Audacity?

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    14. Carl: Thanks for pointing that out, I've fixed our news script now!

      Anonymous: Bingo - that's exactly what we're going to do. I've spent some time over the last few weeks implementing a sound source plugin framework for Mixxx. We'll explain more details about it when we announce (and finish) Beta 2.

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    15. Thank you albert for replying me...
      I've seen that in virtual dj if I try to load a song in a layer which is playing a song, it shows me an alert...It's possible to have this feature also in mixxx?
      Thank you very much!

      Lemone

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    16. finally a better playlist! Thanks! I didn't tested all features yet (3:00 am in Germany) but it feels better then 1.7.2. Maybe now i can separate my differed music styles a bit better.
      I do mix alot with the shortcuts F1-F8 and they feel much better. The Mouseshifting feels a bit choppy. Thanks for fixing thinks like to fast tracks after change the pitch in the settings menu. Will be a awesome release!

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    17. Mixxx is an awesome bit of software.

      Any chance of adding in virtual decks in future releases? (Similar to virtual dj).

      Might seem like useless feature, but it's handy for doing quick and dirty mixes when decks aren't available.

      Improvements in area such as program stalling, resources allocation and some new modern front ends wouldn't go a stray either.

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    18. you should take Traktor pro, as a referent, the GUI of traktor pro ROCKS!, and the effects, i'm linux users, but also a dj, but i don't use Mixxx because it's to simple, it doesn't professional like traktor pro

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    19. Thanks for all the suggestions guys. We'll keep all of these in mind as we begin planning Mixxx 1.9 and beyond!

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    20. hello all, my name is nate...i've installed mixxx on both my macbook and my windows vista systems...similar to the commenter "ballistic661", i am having an extremely difficult time getting the headphone feature to work correctly. i have several external soundcards and i've also installed sunflower on my macbook, i've tried all possible configurations of settings available and nothing works. i occasionally receive an error message right when i open up mixxx that tells me that my sound configuration is having issues. i'm always able to hear sound out of the main speakers no problem but it's specifically the headphone feature that isn't working. i've read about using the headphone feature on different channels than what the main output is on but that doesn't work either. is there any hope?? please help

      - nate

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    21. It's absolutely great! Any guess on a final release date?

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    22. Hi Nate, you're probably best off asking for help on our community forums: http://www.mixxx.org/forums
      More people read those and will hopefully be able to assist you.

      Anonymous: We're planning a Beta 2 release that is going to tackle most of the remaining major issues. It's quite a bit of work for us to build a release for every platform (Ubuntu 32-bit, 64-bit, Windows 32-bit, 64-bit, OS X Universal, source tarball), so we're trying fix as many known bugs as possible now to save us from having to do a Beta 3 release.

      We have no firm timeline because we're all working in our spare time, and sometimes Real Life takes priority and Mixxx development slows down quite a bit. If anyone wants to see a Beta 2 release come sooner and knows C++, check out the top of our TODO list and come talk to us on IRC (#mixxx on Freenode):
      http://www.mixxx.org/wiki/doku.php/1.8.0_to_do_list

      We need more help!

      Thanks,
      Albert

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    23. im new i need help how to get more thing for it

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