Mixxx 1.9.0 Beta1 and 1.8.2 Released!

Hot off the heels of 1.8.1, the Mixxx development team is pleased to announce the release of Mixxx 1.9.0 Beta1!

Download Mixxx 1.9.0 Beta1 and 1.8.2

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.
• Ratings column - 5 stars, no stars, or anywhere in between.
• 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.

Mixxx 1.8 Preview

After many months of planning and development, we're finally approaching a beta release of Mixxx 1.8. Since our last release, several major new features have matured and are almost ready for public testing.

Our main focus for 1.8 has been improving the library, which is a direct result of continued feedback from our users. We're also excited to have been able to address several other major feature requests, and we think 1.8 is a big step in the right direction.

Library

The brand new database-powered library is not only faster, but much more flexible as well. The new library features include:

• Keep your library organized by sorting your tracks into crates.
• Need to take a break for a few minutes? Throw some tracks into the Auto DJ playlist and let Mixxx cover you.
• The new Analyze view lets you peek at your recently added tracks and perform batch BPM detection.
• A brand new intelligent library scanning algorithm is both quick and accurate at importing new tracks when you launch Mixxx. The library scanner is even smart enough to notice when you've moved tracks around inside your library and preserves any extra metadata you've added in Mixxx like comments and BPMs.

Crates in the new library

Looping and Ramping Pitch Bend

A major rework of our audio engine also brings looping to the next release of Mixxx. Running out of time to find that perfect next track for your mix? Lay down a loop and buy yourself more time. Unlike the competition, Mixxx has no limitations on the length of your loop, so you can be as creative as you want to be.

Additional work on our mixing engine has lead to a new feature we call ramping pitch bend. Ramping pitch bend helps you add extra smoothness to your mixes by making temporary pitch bends accelerate rather than jump suddenly.

MIDI Enhancements

A brand new MIDI backend completes the rewrite of Mixxx's MIDI code, the first part of which was included in 1.7 and enabled innovative new features like our MIDI scripting engine. The hot new addition for 1.8 is integrated multiple MIDI device support.

What do we mean by integrated? Check it out:

AAC and iTunes Support

Mixxx 1.8 can playback DRM-free AAC/M4A files on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. On Windows and OS X, Mixxx can also now see your iTunes library and let you play tracks from it without importing them.

In addition to a 1.8 beta, we're also preparing a 1.7.2 bug fix release. This release will fix MIDI on OS X and improve stability for certain hardware configurations.

2009 has been an exciting year for Mixxx, and 2010 is shaping up to be even better. As the year closes, we'd like to thank all of our generous contributors and supporters. We hope you're looking forward to next year as much as we are!

Mixxx 1.7.0 Beta 2 Released!

The Mixxx team is pleased to announce the release of Mixxx 1.7.0 Beta 2! This is primarily a bugfix release that addresses issues from our previous beta.

We also recently discovered a critical issue in an external software library which affects Mixxx users on Ubuntu 9.04. Please see the note at the bottom of this post for more information.

Some of the changes in Mixxx 1.7.0 Beta 2 include:

• Fixed missing MIDI bytes under heavy load on Linux.
• Fixed vinyl control input for users with multi-channel input.
• Fixed vinyl control channel selection bug
• A slew of SCS.3d improvements and tweaks.
• Hercules MK2 and RMX improvements
• Stanton SCS.1m support
• Internal control engine optimizations
• Fixed several crash-on-startup scenarios
• Fixed library rescans not finding new files added in subdirectories
• Fixed Ubuntu menu shortcut
• Fixed missing Ubuntu package dependencies
• Added Universal Package for OS X 10.4+ (Special thanks to Brian Jackson for leading the effort to put this together.)

Mixxx 1.7.0 Beta 2 is available on our downloads page.

Formality aside, this list of changes doesn't do the last few months justice. After our last beta, we received dozens of helpful bug reports. Some of those brought new problems to our attention, while others shed light on old ones. With your valuable feedback, we managed to not only fix your most pressing bugs, but we were also able to track down and fix some other very tricky bugs. The result of your great bug reporting and our team's commitment to fixing bugs is the most stable, polished release of Mixxx to date, and we couldn't have done it without you.

Thank you to everyone who's been testing our beta releases and reporting bugs. You've made a valuable contribution to open source and the whole Mixxx community, and together we're going to continue to make Mixxx the best DJ software we can.

As usual, please report any new bugs or regressions to our bug tracker. If you want to get in touch with other Mixxx DJs, show some love on our forums!

Stay tuned for our final 1.7.0 release!

Important note for Ubuntu 9.04 users:A flaw has been discovered in a library provided by Ubuntu 9.04 that can cause critical hangups in Mixxx. Ubuntu 9.04 users are advised to install the version of PortAudio from Ubuntu 8.10, available as .deb packages here:

• PortAudio for i386
• PortAudio for amd64

Mixxx 1.7.0 Beta1 Released!

The Mixxx development team is proud to announce the first beta of Mixxx 1.7.0. This latest release is the culmination of six months of work by over a dozen contributors, and contains several exciting new features as well as many bug fixes.

Some of the new changes in Mixxx 1.7.0 Beta1 that we'd like to highlight are:

• Cue points are now saved in the library for each track, with "auto-recall" cue option added to preferences.
• The default skin is now widescreen, and fits nicely on netbook sized screens.
• Stereo master VU meter added.
  
• MIDI overhaul:
  
  • MIDI learning wizard
  • MIDI mappings table editor
  • Upgraded, faster mapping system
    
• QtScript/JavaScript-based MIDI Scripting Environment - Code up complex behaviour for your MIDI controller without recompiling Mixxx!
• MIDI output now fully supported on Windows, OS X, and Linux.
• Added full support for the Stanton SCS.3d on all platforms.
  
• Added Mixman DM2 mappings for Linux and OS X.
• Vinyl Control:
• Scratching responsiveness improved, with needle-skip prevention option added.
• Signal quality indicators added to vinyl control preferences.
  
• Merged the mixxx and mixxx-data packages for Ubuntu users into a single mixxx package.
• Fixed about 40 bugs, including:
• Browse mode no longer disappears in certain situations
• Skin changing is now much faster
  
• Tooltips now work again
• Fixed rare instabilities caused by certain OGG and MP3 files
• Minor improvements to the BPM detection
• Fixed some OpenGL issues
• Fixed a handful of obscure issues that may have prevented Mixxx from starting up on Windows
• Play nicer with Ubuntu systems that are running PulseAudio
  

Aside from these more visible changes, there was significant work done on less visible parts of Mixxx. This includes many improvements to the organization and cleanliness of our source code, as well as a lot of work on features that didn't make it into the final 1.7.0. release. Improving the overall codebase is important for us because it makes it easier for new developers to contribute, and it was these new contributors who helped catalyze the overhaul of our MIDI system.

Back around December, we started toying around with the idea of something we called MIDI scripting. The idea of MIDI scripting is that having a small scripting engine sitting on top of our regular MIDI mappings would allow our users to code complex behaviour for their MIDI controllers using a JavaScript-like language. Soon after this idea hatched, we realized MIDI scripting would make it much easier for us to support new controllers in the future, and this attracted the attention of a handful of our developers.

Because we felt that both the long-term and short-term impact of implementing MIDI scripting would be very beneficial, several of our developers decided to shift their time away from other subprojects that they were working on (like effects, the new library, and looping) in order to complete the MIDI overhaul and scripting engine. When this work was nearing completion, we collectively felt that MIDI scripting support along with the slew of other improvements we made were significant enough to call this release 1.7.0. We're very excited about the possibilities that scripting opens up, and we hope to see our users come up with new, cool uses for it.

We'd also like to thank Stanton for their support during this development cycle, which allowed us to significantly accelerate the development of our MIDI scripting functionality. We're pleased to be the only cross-platform DJ software that fully supports the SCS.3d without the use of any extra software in the middle.

Lastly, if you encounter problems with the beta, please report them in our bug tracker! We hope you enjoy Mixxx 1.7.0 beta1, and we'll be working hard towards a final, stable release. Stay tuned.

Errata

• The overhaul of our MIDI code included many changes to our MIDI mapping file format. Some of our old mappings were converted automatically by a script, but many required additional modifications by hand, which introduces the possibility of us having made errors. Due to the limited availability of hardware and free time within our development team, the MIDI mappings for some controllers have not been tested. If you have a controller that we provide a mapping for, please test it and report your results in our controller testing matrix.
• MIDI Pitch messages are no longer processed internally and must be mapped to a script function. Fortunately script.pitch can be used very easily from your script.
• M-Audio Xponent support has likely been broken. Support for it needs to be rewritten using scripting, but none of our developers have this device. (This is a great task for a user who wants to contribute to Mixxx! Come ask someone on IRC in #mixxx on Freenode about it.)
  
• Windows: MIDI feedback on all but the first listed controller doesn't work with more than one connected. It's best to disconnect/remove all (real and virtual) devices except the one you're interested in working with.
• Windows: You may need to tell Windows to send MIDI output to the correct device, especially if you hear random notes instead of see lights on your controller: Start→Settings→Control Panel→Classic View→Sounds and Audio Devices→Audio Tab, set “MIDI Music Playback” at the bottom to the device you're trying to use.
• The use of multiple MIDI devices simultaneously is not yet supported.
  
• For script developers:
  
• The SelectNextTrack, SelectPrevTrack and LoadSelected controls do not work in the Browse view. See bug #342120.
• The SelectNextTrack and SelectPrevTrack controls cause the GUI to freeze for a few seconds when you try to scroll down beyond the current page. See bug #361170.
  

Hercules DJ Control MP3 in Linux

Robin, one of our newer developers, has been working hard on improving our support for the Hercules DJ Control MP3 in Linux. I did some work on this myself last year, but unfortunately certain things were broken at the kernel-level and I wasn't able to get the LEDs working. After many attempts by several people, Robin managed to make a kernel patch to solve the remaining issues.

"Yuck, a kernel patch!", you say? As Robin writes:

This is all very hacky, but hopefully it won’t be in the future. I’m going to see if I can get that patch put in the kernel proper, which will solve the most annoying part of the problem. It would also be good to get Mixxx supporting both legacy mode and the newer one at the same time.

However, we’ve heard from Hercules, and they say that some time in the first part of this year, they’re going to try to get some Linux drivers out. Hopefully they’re open source, and turn the Herc devices into MIDI devices, which would make life a whole lot easier for support.

It looks like there's light at the end of the tunnel for Hercules users. Read more on Robin's blog.

Note: I should add that the Hercules MK2 and the Hercules MP3 Control are both supported very well on Windows.