2023-08-15

EZkeys 2.0.2 is now available to download using the Product Manager or from the ‘My Products’ area in your Toontrack account. Please note that version 2.0.2 is required for the support of EZkeys sound expansions (EKXs) released from this point forward (Q3 2023).

CHANGES

General

• If the EZkeys 2 core library is not installed, there is now an entry for it in the library menu anyway, under a separate header. Selecting it shows a dialog with a possibility to rescan for the library in case it gets installed while EZkeys 2 is running.
• “Open Settings” has been added to the library menu.

Song Track

• Notes that are automatically added because of chord changes are now humanized.
• “Replace MIDI” and inserting new chord markers can now move syncopations.
• Whenever chords are automatically added for a MIDI performance and the analysis finds a single long chord, it now adds a chord marker on every bar (or on a syncopation near the bar).

Suggest Chords

• Whenever the Suggest Chords view is open and a selection on the song track makes Suggest Chords actually show chords, the song track items that are not part of the selection are dimmed.

Grooves Tab

• In the Options menu in Grooves, there is now an option to exclude empty bars (without notes and CC) at the beginning and/or the end of grooves in User MIDI and linked folders.
• Changing velocity now shows +/- on tooltip values to better emphasize that these values are relative and not absolute.

Grid Editor

• In the pedal editor, there is now an option to merge blocks and another one to extend a block to the next chord.
• The default keyboard shortcuts for zooming in/out vertically on Mac now use alt/option instead of shift (with plus and minus).

Bandmate

• Grid lines have been added to the background of the tracks.
• With an audio file loaded and “Drums” selected, changing the key signature will now transpose the chords and the output MIDI.
• The “Skip All” has been removed from Bandmate’s missing-file dialog since only one input file is supported.

Settings

• A specific MIDI channel for MIDI input can now be selected.

BUG FIXES

General

• In Studio One on Mac with the “graphics hardware acceleration” option enabled, the EZkeys 2 GUI should no longer be slow and choppy.
• In Logic Pro on Apple silicon Macs, MIDI Out should no longer cause crashes.
• Changing presets or libraries with Program Change / Bank Select MIDI was very slow and would sometimes give unexpected results.
• Changing presets while playing could in some cases cause a crash.
• The MIDI Learn settings are now preserved when a library preset is loaded.
• Cancelling “Save MIDI Learn Preset” would sometimes cause a crash.
• Drag and drop is now properly disabled whenever a modal dialog is open.
• Importing an EZkeys 1 project would create an extra undo event.
• “dimb9” has been changed to “dim b9” in chord displays.

Song Track

• The song track should now be better at finding the correct chords in user MIDI.
• Adding user MIDI to the track could incorrectly split some of its notes.
• Recording MIDI in existing blocks on the track could cause chords outside of affected parts to get reanalyzed.
• Pedal values/curves were not imported properly from EZkeys 1 projects.
• “Select Containing Folder in Grooves” would not work on song track MIDI from imported EZkeys 1 projects.
• An ongoing Amount calculation will now get aborted by Replace MIDI, editing in Grid Editor and other ways of manipulating the MIDI.
• Starting and stopping playback would cancel Amount and cause the knob/value to flicker.
• Merging blocks could unnecessarily extend the resulting block.
• Drawing MIDI blocks with the Pencil Tool under chords now adds new notes where there are chord changes as well as on bars.
• Using “Replace MIDI” on certain user MIDI files could create silence when the MIDI got duplicated due to the track selection being longer than the file.

Edit Chord View

• Clicking the info sign for “Adjust Notes to Scale” no longer toggles the function.
• “Adjust Notes to Scale” can now split a note that stretches over several chords.
• In some cases, changing chords would play a preview of wrong notes.

Suggest Chords

• Changing the chord selection from Suggest Chords now properly updates song track components (Edit Play Style, etc.)
• In many time signatures, Suggest Chords would never change the chord rhythm after bar 16.

Grooves Tab

• Scanning for new sound libraries in the missing-library dialog no longer rebuilds the MIDI database (but looks for new MIDI libraries to add).
• Adding a linked folder called “User MIDI” could cause the actual User MIDI folder to stop working properly.
• Loading a project containing filter selections now properly grays out MIDI library folders that should be grayed out.
• Adding user MIDI files containing no notes no longer causes the intensity values to become broken.
• Grooves in User MIDI were not always transposed correctly when dragged to the song track.
• While “Show Web Shop MIDI” is being activated, it is no longer possible to mark/unmark grooves as favorite, because that could cause a crash.
• The “Show MIDI Files from Subfolders” option was not remembered between sessions.
• Pressing Cancel in the Tap2Find view would render the Tap2Find drop zone preview silent.

Grid Editor

• “Remove Overlaps” can now adjust notes that are not selected as well.
• “Remove Overlaps” could cause some notes to get zero length.
• Merging notes could make the MIDI unsorted, which would cause playback to behave strangely.
• A note that had been merged with another note could be split again by dragging it.
• CC values where not shown correctly in all cases depending on how the MIDI files got loaded to the song track.
• Copy-dragging notes could make wrong notes get selected afterwards.
• Copy-dragging blocks in the pedal editor did not work well.
• Pasting in the pedal editor now selects the newly inserted block(s) and deselects the others.
• It is now possible to undo a change of the Highlight Keys scale/mode.
• Highlight Keys should no longer become activated when the key signature on the song track is changed.
• Dragging notes and then pressing alt on Windows or alt+cmd on Mac before releasing the mouse button would create extra invalid notes that could cause crashes.
• Auto-scroll in the Grid Editor would not work after marquee selection had been used.

Bandmate

• Bandmate could fail to open a dialog after an audio file import followed by a preset/library change, which in turn could lead to crashes.
• Trying to scroll horizontally in the grooves list using trackpad or shift+wheel would inadvertently cause the tracks to scroll.
• Resetting a chord to original in the Bandmate track could cause other chords to get their inversions changed.
• Chord detection of both MIDI and audio is now improved and more stable.
• Chords from audio and MIDI are now more stable when track contents are moved.
• Inserting short syncopated chords could sometimes render them uneditable.
• Fixed a visual bug where borders of audio blocks would look thicker than those of MIDI blocks.
• Tempo and time signature controls are no longer disabled when there is no output MIDI. Having a source that generated no search results lead to these controls being disabled, so it was not possible to change tempo and/or time signature to try to find results that way.

 

2023-06-05

EZkeys 2.0.1 is now available to download using the Product Manager or from the ‘My Products’ area in your Toontrack account. Please note that version 2.0.1 is required for the support of EZkeys sound expansions (EKXs) released from this point forward (Q2 2023).

CHANGES

General

• After importing an EZkeys 1 project, saving will now suggest using the name of the project that was imported (instead of “Untitled”).
• The MIDI Learn GUI has been redesigned.
• Pressing Esc during MIDI Learn now cancels it.

Grooves Tab

• A progress dialog is now shown when “Sync File Changes” is selected for User MIDI or a linked folder and also when a new linked folder is added via the Options menu.

Settings

• A “Libraries/Paths” tab has been added, where the path to EZkeys libraries and the path to user presets can be changed.
• The MIDI In transform can now be used to gate incoming MIDI.

BUG FIXES

General

• Added workarounds for ACID Pro so that the VST 3 would produce sound there and be able to receive MIDI from the host.
• Importing an EZkeys 1 project would make the song track name empty instead of setting it to the default name.
• Saving a new user preset and saving a project and then loading the project did not select that preset.
• “Save a Copy” did not work correctly – any subsequent normal “Save” would write to the copy instead of to the original file (or instead of showing a save dialog if the project had not been normally saved yet).

Song Track

• Notes ringing over multiple chords now handled better when chords are modified.
• Importing EZkeys 1 projects did not always yield the correct chords on the song track.
• Adding a chord with the Pencil Tool now gives the correct chord that the block is playing even when drawing over a large area of the MIDI.
• “Add Chord to Chord Track” would in some cases add wrong chords.
• Better handling of bass notes when chords are changed from major to minor or vice versa.
• Some chords that were shown as maj7add13 are now shown as maj13.
• Chord analysis has been improved.
• Correcting a chord and then clicking the same chord again did not update the inversions label correctly.
• Changing chords could cut notes in strange places.
• Moving/resizing a chord at the beginning of a MIDI block should no longer cause a crash.
• Bass notes could be transposed by inversion.
• Inversion could change arpeggio notes beyond the rightmost left-hand note.
• Showing triplets and zooming in far would make the time bar go black.
• Dragging from the song track could in some cases cause the track to scroll infinitely.
• A groove containing key signature changes would not be entirely transposed to the current key signature when dragged from the Grooves tab to the song track.
• Changing chords in key signature editor with “no transpose” could alter chords anyway.
• Exporting the track as audio could lead to a crash in some hosts.
• Changing libraries/scales and adding/duplicating song tracks would cause the minimized song track to disappear.
• “Select Containing Folder in Grooves” did not work properly in a project saved on another computer than where the project was loaded.

Edit Chord View

• Typing a chord in the centre of the chord wheel would in some cases result in a different chord.
• Some graphical details in the Edit Chord view were not displayed correctly at GUI scales other than 100%.
• The chord preview would in some cases play the wrong notes and in some cases the previous chord.
• Resetting a chord would play a preview even if the Preview Chord feature was turned off.
• Clicking “Done” after correcting a chord would create an extra undo step.
• The “Adjust Notes to Scale” button would not always appear when it should after key signatures had been changed with “no transpose.”
• Clicking the “Adjust Notes to Scale” button or in the keyboard view could cause keyboard shortcuts to stop working in the Edit Chord view.
• The “Adjust Notes to Scale” info window now closes when the Edit Chord view is moved.

Suggest Chords

• Duplicating a song track did not properly update the Suggest Chords view.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when Change Chords was used in certain scenarios.
• Changing chords now only plays a preview if exactly one chord was changed – locked chords are ignored and never previewed.
• Changing chords did not always graphically update the chords on the song track.

Grooves Tab

• Wrong percentage values where shown in the Matching column for Tap2Find search results.
• You can no longer move columns to the left of the Play, Favorite and Web Shop MIDI columns in the result view.
• Having MIDI files with only CC and no MIDI notes in User MIDI or linked folders could cause crashes when using Tap2Find or Replace MIDI.
• Dragging a User MIDI file to Finder/Explorer would in some cases give the file a different name than was shown in the browser.

Grid Editor

• Editing notes within one chord could incorrectly make an adjacent chord get reanalyzed.
• The Length feature now always manipulates notes evenly.
• Humanize now changes notes more evenly and leads to less unintended behavior.
• Deleting a MIDI block would reset the locked chord notes in the grid editor.
• Grabbing the handles of the vertical scrollbar in the grid and dragging could make the grid view jump up and down in a weird manner.
• Copied notes could incorrectly get humanized when their original wasn’t humanized. Also, notes around the copied notes would get humanized.
• The playhead in the pedal (sustain, etc.) editors and the value (velocity, etc.) editors was sometimes shown in the wrong place.
• In the pedal editors, it is now possible to use shift-click to select multiple blocks.
• Dragging a note while using Scale Snap could make a note jump up and down between two points, creating a weird noise as the note was previewed several times.

Bandmate

• Chords can no longer end up with unsnapped times when input MIDI/audio is moved or resized.
• Stopping playback in Bandmate by starting playback somewhere else no longer results in output track not playing and playhead not moving when playback was started in Bandmate again.
• The Inversions +/- buttons in Bandmate were sometimes enabled when they were not supposed to be.
• Chords on the Bandmate output track would sometimes get the wrong inversion.
• The Edit Chord view now closes when chords are removed by the Chord Tool.
• Having MIDI files with only CC and no MIDI notes in User MIDI or linked folders could cause crashes when groove matches were searched for.
• Resizing chords in Bandmate on MIDI containing sustain CC could cause a crash.
• Reset Chord could change other chords.
• Manipulating the tracks at the same time as Note Amount is being applied should no longer lead to crashes.
• The swing/straight analysis has been improved for strummed audio.
• The Note Amount feature in Bandmate now always effects all of the output track MIDI.
• The Octave knob in Bandmate can no longer transpose notes out of range.
• The Octave knob in Bandmate is now disabled when the octave cannot be changed.
• Improved accuracy in the results for audio files.
• The Note Amount knob increment/decrement step size is kept now when the Amount min/max values are updated.
• Fixed a crash that could happen when loops and chords were dragged around very fast.
• The drag of a loop or a chord would get aborted when the search for matching grooves ended.
• “Show Similar Grooves” in Bandmate now clears any pre-existing browser filters in the Grooves tab.
• The metronome shortcut didn’t work when Bandmate was in focus.
• With a Drums source, the Auto-Apply Chords button state did not get updated when chords were split with the Chord Tool.

Songwriting Scales

• The Songwriting Scales window could sometimes open with a major scale when it should have opened with a minor scale.