Release notes for EZkeys 2.0.4

EZkeys 2.0.4 is now available to download using the Product Manager or from the ‘My Products’ area in your Toontrack account. Please note that version 2.0.4 is required for the support of EZkeys sound expansions (EKXs) released from this point forward (Q1 2024).

CHANGES

General

• Added support for the Session Organ EKX. See Session Organ EKX Manual for features specific to that library.
• EZkeys 2 can now be used in a fully functional trial mode for 10 days.
• The plug-in parameters are now named like the effect knobs that they control in the current preset, instead of always having the same generic names.
• In many more cases than before, the plug-in notifies the host when something in it is changed, so that the host project can be marked as modified.
• On macOS 14.2 or later, after the AU is resized in Apple DAWs on Apple silicon Macs, the dialog about the plug-in not able to get keyboard focus is no longer shown, because that issue was fixed in macOS.

Song Track

• In the Track menu, “New Tab” was renamed to “New Song Track” and “Duplicate Current Track” to “Duplicate Current Song Track.”

Grooves Tab

• Shift-space can now be used to start playback of the selected groove (when the groove list is in focus).
• The selected groove can now be copied via the context menu or with shortcut (by default cmd-C on Mac and ctrl-C on Windows) – so that it then can be pasted on the Song Track.

Grid Editor

• Changed for how long notes are previewed when interacted with. Using mouse, they play for as long as the mouse is down (at most). Using keyboard, for example to move notes, they play for up to half a bar.
• Highlight Keys can now be turned off by pressing the active button in the Highlight Keys options.
• The pedal editor popup menu now has CC numbers to the right of each option.
• Pedal blocks can now be copy-pasted into the CC curve editor.
• “Remove Selected” was renamed to “Remove” in the context menu in the CC editor.
• Editing CC nodes will in many cases no longer cause MIDI blocks to get merged.
• Submenus in the CC editor menu are now highlighted if any CC within is active.
• In String Machine EKX, “Expression” is now in the static part of the CC editor menu.
• Recording CC events on the song track will now automatically add these to the recent section of the CC editor menu.

Bandmate

• A headphone button has been added to solo a Bandmate track.

BUG FIXES

Keys Tab

• If notes are played outside the regular range of the instrument, you can now see on the keyboard and in the chord display what playable notes they get transposed to.

Song Track

• The standalone would crash if audio was exported with more than one output channel selected for the audio device in Audio/MIDI Setup.
• Drawing chords above MIDI on the song track could sometimes alter the MIDI.
• Copy-dragging MIDI on a song track with key signature changes did not generate the correct (same) MIDI.
• Notes on the MIDI blocks should no longer sometimes blink during playback.
• CC that was bound with MIDI Learn was not possible to record on the song track.
• Bass notes added by EZkeys can no longer become longer than the chord.
• When the bass note is changed for a chord, the result should be better in some cases now.
• Changing to a new chord where the relative bass note is the same will no longer cause a bass note to get added to the MIDI.
• Recording only CC values would cause the recorded block to always start at bar 1.
• Dropping MIDI on the song track from the browser with Original Key engaged could cause the resulting MIDI to be rendered wrong.
• EZkeys removing overlaps, for example when Humanize is toggled, could unnecessarily move notes or make notes really short.

Edit Play Style

• If Amount adds a note on top of a longer note, the long note is now shortened so that it ends before the added note and the added note is made longer.
• Changing Amount would cause a crash if the first MIDI block on the song track was less than 4 quarter notes long.
• Modifying the Length or Velocity knobs would not always apply the last value changed to.
• Fixed a potential crash when changing Length or Velocity in Edit Play Style.
• Using the Edit Play Style controls no longer closes the chord wheel.

Suggest Chords

• Changing chords could leave notes ringing.

Grooves Tab

• Replace MIDI now works faster on large MIDI blocks.
• Dragging MIDI from Grooves to the host or the desktop now properly sets the name of MIDI files so they can be located again in the Grooves tab.
• CC events were not included in Web Shop MIDI.
• Fixed some graphical issues in the popup showing what expansion a Web Shop MIDI groove belongs to.

Grid Editor

• The height of black keys in the grid editor piano roll was not following the zoom level correctly.
• Humanize can no longer move notes so they start before the start time of their block, as that could make them disappear.
• When Humanize had changed the start time or end time of a note, that time would linger around when trying to drag that note later, so it got its previous times back.
• Moving notes by a tiny amount could in some cases only move them graphically and not change their timing.
• Automatic merging of blocks when MIDI events are added between them will happen in less cases now.
• Merging MIDI blocks should no longer cause new CC ramps to get created. Instead, new CC nodes may get inserted.
• The CC editor was not updated when note editing caused MIDI blocks to get merged, which could lead to various issues.
• CC lines to the left of the first node in each block, except the first block, were not drawn.
• Notes should no longer sometimes blink during playback.
• Moving over an existing note with the Pencil Tool selected, the mouse cursor now shows a minus instead of a plus, since a click deletes the note.
• Having a corrupted MIDI database or some other issue that causes a read error upon opening the database now displays a proper error dialog including a “Rebuild Database” button (instead of only a header stating “Read Error”).
• Using the Split tool where multiple notes are located and selected would only split one of the notes instead of all.
• The Lock Highlights button wasn’t automatically enabled when Highlight Keys was turned on by pressing Scale Snap.
• Scale Snap will no longer turn off Highlight Keys if it was not the button that turned it on.

Bandmate

• The Octave controls were too restrictive.
• Transient velocities were not correctly saved in projects, and that could even cause Bandmate to become empty when a project was loaded in a DAW.
• A MIDI file is now properly auto-selected after the input file has finished loading even if the Grooves database is busy with installing updates or similar.
• Duplicating the output MIDI to match the input MIDI length did not correctly duplicate the CC nodes.

Standalone

• In the standalone, switching between certain GUI scales with the window at minimum width or height could cause thin lines to appear in various buttons and other GUI elements.