Slopsmith 0.2.9-beta.1
This is the first beta of the 0.2.9 line — the biggest update since 0.2.8.
It's a pre-release: stable enough for daily use, but we're still polishing.
Please try it and tell us what breaks.
Slopsmith is a free, open-source music notation viewer with full-band
support and an extensive plugin system.
Highlights
• Plugins can no longer crash the app. Every VST3 plugin now runs in its
own sandboxed process by default, on Windows, macOS AND Linux. If a
plugin misbehaves or its editor falls over, Slopsmith stays up.
• New built-in Tuner. The OmikronApex tuner now ships in the desktop build,
backed by a new low-jitter pitch path in the audio engine for a rock-steady
reading.
• Bass just got a lot smarter. A new bass-aware note verifier and a
wrong-position rejection pass mean far fewer phantom and mis-placed bass
notes during play-along.
• Your screen stays awake. No more screensaver kicking in mid-song — the
display is held awake while a track is playing.
• Pitch-preserving speed control. Slow a song down (or speed it up) and it
stays in tune, including through the native audio engine.
Plugin system & stability
• Out-of-process VST3 sandbox on macOS and Linux (previously Windows-only),
sandbox-by-default for every VST3 plugin.
• Linux: the plugin editor window now hosts correctly under X11, with
orphaned-process cleanup.
• Runtime plugin crashes are caught and contained so the app keeps running.
• Missing plugin files are skipped on startup instead of crashing.
• Async plugin loading — core startup never waits on plugin installs, so the
app comes up fast and the splash dismisses as soon as the UI paints.
• Plugin CSS is injected before core styles so plugins can't clobber the UI.
Audio engine
• New raw-audio-frame and raw-pitch endpoints feeding the tuner.
• Bass-aware harmonic-comb note verifier (engine + benchmark).
• ASIO input paired with a non-ASIO output device is now supported.
• Opt-in LAN access so phones, tablets and other devices on your network
can reach the backend.
• Runaway / non-finite signal-chain output is contained instead of blasting.
• VST tone/preset state is restored correctly on a mid-song tone change.
Players & visuals
• 3D Highway overhaul: tone HUD, fret dividers, chord-diagram toggle, FPS
options, hit/miss feedback colours, arpeggio + chord-frame polish.
• 3D bends and hammer-on / pull-off markers.
• Colorblind (high-contrast) palette preset.
• Reactive background can be turned off per chart.
• Left-handed camera and shortcut-help fixes on the 3D player.
Notation, drums, piano & karaoke
• Drums: expanded drum vocabulary, drum-tab support, and GP / MIDI drum import.
• Piano import: better tie handling and left/right-hand merge.
• Karaoke: per-syllable pitch extraction and an automatic lyric-transcription
fallback for tracks without timed lyrics.
• Stems: cleaner audio splitting and the Song fader now drives the stems
master gain.
Bundled plugins
This build bundles a wider set of community plugins out of the box, including
the OmikronApex tuner, an interactive tutorials plugin, a mini-games pack, the
NAM Rig Builder, SlopScale and more.
Security & hardening
• Plugin-manager IPC hardened against command-injection and path-traversal.
• Safer handling of plugin manifests and non-ASCII content.
Platform fixes
• Fixed Intel macOS packaging for the audio decoder helper.
• Windows: symbolizable crash dumps (PDBs) and per-machine installer fixes.
• macOS: fixes to VST scanning and notarization in the build pipeline.
Beta notes
This is a beta — expect rough edges and please report anything odd. Plugin
sandboxing is on by default; if a plugin behaves differently than before,
that's the most likely cause, and we want to hear about it.
Thank you to everyone testing and supporting the project. ❤️
Downloads: GitHub Releases (Windows / macOS / Linux)
Community & feedback: https://discord.gg/TzPVK8fNBm
Support the project: https://patreon.com/Slopsmith · https://ko-fi.com/slopsmith