DSPi Console v1.1.6-beta4

This is the fourth beta of version 1.1.6 and the first Windows release since the second beta; no Windows build of the third beta was published. It adds editing of filters directly upon the response graph, a spectrum analyser, a tube modeller, a subharmonic synthesizer and a limiter on every output, and it carries the matching DSPi firmware so that a device may be updated from within the application. Most of the application now follows the design of DSPi Console for macOS.

The beta has since been refreshed in place. The Scale page of the Graphing settings, which had been omitted from Settings because it failed to load, is available again, and opening Settings no longer resets the graph's animation speed and line width.

The folder layout is unchanged from version 1.1.5. The archive contains a single DSPiConsole.exe at the top level, with the application and its dependencies in an app subfolder. Extract the entire folder, preserve its structure, and run DSPiConsole.exe as before.

What's new

• Filters may be edited upon the response graph: Each band of the selected channel appears upon the graph as a coloured point with a soft fill showing its contribution. A band is moved by dragging its point and its width is changed with the scroll wheel, while a card beside the point accepts typed values and offers the shape and slope. A double-click upon empty graph adds a bell, and a Ctrl-click offers a choice of shape. Several bands may be selected and moved together, and right-click menus and keyboard commands are provided for bypassing, inverting and deleting bands. The device follows a drag as it happens, and the change is recorded once upon release.
• Spectrum analyser: The response graph may show a live spectrum of any input or output behind its curves, a strip of third-octave bars may be shown beneath it, and a separate Spectrum Analyser window is opened with Ctrl+Shift+A. The measurement is made by the device, so every source is supported, including S/PDIF, ADAT and I2S. The analyser runs only while it is displayed.
• Tube Modeller: A Tube Modeller window (Ctrl+Shift+D) applies the character of one of sixteen vacuum tubes to the selected outputs, with drive, mix, a rectifier and an output stage that models the meeting of a valve amplifier's transformer with a loudspeaker. The basic mode presents the chosen tube and its principal controls, and the advanced mode presents the transfer curve with every character control.
• Subharmonic Synthesizer: A Subharmonic Synthesizer window (Ctrl+Shift+S) generates an octave below the bass for recordings that are deficient in low frequencies. It provides band levels, selectivity, a sub ceiling, a low-frequency boost, per-output selection with meters, and a solo control that is cleared when the window closes.
• A limiter on every output: Each output has a brickwall limiter with adjustable threshold and release. The icon beneath an output's mute button switches the limiter and indicates when it is reducing gain, and a right-click opens its settings. Linked outputs share their limiter settings.
• Firmware installation from the application: The application now carries the matching firmware for RP2040 and RP2350 boards. File > Update Firmware restarts the device into its bootloader, writes the firmware for its chip, waits for the device to return and confirms the version that it reports. A board already in bootloader mode is found automatically, an update that would be a downgrade is identified, and an export of the configuration is offered beforehand. A banner appears when the connected device runs a firmware version other than the one this release expects.
• Getting Started and What's New: A Getting Started wizard on first launch guides a new user from a blank Pico to verified DSPi firmware, and it may be run again from the new Help menu. Existing installations are not shown the wizard. A What's New window presents the release notes once after an update and may be reopened from the Help menu.
• Auxiliary outputs: A new Auxiliary Outputs page under Control configures GPIOs that the device switches or dims on behalf of external equipment, such as an amplifier trigger, a speaker relay or a lamp. Each output provides a live switch (and a level, where it is dimmable), its pin and sense, turn-on and turn-off delays and its power-on state. Controls, remote keys, macro steps and display pages may drive these outputs. The control surface function menu is now grouped into families, and each card summarises its binding in a sentence.
• Dashboard layout: The dashboard arranges its cards in rows that use the width of the window. The number of cards in a row is chosen as Auto, 1, 2 or 3 from a gear that appears in the corner of a card, and the choice is remembered.
• Redesigned tool windows: The Loudness, Crossfeed, Volume Leveller, Psychoacoustic Bass and Stereo Upmixer windows follow the macOS layout, with their graphs beside their controls, and are gathered into an Effects submenu. The Matrix Mixer shows gain and inversion only upon connected crosspoints, and it adds a trim for each input, Direct 1:1 and Clear, and a menu on each output with Identify, Rename, Copy and Paste. The Signal Generator presents its signals as tiles, with a chip for each output and a status indicator. The Statistics window adds buffer traces and a section for each interface present, and the former Bulk Endpoint Monitor has become the Interrupt Monitor, which names every notification that the firmware sends.
• Channel pages: The parameters of a channel page may be copied and pasted with Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. Output pages provide Clear All, and the filter type menu groups the shelves, cuts and all-pass filters by slope. The input preamp may be typed and moves in steps of 0.1 dB, and a right-click resets the preamp, an output's gain or an output's delay to zero. The Linkwitz Transform editor indicates an excessive DC boost and provides Revert. Input pair links are remembered for each device.
• Sliders are followed by the device during a drag: The output gain, output delay and input preamp sliders, and every slider in the effect windows, send values to the device while being dragged and record the change once upon release.
• Smaller additions: The connection indicator describes the state of the connection when hovered. A channel may be renamed by Alt-clicking it in the sidebar. The sidebar's Settings gear closes Settings when it is open, and Ctrl+, opens it. The About window lists the project's links, and Settings > Advanced > Debug may reset every channel name to its default. Preset files now carry the subharmonic synthesizer, the tube modeller, the limiter of each output and the input delays.

Fixes

• Switching devices no longer alters the newly selected device: The reset performed when the previous device disconnected was written to the device being opened, which set its master volume to 0 dB, its preamps to 0 dB and its EQ bypass off. Switching devices while Settings holds unsaved changes now asks for confirmation, and a switch is no longer reversed by the background device scan.
• Loading a preset with Master L/R linked no longer overwrites the left preamp: The value of the right preamp was copied onto the left one on the device.
• Moving between filter fields no longer discards the field or the edit: Leaving an inline PEQ field rebuilt the whole band list, which removed the field that had just received focus. It also wrote the band when nothing had changed, which clamped a gain or frequency set upon the graph to the narrower range of the field. Escape now restores the value of a band list, gain, delay or routing field instead of applying what was typed.
• Wheel edits upon two bands are both written: An edit made with Ctrl+wheel upon a second band within half a second cancelled the pending write of the first band, which remained on screen but did not reach the device.
• Graph editing: Moving a selection by dragging or with the arrow keys no longer pulls a band that lies outside the visible range onto it. A drag that returns to its starting point no longer leaves the device on an intermediate value, and a band deleted during a drag is no longer restored on release.
• Tracking of unsaved changes: Changing the input source now marks the preset as modified, while the switch performed by a preset load is no longer reported as an edit. Switching to or from PDM through the matrix mixer now marks the preset as modified. In independent output configuration mode, saving, loading or deleting a preset no longer discards an output configuration change that awaits Save Output Config.
• Deleting the active preset now shows the device's reset state: The device was read before the deferred deletion had taken effect, so the settings of the deleted preset remained on screen while the device ran its defaults.
• Quitting the application: Closing the main window while Settings holds unsaved changes now presents the Settings prompt first. A second close request while the unsaved changes prompt is displayed no longer causes the application to fail. The solo control of the subharmonic synthesizer is now cleared on the device when the application quits.
• Preset files: A file saved on an RP2040 board and opened on an RP2350 board, or the reverse, now applies the PDM output's settings, routing and effect assignments to PDM rather than to the output in the same position. A filter write that the device refuses is now retried and, if it still fails, reported. Pin lists are written as arrays of numbers, so that files are exchanged correctly with DSPi Console for macOS.
• Filter files: Files exported by DSPi Console for macOS are now imported correctly, including their crossovers, notch filters, bypass markers and preamps; previously the bands of every channel were merged into one. The preamp of an AutoEQ or REW file is now applied, and a channel that receives fewer bands than the file contains is identified. Exports now retain full precision and include every channel and crossover, so that an import restores channels that were flat, and an export from an RP2040 board names its PDM output correctly.
• AutoEQ: An imported AutoEQ database is no longer replaced by the built-in database when the application restarts.
• Names: A long preset name containing accented characters is no longer cut in the middle of a character, and channel names are kept within the 31 bytes that the device stores.
• Output delay: The delay limit now reflects the current sample rate, because the firmware's delay line holds half as much time at 96 kHz as at 48 kHz. A delay stored at a lower sample rate is preserved.
• Stale connections: A connection whose device has returned at the same address after a quick reseat or a resume from sleep, and which therefore no longer responded, is now reopened automatically.
• Control surfaces: A channel group created after another has been deleted no longer reactivates the controls of the deleted group. Collapsing a remote button that has not yet been learned no longer allows a second card to be created for the same button.
• Settings: The External Mute Control page retains a pending change when it is revisited, and the Overview pin map is updated after a preset load.
• Graphing settings: The Scale page failed to load and was omitted from Settings, because one of its sliders raised a change notification before the page had been fully constructed. The Style page saved the minimum values of its sliders at the same moment, so that opening Settings reset the animation speed to 0.05 and the line width to 1 px. An animation speed affected in this way may need to be set again. The problem was diagnosed by Bofr5555.
• Locks, scrolling and windows: A locked gain or delay can no longer be altered with the scroll wheel. A plain scroll over a Test Signals field now scrolls the window rather than changing the value. The first click upon the displayed channel after a reconnection is no longer ignored, and a quick second Ctrl+Shift+G no longer opens a second Test Signals window.
• Effect windows: The loudness curve is drawn at the correct level, choosing a built-in crossfeed preset no longer overwrites the custom values, and a slider released where it began leaves the device on that value.
• Display and meters: Clip indicators now cover PDM and the eighth input, narrow bells at very low frequencies are drawn at their true height, and inputs beyond the active source's channel count no longer draw upon the response graph.
• Responsiveness: The device's report of a filter change made by the application itself is no longer mistaken for a change made by another host. Each such report had rebuilt the band list and the graph, which slowed graph drags considerably.

Known issues

• Output channel pairs cannot yet be linked.
• The routing section of an output channel's page lists only the first two input channels.
• Choosing Discard when closing the Settings window removes the pending entries but does not revert changes that were already applied to the device, which remain in effect until the device restarts. The Discard button within Settings reverts them correctly.
• A filter file exported by DSPi Console for macOS from a board of the other model applies its output sections by position, so a PDM section may be applied to an S/PDIF output.

Requires DSPi firmware v1.1.6-beta4, which is included with this release and may be installed from File > Update Firmware. Every feature that the installed firmware does not provide is hidden.