v0.4.0 — Soba

Modular is now Soba. Blender, whose node editor this app takes after, calls the wires between nodes noodles, and soba are long, fine noodles. In Japanese, soba (傍) also means "beside": an instrument whose patches sit by you and explain themselves. It's the same instrument under a new name, and every patch opens as before. The manual has moved to docs.chaps.dev/soba, and you can try it in the browser first.

This is also the first release that keeps itself up to date, and it brings drums, sampling, looping and a proper mixer.

New

• Updates in the app. Once a day, Soba asks GitHub whether a newer release is out. When one is, the dot after the version number lights up and a note says what's new. Install puts the new version in place and restarts, bringing your patch back as you left it, unsaved changes included. Help → Roll Back returns to the version before. The check sends nothing about you or your computer, and Help → Check for Updates Automatically turns it off.
• A Windows installer, and disk images for macOS. The Windows installer is per user and needs no administrator. It adds Soba to the Start Menu, and you can remove it from Settings → Apps.
• Drum: nine analog drum voices (kick, snare, tom, clap, closed and open hat, cymbal, rim and cowbell), with accent and choke.
• Trigger Sequencer: eight lanes of 16 steps, four patterns chained bar by bar, and per-step velocity, probability and ratchets.
• Sampler: plays WAV files as one-shots, or across the keyboard as a polyphonic instrument. The sample is saved with the patch.
• Looper: records, overdubs and undoes live layers, in time with the clock. One footswitch goes Record → Play → Overdub.
• The Mixer is a console: one row per channel, showing its place in the stereo field, with Level, Pan, Width, Send, Mute and Solo. Mixers chain on a single Bus cable. Mix sums four signals into one.
• Clock Divider and Logic modules, and Swing on the Clock.
• The Library: thirteen ready-made groups (voices, basses, a drum kit, generators and effects), in the add menu and the quick-add palette.
• Step Sequencer: drag a step up or down to change its note, or right-click it and play notes in on a piano.
• Audio Input picks a channel, so a mono microphone or guitar plays on both sides.
• Six new examples: From One Sine (a whole four-and-a-half-minute song in one patch), Interlock, Roll Call, Drum Machine, Sampled Keys and Live Looper.

Coming from Modular 0.3.x

Under the new name, Soba keeps its settings in a new place. Your recent files, autosave, window size and recordings folder start fresh. To bring them along, copy the old settings folder to the new name before Soba first opens:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Modular Synth → %APPDATA%\Soba
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Modular-Synth → ~/Library/Application Support/Soba
• Linux: ~/.local/share/modularsynth → ~/.local/share/soba

Then rename Documents/Modular and Music/Modular to Soba, to keep your saved groups and recordings where Soba looks for them.

On Windows, uninstall nothing: 0.3.x had no installer, so delete its folder once you're done with it. Soba's MIDI ports are now called Soba and Soba Input, so another app that routed MIDI to "Modular Synth" needs the new port chosen.

Downloads

• Windows: soba-windows-setup.exe (an installer), or soba-windows.zip. For low latency through an ASIO driver, use soba-windows-asio-setup.exe or soba-windows-asio.zip.
• macOS: soba-macos-apple-silicon.dmg or soba-macos-intel.dmg. The app isn't signed by Apple yet: the first time, right-click Soba and choose Open.
• Linux: soba-linux.zip

The Windows downloads aren't code-signed yet either, so SmartScreen may say "Windows protected your PC". Choose More info → Run anyway.

Licence: Soba is MIT. The low-latency (ASIO) Windows builds contain Steinberg's ASIO SDK, which Steinberg offers under the GPLv3, so those builds are distributed under the GPLv3. The licence and a notice are in their zip and installer, and the exact SDK they were built from is attached here as asio-sdk-source.zip.