v0.6.0 — a chopped break, and faces that move

Soba can chop a break now, and its modules show what they're doing. The new Chopper cuts a drum loop into slices, either evenly or at the hits, and keeps them in time with the Clock at any tempo. The Oscillator, LFO, ADSR, SVF and Ladder have new faces that move with the sound, and every knob shows where CV has moved it. The new example Cut-Up chops a two-bar break over a D minor bass. You can hear it in the browser.

If you have v0.4.0 or v0.5.0, Soba offers this update itself: the dot after the version number lights up, and Install puts it in place.

New module: Chopper

The Chopper cuts a loop into slices and starts each one on its own beat, so a break follows any tempo without changing pitch. Each step can play a different slice, reversed, repeated, pitched or left as a rest, and a Chance knob swaps in a random slice. Drag a step to choose its slice. Shuffle and Reset are in the right-click menu.

Faces that move

• Oscillator: unison voices drift over the wave, and the header shows the pitch.
• LFO: a dot with a trail rides the curve.
• ADSR: the running stage lights up, and a dot rides the envelope.
• SVF and Ladder: each output's response, at the cutoff after CV.
• Knobs under CV: an orange arc shows where the CV has taken them.

More things a song can move

• ADSR: CV on every stage, so a last chord can ring out.
• Clock: a Tempo input, to slow a song into its end.
• Mixer: Send and Return CV, to ride the reverb.
• Trigger Sequencer: a Run input, as the Step Sequencer has.
• Vocoder: an output Level knob.

Sampler

• Slices at the hits, with markers you can move.
• Hear a WAV before you drop it on a Sampler or Chopper.

Playing notes in

• Step Sequencer: step-record from a MIDI keyboard.
• Chord Sequencer: hear a chord as you pick it.

Everywhere else

• Help → Keyboard Shortcuts (or F1).
• Double-clicking a knob resets it again.
• The piano's black keys sit where a real piano's do.
• The What's New window wraps its bullets and fits inside the app.
• The Mallet voice plays quieter when it's struck softly.
• Four quiet examples now play as loud as the rest.
• Front Porch has a stomp and a shaker.

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.