OpenStudio 0.1.03

OpenStudio 0.1.03

This release carries the application changes from release PR #17, plus the Store automation merged in PR #19 and the packaging correction below. The v0.1.02 tag failed during MSIX packaging before GitHub publication or Store submission, so it did not ship installers. The last published application release remains v0.1.01.

The cumulative application comparison includes the features below. The packaging-only hotfix comparison adds no audio or UI behavior: it permits a clean build without optional bundled presets and keeps required runtime payloads mandatory. These notes were reviewed against the tagged candidate and this follow-up; local MSIX packaging and payload verification passed, while installed, hardware and Store qualifications remain subject to the limits below.

Highlights

• Updated OpenStudio branding: refresh the application, menu-bar, browser and package icons from the approved logo. Microsoft Store listing artwork is uploaded separately; rebuilding the app does not replace an existing listing image.
• Optional INT8 music models: choose Original or INT8 for ACE-Step 1.5 XL Turbo, Stable Audio 3 Medium and MiniMax Music 3 on NVIDIA CUDA hardware. Setup prepares and verifies a separate saved INT8 checkpoint from the original weights; both variants can remain installed independently. This is not a smaller initial download, and selecting a missing INT8 installation does not silently fall back to Original.
• Plugin automation capture: record host-exposed parameter changes from native plugin editors, isolated plugin workers and built-in editors, including detached NAM Rack editors. Instrument slots have their own automation routes; recorded passes remain undoable. Parameter capture runs at control rate, not sample-accurate gesture timing.
• Interrupted-work recovery: discover recoverable project snapshots, interrupted recordings and AI jobs. Restore a project as an unsaved copy, repair complete recorded samples into a new audio file, or restart a saved AI request. Optional periodic project backup remains off by default; recovery cannot recreate work that never reached disk.
• Click-only practice: run the metronome while the playhead stays parked and tracks are not recording. Practice and transport share the native click generator, with explicit handover when playback or recording starts.
• Plugin fault handling: opt into a separate process for supported external plugins. The host reports processor faults and offers explicit retry/reload paths. Isolation is optional and does not certify every vendor plugin, editor or licensing system.
• Guided application updates: release installations can check, download with progress, cancel, and hand off a verified installer after stopping transport and saving modified work. Store-identified packages use Microsoft's update APIs. Debug builds identify themselves as development builds and do not offer release installers.
• Optional AI workflows: download Stable Audio and MiniMax models from Hugging Face inside AI Tools, with automatic Stable Audio Diffusers conversion, optional local import and temporary access tokens. Generation request ownership and recovery remain independent of the dialog that started the job. AI execution still requires the appropriate managed runtime, model files and supported hardware. Setup progress remains visible when scrolling or switching models, reports the full Hugging Face download size, completed and remaining bytes, and cache reuse, and preserves active setup status when a background readiness check completes.

Fixes

• Microsoft Store packaging: clean release builds can produce the MSIX without a developer-created presets folder. Optional bundled presets are retained when present; missing required web UI, effects, licenses, models or scripts still stop packaging. First-submission automation is pinned to this release and retains the prepared artwork and manual publishing hold.
• MiniMax generation memory: select resident, component-offloaded or layer-offloaded execution from available GPU memory, with RAM-aware transfer overlap. Saved INT8 execution uses disk-backed inactive weights to avoid retaining full CPU stage copies. Generation details identify device family, precision and offload policy. Performance and capacity vary with request length and hardware.
• AI memory and progress: Stable Audio and ACE choose placement from available memory and request duration, preserve request settings during one bounded OOM recovery attempt, and unload idle generation models after two minutes. Stable Audio source variants preserve the loaded component precisions. Generation shows actual denoising-stage progress, MiniMax frame counts and indeterminate phases instead of time-derived percentages. Status messages preserve Unicode text across Windows console encodings. Model variants are explicit; experimental compilation is not enabled.
• Automation Read/Write and plugin saves: empty Read lanes no longer reset plugin controls; populated Read curves reclaim manual changes, and Touch temporarily suppresses playback during gestures. Enabling Write enables Read, while disabling Write retains Read. Project saves request current native plugin state, reject missing plugin identities and report restore failures. Stopped VST3 parameter changes are retained alongside vendor state, with compatibility for older opaque state chunks.
• Recording finalization: retain recovery information when a WAV writer fails during finalization, and repair complete recorded samples into a separate file without overwriting the original take.
• AI runtime selection: new Stable Audio/MiniMax setup chooses CPU, CUDA or Linux ROCm PyTorch wheels according to detected hardware. Existing ready runtimes and hardware eligibility are preserved; this does not certify generation on additional GPU families.
• Stable Audio setup: avoid the Windows memory-mapped checkpoint reader crash during conversion. Failed or cancelled setup stays visible even when other AI tools are already installed.
• Plugin editor cleanup: removing a built-in FX now closes its detached editor across track, input, master and monitoring chains. Editors whose slot shifts after an earlier removal are closed to prevent editing the wrong processor. Track deletion also cancels an editor reopen that was already queued.
• NAM Rack: improve cabinet controls, preset/state readback, TONE3000 search cancellation and stale-result handling, loading feedback at the end of capture lists, and capture-picker contents when returning to an already-opened pack. NAM Rack is available in Monitor FX, with its own control/preset address and exclusion from offline renders. The Monitor FX picker dismisses on outside click, blur and the Close Dialog shortcut.
• Editing and menus: align Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete menus with multi-clip commands; restore nested template-menu access; update subscribed checkmarks; make keyboard/gesture categories searchable and collapsible. Commands without implemented UI remain disabled instead of appearing functional.
• Navigation and plugin controls: restore profile-based navigation in Piano Roll and Pitch Editor canvases, preserve both wheel axes and modifier combinations, and separate physical Control-wheel from pinch handling. Built-in parameter edits retain undo/redo ownership when their editor is focused.
• Safer saves and background work: validate project structures and plugin state, preserve the previous project on failed writes, avoid marking newer edits clean after asynchronous saves, and cancel stale AI imports when their source or project changes. Recording and AI recovery reminders remain pending until an explicit save contains the recovered clip or the reminder is dismissed.
• Runtime and packaging: harden audio buffer boundaries, processor ownership, recording writers, waveform-cache validation and worker shutdown. Windows crash evidence is written through a separate helper. Windows setup detects an existing WebView2 runtime before attempting repair, avoiding a false failure when a newer runtime is already installed. Windows installers exclude debug symbols, logs and crash dumps. Incremental Windows builds refresh the executable version resource when the configured release version changes.

Known Issues

• INT8 is enabled only for NVIDIA CUDA. Other physical GPU/CPU platforms, a complete fresh native INT8 installation and subjective Original-versus-INT8 audio equivalence are not qualified. MiniMax remains demanding even with INT8 and is not promised to fit every small GPU.
• Automation does not cover master/monitor FX, JSFX slider envelopes or CLAP editor-event capture. Unexposed vendor controls need host mappings. An isolated-editor focus assertion failed during development qualification; shortcuts in focused isolated vendor windows, hidden/minimized main-window capture and loaded Kontakt/Komplete Kontrol content still need qualification.
• The reported macOS Monitor FX crash and native microphone/Documents permission behavior require real-machine qualification. Windows builds and browser tests do not establish a macOS or Linux fix.
• Small-buffer timing and subjective audio quality require audition on the exact device, plugin chain and build. Deterministic tests do not guarantee crackle-free operation at an 8-sample buffer or a universal track-count capacity.
• Plugin isolation is optional; arbitrary plugin/editor compatibility, real OAuth flows and clean-machine upgrade behavior remain separate qualification items. Unsupported or missing optional AI dependencies must not prevent the base DAW from launching.
• Microsoft Store packaging/submission and SignPath integration are present in source, but Store-flight upgrades, certification and production signing require their own completed setup and verification. These changes do not sign old downloads or establish download reputation.
• This candidate has not yet completed the full installed, cross-platform release checklist. Follow the release runbook before publication; do not treat a local Debug pass as installed Release qualification.

Upgrade Notes

• Back up projects and presets before updating. Current formats use .osproj, .ospreset, .ostheme and .ospeaks. Retired product identifiers inside saved files are unsupported by the current loader; changing an extension or folder name does not convert them. Keep the older application if you need unconverted sessions.
• Automatic migration from retired NAM preset formats is not included in this release. Keep separate copies of NAM models and cabinet IRs referenced by presets.
• Install the package for your distribution channel. Direct installers and Microsoft Store packages use separate update paths; do not promise automatic settings transfer between them. AI runtimes remain separate downloads and must be pinned to an already-published, compatible runtime release.
• Existing Original music-model installations remain usable. Installing INT8 needs additional disk space for preparation and its independent checkpoint; select the intended variant in setup and generation controls.
• Developers preparing production builds now specify an exact version, for example python build.py prod --version 0.1.03. Reviewed matching release notes are checked before production/RC builds and packaging; python build.py dev --run remains unchanged.