What changed

FREE | SYNC

• The BPM Sync toggle is now a mode switch, in the same place at the right-hand end of the Capture row. FREE is FLOATING as it was: tempo plays no part. SYNC captures a musical division of the host tempo, lands it on the bar — and now keeps it there whatever you move. It starts on FREE and is saved with the project.
• In SYNC every control holds the grid. Rate steps through seven speeds, 1/2X to 2X, halving the lap when it has to, so every lap still starts on the bar. Window becomes a ladder of laps, from the whole region down to a 16th. The Horizon snaps to halves and 16ths, and a drag inside the region moves it. Tape’s FAST and FAST+ halve the lap. Stretch plays 16th-note slices, and FREEZE repeats one 16th.
• The panel says what you hear. In SYNC the knobs read 4/3X or 1 BAR instead of percentages, and the line under the switch reads ON GRID, SYNCED while the transport is stopped, or CAPTURE TO SYNC when the Memory was captured in FREE. OFF GRID now means one thing: the project tempo or time signature changed. The panel turns blue in SYNC.
• Stop the transport and a synced Memory keeps its own time; start it and it returns to the bar with a short crossfade. It stays synced after reopening the project or a change of sample rate.
• In SYNC a print is a whole number of laps, at least one second long, and it begins on a bar line, so prints butt together on the grid.
• What SYNC gives up: in Stretch, Shape has six positions instead of a continuous sweep, and its fastest forward end is not available; at two of Rate’s steps the beats inside the loop lean into triplets, though every lap still starts on the bar. Switch to FREE for the continuous instrument.

Choir

• Shape now changes Choir’s timbre audibly: BODY leads with the octave below, BODY+ carries both octaves, GLOW leads with the octave above. The anchor stays the loudest voice and the level holds.

Fixed

• A synced Memory held for a long time no longer drifts slowly off the bar.
• The Horizon’s LISTENING and REMEMBERING labels no longer overlap or get cut off at the right-hand corner.
• A finished print is now released when switching FREE ↔ SYNC changes what you hear, as it already was for Rate, Window or Shape.

Changed

• Stretch’s top Shape position read CLEAN, a promise it no longer kept. It now reads DRIVE: its fastest forward progression.
• The manual is rewritten for this release, and shorter.

BPM Sync

• A new toggle at the right-hand end of the Capture row. Engaged, the next Capture is snapped so the Memory loops in a musical division of the host tempo — a half bar, one, two, four or eight — and the captured phrase lands on the project’s grid. Off by default, saved with the project, and it affects the next Capture only.
• Sync aligns the Capture, not everything you do afterwards. Rate, Window, Horizon size, Shape in Tape and switching to Stretch all take a synced Memory off the grid; the readout says OFF GRID rather than constraining you, and a new Capture puts it back.
• Sync needs a four-beat bar. In any other time signature it declines and says so.

Print

• Print now starts where the loop starts. Two prints of the same untouched Memory used to begin at different points in the phrase; they now begin at the same place.
• The wait before a print begins is shown: the chip reads CUEING until the pass opens.
• Fixed: butting two prints of the same Memory end to end left an audible transient at the joint.

Fixed

• The Horizon marker now follows the sound. It was drawing a position Tape and Stretch do not actually play from.
• Frozen Stretch no longer climbs in CPU the longer it is held.
• Leaving Stretch while it is frozen no longer lands on a different note of the phrase.
• Bold text in the interface now renders in the intended typeface, on both platforms.

Changed

• “Check for Updates” opens a page in your browser instead of checking from inside the plug-in. FLOATING makes no network requests at all.
• The panel now invites the first phrase when there is no Memory yet and nothing is playing.
• The manual has been re-shot against this build.

• First-launch onboarding tour, replayable any time from the corner menu in the footer (“Replay tour”)
• Keyboard accessibility now covers VST3 as well as AU: Tab moves through the panel and the arrow keys change values. Since verified working in the Windows VST3 too.
• Capture recovery gesture now works on Windows as well as macOS (Cmd+click on macOS, Ctrl+click on Windows)
• Fixed: the recovery gesture could destroy the held Memory instead of doing nothing, when there was no previous generation to recover
• VST3 now correctly reports its category (previously miscategorized as Delay)

The first beta build of FLOATING — a capture-first memory instrument. FLOATING listens to what you just played and turns it into Memory: it holds the phrase while you decide what to do with it.