Kangas Sound Editor

Kangas Sound Editor is an open source and cross-platform software project that provides users with a powerful, easy-to-use and modern application for synthesizing and mixing sound, create sound effects, as well as to compose and produce music.

Features at a glance

Key features include the ability to create music instruments from scratch (both percussion and melodic), cellular-like structure for music compositions, advanced pitch control using a system of frequency ratios instead of conventional music notation, state-of-the-art sound editor, as well as XML import/export facility.

In addition, it comes with user-definable graphs for controlling pitch envelopes and the volume, as well as to shift the stereo balance over time, and the ability to save audio files as uncompressed WAV files. Also, it requires a MySQL database server for storing harmonics and anti-harmonics.

It is very important to mention here that the instruments can be easily created by specifying anti-harmonics and harmonics, and that the XML import and export function allows the user to collaborate with and build on the work of other users.

Uniform graphical user interface across all desktops

The program is written entirely in the well known Java programming languages, including its graphical user interface, which means that it looks and acts the same on all supported desktops and operating systems. It's supported on GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows platforms.

However, you must have a background in creating audio effects and editing sound, as it uses a system of cells or boxes, which can be dragged and dropped by the user onto a timeline. They represent entities, such as repetition, individual sounds, chords or notes.

Bottom line

Summing up, Kangas Sound Editor proves to be a decent and easy-to-use music creation software specifically designed for people who are looking for a cross-platform and free software to create sound effects and music instruments from scratch.

What is new in this release:

• Changes to new installation sample database: sample tracks now have their keep left and keep right intermediate file checkboxes checked, so that Channel views are now generated when the "Compute Stereo" button is pressed. Some unused tracks have been deleted.
• Made the extent of Recorded Sound boxes sensitive to the Volume multiplier field in the containing Sequence box.
• Fixed bugs with .WAV sound file handling:
• When computing stereo, track zero and master files, a bug which caused an incorrect file to be generated for when the bits per sample is not an exact multiple of 8 has been fixed, and another bug which caused incorrect handling for the 8-bits-per-sample case has been fixed.
• When processing recorded sound boxes using the original method, a bug causing an incorrect computed file for when the bits per sample is not an exact multiple of 8 has been fixed, and the maximum number of samples is calculated slightly more accurately by rounding instead of truncating.

What is new in version 4.1.0:

• Inclusion of WavePlayer, an internal audio player.
• Track 0 enhancements, including computation of Master track.
• Improvements to Waveform, Pitch and Amplitude views.
• Reuse sound and intermediate filenames facility added.
• Computation of child sound and intermediate files added.
• Configure sound file parameters dialog improved.
• Improvements to Variations dialog.
• The 'Time ruler start' on the toolbar is now a spinner field.
• Sound-box properties 'beeping' bug fix.
• Installation bug fix for 64-bit Windows machines.
• Improvements in the handling of Recorded Sound boxes.
• Clicking on the 'Tracks' node now functions as a 3-way toggle.
• Single quote and backslash SQL syntax errors fixed.
• New installs now include examples of the four additional graph types introduced in version 3.2.0.
• Improved error report when an attempt to insert duplicates into the database is made.
• Fixed bug in sound-engine graph calculations in Compute Stereo and Recorded Sound.
• Improved format of fields shown in Duration dialogs.
• Fixed bug in Sound engine when the bits-per-sample is not an exact multiple of 8, and another when the bits-per-sample is exactly 8.
• Waveform, Amplitude and Pitch views handling of 'Cannot locate intermediate file' messages improved.
• Closing the program and starting a new composition now only prompt the user if there are unsaved edits.
• The user actions of load/re-load composition, delete composition and XML import of a composition no longer have the side effect of closing track nodes and associated views.
• Fixed bugs that prevented successful XML import of a composition.
• Fix to bug where Waveform, Amplitude, Pitch, Channel and Master views were not always cleared on new composition or change of composition.

What is new in version 3.2.1:

• Fixes some bugs in the installation program that prevented a desktop shortcut to the Kangas Sound Editor from being successfully created on Linux and Unix.

What is new in version 3.1.0:

• Precision of numbers displayed and input-able with Graphs, Anti-harmonic Bases and Variations has been increased from 3 to 6 decimal places, precision of Harmonic/Anti-harmonic factors has been increased from 3 to 8 decimal places. A new display-only column 'Frequency Multiple' and an additional validation check on save have been introduced to Anti-harmonic Bases. Graphs, Harmonics, Anti-harmonics, Anti-harmonic Bases and Variations have a new color scheme, and their finder dialogs have a new slider control 'Axis detail level'. Axis labels now have a grey, semi-transparent background to improve their readability whilst not totally obscuring the data. Rendering of Anti-harmonic and Anti-harmonic Bases has been improved. A bug in the XML import of 'Keep intermediate file' flags has been fixed. A bug relating to the input/validation of columns 'Initial interval' for Variations has been fixed.

What is new in version 3.0.0:

• XML import/export facility added, allowing Kangas Sound Editor users to collaborate with and build on the work of other Kangas Sound Editor/QI users.
• Improved cross-platform functionality, targeting Linux.
• Improvements to the installation program.
• Edit Panels now have vertical scroll bars if needed, and have a white background.
• New functions to delete tracks, and copy/move/delete a range of Sequence boxes have been added.
• An indicator (*) now appears next to the composition title if there are unsaved edits.
• Edit Panel tree-nodes are now topmost for a given track.
• New configurable parameters are: Default Edit View duration, Property view width, Transparent toolbar icons, Host name and Port number (the last two allow MySQL server and Kangas Sound Editor to run on different computers).
• Toolbar buttons and search buttons have redesigned icons.
• The Sequence button is now topmost/leftmost in the toolbar (depending on its orientation).
• General improvements have been made to dialogs.
• "Help on the web" and About dialogs are now modeless, and have been redesigned.
• Main program dividers now remember their location.
• Properties toolbar displays the track number of the displayed properties, but is no longer draggable.
• Bugs in Nimbus look-and-feel fixed.

Requirements:

• Java 2 Standard Edition Runtime Environment

Limitations:

• None