This release contains the 2003.10.02 version of Anvil Studio by Willow Software.
mstudioZ.exe and astU.EXE are self-extracting setup files.
Anvil Studio is a "Freeware" program that runs under Windows 95, Windows 98,
Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
It supports multi-track recording, composing, and editing of music
using AUDIO, MIDI, and sampled percussions.
Audio effects include delay, pitch change, filtering, and reverse.
Anvil Studio is designed to work with optional accessories from
Willow Software such as sheet music printing, piano exercises,
ear training exercises, and voice-pitch analysis.
Requires a Sound card and 64 meg RAM (96 meg for Audio recording).
While Anvil Studio is free of charge, it is copyrighted material,
and can only be redistributed without modification.
If you have questions or setup problems, please see if a newer
version is available at our website:
www.AnvilStudio.com
or download and run our Setup Diagnostic tool from:
www.AnvilStudio.com/DrSetup.exe
(It is very small and just take a few seconds to download.)
or contact us by email at:
support@AnvilStudio.com
or by mail at
Willow Software
P.O. Box 60122
Shoreline, WA
98160-0122
2003.11.01:
o MIDI Manager accessory now includes an editor that supports creation of new patch libraries.
Select View / Synthesizers
Press the Add a Synthesizer button
Press the Create a new patch library of type Patch Library button
o Fixed but in Swing
o Fixed a runtime-overflow-error when running on very large screens (3200 pixels or wider).
2003.10.02:
o Added the Track / Play Track with a Swing Rhythm menu, which causes 8th notes to be played with a swing rhythm.
o The Copy-Me accessory now causes the on-screen piano to indicate the notes being played like a player piano.
o Edit a new System Exclusive event with the Edit / Insert MIDI Controller menu.
o Edit an existing System Exclusive even with the View / Event List menu.
o Added the menu item Edit / Find next Distortion in Audio Mix. You can use this to find where volume needs to be adjusted to avoid unintended distortion.
o Changing the Audio Composer's zoom used to reset the position to 0. Now it keeps whatever sample was at the left margin there.
o Singing into the microphone and pressing the picture of the microphone on the
Staff composer screen does a more accurate job of converting the pitch sung to the correct note on the staff.
o When playing audio tracks, adjusting the Pan / Volume faders does not cause the playback to "hiccup".
o Per-track VU meters are now supported.
o Fixed problems:
o Selecting the File / Export Mixed Audio menu right after playing a song could result in audio distortion.
2003.09.03:
o Added support for tracks with no time signature and no measures (sometimes called "Church Music").
o Multi-View accessory now allows multiple Audio tracks to be viewed and edited at the same time.
o Added new accessory SP-MIDI which allows you to save files for polyphonic mobile phone ring tones.
o Staff styles "Bass" and "Treble" now allow more leger lines above and below the staff.
o Fixed problems:
o Pro-Mix Audio Pan/Vol data was sometimes not saved.
o Print-Sheet accessory printed blank line if track had 12 or more measures of rests at the start.
o Music Drills were not showing notes if the Composer was set to Piano Roll instead of Staff.
2003.06.01:
o Trying to set option to make Anvil Studio the default player of MIDI files
failed if no accessories were installed.
o Would sometimes freeze when Staff was being edited in Grid mode when
grid size changed from half-note to a shorter note.
o Track / Clone menu item was always causing new track to be played as instrument "Accoustic Piano".
o Importing a sample and then edit it caused the original file to be modified.
Now, imported sample files are marked as read-only and then a copy of the file is made before editing it.
2003.05.04:
o added support for dotted whole notes
2003.05.03:
o When selecting the menu item Practice / .. / Drill, an error 438 (Object Doesn't support method) came up.
o Installed accessories now apply to all users of a machine, not just the currently logged in user.
o Was unable to stretch some score notations beyond 4 measures.
o Added ability to turn off large position display in upper-rigth corner
o Conductor's score now draws measure lines through all parts.
o File / Print option gives more control over which pages headers/footers are printed on.
o File / Import was ignoring the Start Time when only part of a file was to be imported.
o Now displays progress when converting a large audio file from Mono to Stereo.
o Sped up process of deleting small section of an audio file.
o After converting a MONO audio file to Stereo, it was sometimes not deleting the old .WAV file
o In Composer view, changing from Treble-only track to Treble+Bass track could sometimes obscure the bass clef.
2002.05.02:
o Added Export Karaoke... to the File menu which produces Karaoke files
that can be played by WinKaraoke and other players.
This replaced the File / Save As... (Karaoke file type) function.
o Fixed problems:
o When printing a conductor's score, it does a better job of
keeping notes from different tracks lined up.
o Changing the pitch of a stereo audio track was causing the file
to get truncated at the end.
2002.11.04:
o The optional Multi-View accessory can now display staffs for up to 4 tracks
at the same time.
2002.11.03:
o Added the following to the Track menu:
o Insert Rests into all tracks...
o Delete Selection from all tracks...
to make it easy to perform this common operation on all tracks at once.
o Improved performance when working with large audio (.WAV) files.
o Added Delayed Recording option to View / Options menu to enable
unattended recording, e.g. of a late night radio program.
o Added Cpu and RAM fields to View/Mixer screen when song has audio tracks and is running
on Windows 2000 or Windows XP. It shows the percentage of computer time
being used by Anvil Studio.
o Added more font sizes for printing sheet music.
o Improved the speed of drawing the Piano roll and Rhythm screens.
o Displays progress on all file copy, import, and export operations.
o Fixed problems:
o Some beamed notes were not drawn properly.
o Sometimes, double-bars and a few other staff notations could not be
selected / deleted.
Problems fixed in version 2002.08.03 include:
o Piano roll and Rhythm editor have been displaying note durations 4 times
as long as they should be since version 2002.06.01.
New features in the 2002.06.01 version include:
o View/Options/MIDI has an Idle Thread Priority slider to prevent
some mobile CPUs (like the AMD K7) from stepping down to a slower
rate when idle while playing MIDI songs. This can eliminate cracking
and distortion problems with those chips.
o When Setup is run under Windows 2000 or Windows XP, it complains if
the user does not have administrator privilages.
o When Setup is run with administrator privilages under Windows 2000
or Windows XP, it adds Anvil Studio to all user's Start Menu.
o Fixed problems:
o Anvil Studio was not managing the audio Input Source selection
properly with some soundcards such as the Crystal WDM Audio.
New features in the 2002.05.11 version include:
o Added options to the Select Synthesizer Instrument window that let you
set a default MIDI Synthesizer, MIDI Bank and MIDI Program,
so that when new tracks are created, they will default to that bank and program.
o Improved information generated by Test MIDI Connections button.
o Fixed problems with File / Export Mixed Audio that was sometimes causing
"Unknown Multimedia Error 80042401"
New features in the 2002.05.03 version include:
o Added "Edit This Sample" as a right-mouse-button popup menu to the
Rhythm and Piano Roll editors.
o Fixed problems with File / Export Mixed Audio
o It was sometimes leaving temporary files around.
o It would do nothing the third time it was invoked under certain circumstances.
o It was not defaulting to stereo out when Stereo Out was checked.
New features in the 2002.05.02 version include:
o Added new item to Edit menu: Insert MIDI Controller Event
New features in the 2002.05.01 version include:
o Staff editor now has Clef styles for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Alto,
Tenor, and Baritone, Treble and Bass.
o Added checkboxes to the View / Options / Audio screen:
Disable Anvil Studio's Soundcard Volume Control
(so it always defers to the Windows Volume control), and
Disable Windows Mixer Interface
Fixed problems in the 2002.04.05 version include:
o The Remove Note popup menu item was not working.
o Sometimes triplets were not being displayed properly.
New features in the 2002.04.04 version include:
o Help / Upgrade Anvil Studio and
View / Anvil Studio Upgrade menu items automatically download and run
upgrade setup programs, making it easier to upgrade to new versions
of Anvil Studio and its optional accessories.
o Added a checkbox to the Options / MIDI screen named
"Close MIDI Out when not in use" which is helpful if you here very
short notes when entering them on the Compose screen.
When it is set, however, it ties that MIDI Out port up so that
other applications running at the same time cannot use it.
o Fixed Problems:
o In Piano Roll and Rhythm editor, dragging a note that extended beyond
the end of the screen shortened the note.
o In Piano Roll and Rhythm editor, if note started to the left of the screen,
the remaining right part of the note was not visible either.
o Since version 2002.03.01, the Chord Name popup menu item was never enabled.
o When recording audio, it would some times erroneously say that there was not
enough memory, or that there was less memory available than there really was.
New features in the 2002.04.03 version include:
o Uses Windows Audio Format Converters to import/export WMA, MP3 or other audio formats.
o Can import audio files with different formats (bits per sample, samples per second)
and mix them together.
o Fixed a bug that was preventing different samples from overlapping.
New features in the 2002.04.02 version include:
o Added an option to Edit / Set Record+Play Start+End Times menu item to have
the selected range of notes to Loop until the stop button is pressed.
This is useful if you want to practice playing along with a selection repeatedly.
o Added pop-up menu items to Shift Lyrics Left/Right.
o Added Snap-to-grid icon to Rhythm and Piano Roll editors.
o Added button to View / Options to reset all options to factory-default settings.
o Fixed a problem in version 2002.03.07 where it would report
Runtime Error 380 after a 4-string bass fretboard was selected.
New features in the 2002.03.07 version include:
o Made guitar fretboard tunable
o Added Edit menu item "Repeat selected notes in a Loop" and improved the
documentation for Piano Roll and Rhythm Editor to make it easier to
repeat sections.
o Fixed some layout bugs with displaying notes on the staff and printing
sheet music.
New features in the 2002.03.01 version include:
o Added Create Metronome Click Track to Track menu
o Added Guitar style to Compose window's Style list
o Added option to keep MIDI Out ports open all the time, to eliminate clicking or short sounds
when used with some software wavetable synthesizers
o Fixed Problems:
o In some rare cases, chords appeared differently when printed than displayed on the screen.
o Fixed SMPTE Master/Slave mode (industry terms - not ours...) so that you can have two machines
running Anvil Studio, one as master, one as slave, and the master controls the slave's position
and tempo when playing and just positioning. This works when Anvil Studio is connected to
another sequencer via MIDI cables as well.
New features in the 2002.02.01 version include:
o Fixed problems:
Since version 2001.10.01, it sometimes inserted undesired rests between
measures that included a time-signature change.
o Works better on multi-user systems, using My Documents / My Music
as the default folder.
o MIDI performance has been improved, most notably on slow systems.
New features in the 2001.12.07 version include:
o Added a Grid option to the Staff editor.
If you want more precise control over the time where you drag notes,
change this Grid field to any value other than <b>-- no grid--</b>.
The staff will be divided by equally-spaced vertical grey lines.
This makes it easy to drag a note from the palette,
or an existing note from the staff, to the exact time position you want it.
o When drawing beamed notes on the staff, the beam lines now slope.
o The tempo field can now be set more precisely (e.g. 120.08 beats/minute)
o Fixed Problems:
o Fixed a problem that caused Audio and MIDI tracks to sometimes play out of sync.
Fixed problems in the 2001.12.03 version include:
o Add Sounds button when adding a loop no longer forces all loops to be displayed.
o Eliminated some runtime errors 80041039 errors when playing MIDI files.
o Added a Font... button to the View / Lyrics so multi-lingual lyrics can be edited.
Fixed problems in the 2001.11.10 version include:
o Print-Sheet accessory was sometimes unnecessary drawing arcs
at the end of some staff lines.
o US428 interface was not working unless MIDI Manager accessory was installed.
It now works in the free version of Anvil Studio.
Fixed problems in the 2001.11.08 version include:
o In version 2001.11.06, the following warning was given when exporting mixed audio:
"Your audio source does not appear to be currently set to Microphone or Line-In."
New features in the 2001.11.07 version include:
o Clicking the time field lets you set the exact song position,
with audio sample or SMPTE frame accuracy.
o Added more right-click pop-up menu options to the Loop editor.
o Per-track Pan slider controls are always visible on Mixer screen
if the screen is large enough.
New features in the 2001.11.06 version include:
o Added options that let Anvil Studio act in MIDI Master or MIDI Slave
Sync modes, so Anvil Studio can control the tempo of external MIDI
sequencers and drum machines, or be controlled by them.
o Mixer screen lets you change volumes, mute, instruments while a song
continues to play.
o Per-track fader slider controls are always visible on Mixer screen
if the screen is large enough.
o When creating new Instrument or Rhythm tracks, rests are inserted
into the new track so the song's current position remains the same.
o Zoom-in / Zoom-out buttons on Piano Roll and Rhythm editor.
o More than one track's SOLO attribute can be set, effectively muting
all other tracks.
o Select All button added to Add Sounds dialog to make it easier to add
all drums to a rhythm editor's grid.
o Fixed problems:
o Returned View / Mixer controls for soundcard Synth and Audio volume
so they don't default to full volume each time Anvil Studio starts.
o Synth/Wave soundcard volume were always defaulted to full on startup.
o Now it remembers the last value you set it to when you re-load a song
or create a new song.
o If you add or remove loops from a song, and
you don't save the song while the Rhythm or Piano Roll editor is visible, and
you later save the song while the Rhythm or Piano Roll editor is NOT visible,
some of the loops will not be saved properly.
o Changing the Time Signature on a track with loops could result in
a crashing runtime error.
o When using the File / Export Mixed Audio... menu item, it would
sometimes display a harmless error message and fail to restore
the selected Audio input.
o Fixed some metronome problems
o Fixed error 80042401 when trying to record from Line In / CD with
some sound cards.
Fixed problems in the 2001.11.03 version include:
o Returned View / Mixer controls for soundcard Synth and Audio volume
so they don't default to full volume each time Anvil Studio starts.
o Synth/Wave soundcard volume were always defaulted to full on startup.
Now it remembers the last value you set it to when you re-load a song
or create a new song.
o If you add or remove loops from a song, and
you don't save the song while the Rhythm or Piano Roll editor is visible, and
you later save the song while the Rhythm or Piano Roll editor is NOT visible,
some of the loops will not be saved properly.
o Changing the Time Signature on a track with loops could result in
a crashing runtime error.
Fixed problems in the 2001.10.08 version include:
o When using the File / Export Mixed Audio... menu item, it would
sometimes display a harmless error message and fail to restore
the selected Audio input.
New features in the 2001.10.07 version include:
o Added options that let Anvil Studio act in MIDI Master or MIDI Slave
Sync modes, so Anvil Studio can control the tempo of external MIDI
sequencers and drum machines, or be controlled by them.
New features in the 2001.10.05 version include:
o Mixer screen lets you change volumes, mute, instruments while a song
continues to play.
o Per-track fader slider controls are always visible on Mixer screen
if the screen is large enough.
o Fixed some metronome problems
o Fixed error 80042401 when trying to record from Line In / CD with
some sound cards.
New features in the 2001.10.04 version include:
o When creating new Instrument or Rhythm tracks, rests are inserted
into the new track so the song's current position remains the same.
New features in the 2001.10.03 version include:
o Zoom-in / Zoom-out buttons on Piano Roll and Rhythm editor.
o More than one track's SOLO attribute can be set, effectively muting
all other tracks.
o Select All button added to Add Sounds dialog to make it easier to add
all drums to a rhythm editor's grid.
New features in the 2001.09.02 version include:
o Improved the Piano Roll and Rhythm composers to:
o support loops
o select, cut, copy and paste any notes - not just single measures
o with Multi-View accessory, you can now view multiple tracks,
where before that was only possible with the Staff composer
o loops can refer to notes, other loops, samples, or Riffs
o support 1/128th notes
o you can decide exactly which drums to include in the editor,
rather than having 4 tabs of drums and one tab of samples
o Added option to print bar numbers in versions with the Print-Sheet accessory.
o Added option to display volumes as ranging from 0 to 127 instead of 0 to 100.
o Fixed problems:
o In some situations, it would display a note over the top of a rest.
o With time signatures other than 4/4, it would display whole-measure
rests incorrectly.
Fixed problems in the 2001.07.06 version include:
o Using a high-pass filter on audio tracks with 8-bit samples
(e.g. Phone-quality) could cause the program to crash.
o With some soundcard drivers (LynxOne for example), it would
crash during program initialization.
o It now displays Clef / Key Signature / Time Signature instead of
Clef / Time Signature / Key Signature.
New features in the 2001.07.04 version include:
o Anvil Studio now supports the Tascam US-428 External Mixing console.
o When moving the mouse over notes on the staff, the equivalent keys
on the piano keyboard are highlighted.
o Added menu item that splits a stereo audio track into two mono tracks.
o Mixer screen now lets you change audio tracks between Mono and Stereo
without erasing the track.
o Versions with Print-Sheet accessory can now print Rhythm tracks as
standard sheet music.
o Added keyboard shortcuts that change the default note duration.
o Fixed a problem that caused a Runtime Error 50003 on some systems.
New features in the 2001.06.03 version include:
o Added guitar fret window as alternative to entering notes by piano keyboard.
o On Piano Roll and Rhythm editor, you can now enter notes of varying durations
simply by pressing the mouse button where the note is to start, and releasing
the mouse where the note is to end.
o Added EQ native effect
o Supports time signatures xx/16
o Added ability to import a small section of a large .WAV file:
see File / Import Audio / import part of file.
o Fixed problems:
o It failed to load some .WAV files (especially some created by CyberRecorder),
giving a File Format error
o When exporting a Stereo .WAV file with MONO tracks, using Auto Volume control,
it sometimes introduced distortion into the resulting .WAV file.
New features in the 2001.05.03 version include:
o Added controls to the bottom of the View / Mixer screen to make
it easier to configure soundcards for playback and recording.
o Simplified the steps for mixing a song down to a single .WAV file.
(just select Export Mixed Audio from the File menu.)
o Added several subjects to the Help / How Do I... and Common Problems... menu items.
o Added a Default Note Volume control to the View / Options screen.
o Fixed problems:
o It sometimes failed to load DirectX effects properly.
o Selecting notes on the Compose screen and changing their volume
sometimes had an undesired effect on the way the notes were displayed.
o When editing a rhythm track or piano roll, if multiple edits were
made quicly within a repeat block, it could cause the block to get
repeated inaccurately. This problem has been fixed, but if this happened
to one of your songs, just set the repeat count to 1, edit the block
to be the way you want, and reset the repeat count.
o Sometimes, audio tracks with a timeshift > 92 where not mixed in.
New features in the 2001.04.02 version include:
o Added "Test MIDI Connections" button to the View / Synthesizers screen
to help isolate problems with playing or recording with MIDI devices.
(For MIDI-Manager versions, this was added to View / Synthesizers / MIDI Scope).
o Added Edit / Set Record+Play Start+End Times menu item, so you can select
a range of an audio track, select this menu item, and control which
range will get recorded (for a punch-in), and/or played.
New features in the 2001.04.01 version include:
o Ability to assign Ctrl+<space bar> as shortcut, and ability to assign
any shortcut key to insert a space.
o Note beaming rules were improved for 2/4, 3/4, 6/8 and 9/8 time signatures.
o Fixed problems:
o Editing some MIDI controller values (e.g. Legatto, Sustain) with the Pro-Mix
accessory's MIDI Effects pop-up menu could sometimes result in Overflow runtime errors.
o Editing tempo with the Pro-Mix accessory could result in error message:
"Error: One or more Instrument or Rhythm tracks in this song is not assigned to a synthesizer."
when attempting to play the song.
New features in the 2001.03.08 version include:
o Ability to assign Ctrl+<period> as shortcut, and ability to assign
any shortcut key to toggle whether or not the next inserted note is dotted.
o New tracks are created with same time signature and key signature as previous track.
o Fixed Problems:
o Double-Bar or Repeat notation after two or more measures of rests
was getting drawn too early in the score.
o When switching time signatures, it sometimes became impossible
to tie a note from one measure to the next.
New features in the 2001.03.07 version include:
o Added Note Popup shortcut to compliment the existing Note Properties shortcut.
o Shift-right-click now deletes a note on a Rhythm track or Piano roll.
o When Pro-Mix is installed, a MIDI Effects pop-up menu is available
when you right-click a note, allowing finer-resolution control.
o Fixed problems:
o It was sometimes not choosing the best default MIDI Out port
o Pro-Mix sometimes limited tempo range to 127 beats-per-minute instead of 300.
o Fixed case where Pro-Mix could cause invalid subscript runtime error.
o Was not displaying enharmonics properly for some minor keys
o Since version 2001.03.01, Anvil Studio's mixer generated high-pitch
noise when playing audio tracks to stereo output if Enable MMX Signal Processing
was enabled on the Options / Audio page.
Fixed problems in the 2001.03.06 version include:
o In version 2001.03.05, if you try to make the last measure of
a track repeat, it crashed with a runtime null pointer error.
New features in the 2001.03.05 version include:
o DirectX Effects properties can be altered while the song is playing.
o On Composer screen for Piano Roll and Rhythm tracks, notes can be
dragged and resized with the mouse.
o Fixed problems:
Since version 2001.02.07, multi-track audio recording with Multi-Audio 4/8
would crash with some hardware configurations.
New features in the 2001.03.02 version include:
o You can now double-click on files of type .MID in the Windows Explorer
and have them loaded by Anvil Studio.
You can right-click on files of type .MID and select the Play pop-up menu item
and have them played by Anvil Studio.
o Fixed problems:
o On Windows 2000, when playing audio tracks without DirectX, pressing
the Stop button could cause the system to hang in versions since 2001.02.01.
o In versions since 2001.02.01, playing Audio tracks was sometimes not releasing
memory, which could cause your system to become slower and slower and unresponsive.
Fixed problems in the 2001.02.05 version include:
o Full-Screen rhythm tracks sometimes caused a Subscript-out-of-bounds runtime error
on screens with 1600 x 1024 pixels.
o If Anvil Studio's setup program was run from a folder that had another file named setup.exe,
a setup program for the other program would get run instead.
o Fixed problems:
Version 2001.02.xx failed with an Illegal Instruction on 486 processors.
New features in the 2001.02.04 version include:
o Audio mixing is faster.
o Improved Audio Reverb effect.
o Right-click on sample names to edit their properties.
o Rhythm page can be edited while the song is playing, making it easier to experiment with rhythms.
o Fixed problems:
o File / Export Mixed Audio sometimes generated noise at the start or end of the created file.
o The Print-Sheet accessory has an improved Conductor's score.
o When printing on some printers, staff "decorations" were not being printed.
New features in the 2000.12.06 version include:
o Added Normalize as filter-kind to maximize an audio-track's "head-room".
o Fixed problems:
o PC-Keyboard didn't map to notes for full-screen Piano Roll or Rhythm editor.
o Fixed some filter-related problems.
Fixed problems in the 2000.12.04 version include:
o Changing the pitch of an audio track could result in Overflow errors.
o Band-Pass filtering problems were fixed.
o Maximum Audio track time-shift was increased to 30 minutes (1800000 msec).
o Edit / Insert at the end of an audio track was causing extra blank sound to
be added to the end of the audio track.
o When loading a sample-set on the Rhythm screen, the samples can now
be used immediately.
New features in the 2000.12.02 version include:
o Added Full-Screen checkbox to Piano-Roll and Rhythm composers
so the editing grid fills the entire screen.
o Improved the speed and quality of the Audio-track's Filter function.
o Added Audio Filter that Zero-averages a wave, adjusting each
sample up or down so that the entire wave's average is zero.
o Increased the number of Audio Samples to:
15 when Multi-Audio 1/8 is installed, and
30 when Multi-Audio 4/8 is installed.
o When a song is done playing, it now leaves the cursor at the
end of the song, to make it easier to edit the end a song being composed.
o Fixed problems:
o Songs with an UpBeat at the start were sometimes displaying
noteds inacurately after the first screen.
Fixed problems in the 2000.11.04 version include:
o A bug was introduced into version 2000.11.01 that prevented
changing key signatures in the middle of a track.
o Dragging notes to the staff could not be undone, and caused the
song's current position to get reset to the start.
o Changing volume of a selected group of notes sometimes changed
the volume of the first note that followed the selected group.
New features in the 2000.11.03 version include:
o Each audio track and sample has its own delay attributes instead of
global delay attributes applying to all tracks and samples.
o Fixed problems:
o After changing the song's position to anywhere but the start of
the song, it would sometimes produce no sound until it was rewound to the start.
Fixed problems in the 2000.11.02 version include:
o Anvil Studio was locking up the Audio CD Player the whole time.
It now just locks it when the View / CD Player menu item is selected.
o Overflow errors occurred with some dual-monitor systems when
displaying the Rhythm editor in full-screen mode.
o Comments for Track 0 can now be edited by selecting
Comments from the View menu, and setting the Track field to None.
Fixed problems in the 2000.11.01 version include:
o Improved the mechanism for loading SoundFont (.SF2) files.
Fixed problems in the 2000.10.03 version include:
o Loading SoundFont (.SF2) files sometimes failed.
o On rhythm tracks and when using Piano Roll view, it was not
possible to quantitize selected measure - only the entire track.
New features in the 2000.10.02 version include:
o Added option to record and play MIDI System Exclusive messages
o Added access to multiple SoundFont patches on Rhythm Tracks.
o Fixed problems:
o When programs saved on the View / Perform menu's screen included
a Rhythm Tool with over 256 notes, the program could not be
reloaded. Now the tool's property can have an unlimited number of notes.
o Some lyrics caused note stems to disappear.
o An extra initial bar was being drawn for keys other than C Maj.
o Since version 2000.07.01, if two notes in a chord were both staccato,
the staccato dots were drawn under both of them instead of just one.
Fixed problems in the 2000.09.02 version include:
o The View / Lyrics menu item was causing bits and pieces of the last
verse to be copied to additional, non-existent verses.
Fixed problems in the 2000.09.01 version include:
o Fixed some problems with File / Repair Song that allow it to repair
more kinds of badly-formatted midi files.
o The Reverse menu item has been accidentally disabled in the Edit menu
since version 2000.06.01
o Fixed a problem where the Pro-Mix accessory was causing runtime
errors when you clicked beyond the end of an audio track that was shorter
than other tracks in the song.
Fixed problems in the 2000.07.02 version include:
o In 2000.07.01, a bug was introduced that caused Anvil Studio to crash
with Overflow Error.
New features in the 2000.07.01 version include:
o Added option to disable background texture in Help window.
o Rhythm Track editor now works with recorded rhythm tracks.
In the past, it worked with composed tracks, but not recorded tracks.
o Added Record No Rests to MIDI tab of View / Options menu
When this option is set, the duration of notes is not determined
by when a note is released, but by which notes are still
down when a new note is pressed. This sometimes produces more pleasing
results when recording a score for display as sheet music.
o Fixed problems:
o Some items were invisible if the Windows Control Panel Display Scheme
had a black background.
o Sometimes, when a note's property was set to move it to the other clef,
if it was a dotted note, the dot got drawn to the left of the note.
o It was not displaying lyrics for some Karoke (.kar) files.
o Changing "Enable HTML help" on the View / Options page sometimes
caused Anvil Studio to crash.
o Items created on the Composer page by Edit / Insert Notation were
sometimes drawn in the wrong location.
o Track names and other properties can now contain umlots and other
European characters in the ANSI range 128 to 255.
o Fixed a rare stem direction problems and a rare rest-drawing problems
o When inserting notes after an Upbeat, the upbeat got moved.
Fixed problems in the 2000.06.01 version include:
o In previous versions, when a new track was created, it would
have no Program Change message, but default to whatever program that
synthesizer associated with the track's channel.
Now, each new track has an explicit ProgramChange(0) event,
which on most synthesizers, defaults to Accoustic Piano.
o Some errors were fixed in the Music Drills accessory.
Fixed problems in the 2000.05.06 version include:
o Some problems with scrolling by moving cursor with arrow keys.
o Several note-display problems.
New features in the 2000.05.03 version include:
o Added Edit / Insert Notation / Up Beat menu item
o Fixed problems
o Improved Print-Sheet accessory's Conductor's Score so that
measure lines and note stems line up for all tracks.
o Fixed a header font problem with the Print-Sheet accessory.
o Stems line up better between treble and bass clefs.
o Had trouble changing time signature or key signature at the start
of several measures of rests.
Fixed problems in the 2000.04.10 version include:
o Triplet-half-notes and triplet-quarter-notes were not being drawn correctly.
o Some note stems were not being drawn
o Sometimes, it displayed error message "can't display modeless form when modal form is active"
o For versions since 2000.01.01, when Pro-Mix accessory was used to alter audio Pan or Volume,
the resulting mix was not played back accurately, or overflow errors
o Fixed some problems with displaying enharmonic notes
o Added documentation to Help menu for loading SoundFont files.
New features in the 2000.04.04 version include:
o Added Note Properties keyboard shortcut to the View / Options menu
o Fixed problems
o Stems of 8th note chords were not being drawn properly since version 2000.01.01
o The File / New and Track / Create menu items sometimes caused the initial track to be marked as disabled.
Fixed problems in the 2000.04.02 version include:
o Add option to not use Windows Swapfile for audio mixing.
o On systems with low memory, rewind, record, play buttons were sometimes
displayed incorrectly.
o Songs with more than 4 minutes of sampled rhythms could result in
a silent rhythm track.
New features in the 2000.03.11 version include:
o Right-click keyboard to cause key notes to be displayed.
o Allows triplet chords
o Added time signatures for 9/8, 3/8, 6/4, 9/4, 4/2
o Fixed problems
o It was sometimes displaying small rests inaccurately
o Fixed a bug that could result in the program ending when using DirectX pluggins
New features in the 2000.03.08 version include:
o Added ability to print Composer Score if Print-Sheet accessory is installed.
o Fixed problems:
o Pressing the VU button before the REC button causes audio track Sync problems.
o The File / Export MIDI 0 menu item was merging all notes into a single
MIDI channel.
o All versions since and including 2000.02.05 had a bug that caused
the Volume and Pan controls on the Rhythm Track's Edit Samples dialog
to not behave properly, sometimes resulting in Overflow errors.
o Several other minor bug fixes.
New features in the 2000.03.03 version include:
o Added View Lyrics menu item, so that an entire track's lyrics
can be edited at the same time.
o Added more entries to the Help menu.
New features in the 2000.03.01 version include:
o Print Sheet accessory now lets you specify different fonts for each of:
Header, Footer, Lyrics
o Fixed problems:
o When copying a measure that had a tie-note to the next measure,
it was copying the NoteOn event, but not the NoteOff event, resulting
in a note with infinite sustain. It no longer copies partial notes.
The File/Repair Song menu item repaires such songs.
o When trying to delete a NoteOn event that had no matching NoteOff
event, there were situations in which the program could stop responding (i.e. crash).
New features in the 2000.02.05 version include:
o Added File menu item that exports the current song as a MIDI-Format 0 song.
o Fixed problems:
o It was possible to get the CopyMe accessory into a state where
it did not advance when the correct keys were pressed.
o It does a better job of adjusting for DirectX latency (delays).
so that when DirectX introduces latency, instrument and audio tracks stay in sync better, and
recorded audio tracks stay in sync with played-back audio tracks.
o It sometimes generated Overflow errors when playing back with DirectX effects
o It sometimes generated Bad Parameter errors when changing pitch of an Audio selection
New features in the 2000.02.01 version include:
o With Print-Sheet accessory, Lyrics can now be displayed and printed with
treble-only or bass-only Clefs.
Also added ability to add a page-number-offset to printed pages, so that
song can more easily be printed as part of a book.
o Fixed problems:
o Now loads and imports ShortCuts to files properly.
New features in the 2000.01.09 version include:
o Added Edit / Insert Notation / Double Bar and Text...
so that you can insert and drag arbitrary text of any font anywhere on the staff.
o Fixed problems:
o On systems with other programs that installed an invalid ComCtl32.ocx
Anvil Studio would generate the error message:
run-time error '339':
component 'comctl32.ocx' not correctly registered: file is missing or invalid
Anvil Studio now uses mscomctl.ocx instead of comctl32.ocx
New features in the 2000.01.08 version include:
o The Mixer page now supports zoomed-out copying and pasting multiple measures from track to track.
This is especially useful for rhythm tracks and Piano Roll tracks, since they previously only
allowed single measures to be copied and pasted.
o Better support for half-duplex sound cards.
o Fixed problems:
o If several samples were played at the same time, all samples on a rhythm track
were sometimes played back with nearly silent volume when the mixed tracks were played.
o If 9 or more samples were added to a rhythm track, it could sometimes result in
a high-pitched pinging sound whenever the 9th or 10th samples were played.
o It sometimes displayed "Can't show modeless form" error message.
New features in the 2000.01.06 version include:
o Faster real-time mixing and more responsive VU meters
o Fixed problems:
o In version 2000.01.03, right-mouse click on loopback button caused runtime error.
New features in the 2000.01.03 version include:
o Added per-track and master playback VU meters
o Track / Clone menu item failed for audio tracks when Composer window was visible.
o Added new Master Audio Volume control to Mixer page.
o Added note properties popup menu to the Rhythm and Piano Roll pages.
New features in the 2000.01.02 version include:
o Added a new Note Popup Menu item that makes it easier to shift
the start time of a note on the staff.
o Added ability to set MIDI Ticks per Beat on the Options page.
o Sped up editing of long tracks.
o Added a decibel side-bar that shows units on the Audio Composer window.
o Fixed problems:
o Unless a device was explicity set on the Metronome page, attempts
to start the metronome resulted in an error message.
It selects a reasonable synthesizer as the default metronome device.
o Pro-Mix accessory sometimes generated an overflow runtime error.
o On Windows NT with no Internet Explorer installed, it failed with
runtime error 53.
o For some printers, need to set Printer Option 1 on the Options page.
Fixed problems in the 1999.12.02 version include:
o Printing was inaccurate since version 1999.11.02 on versions with
HP Deskjet printers.
o Crashed with Runtime Error 6 on systems with dual display monitors.
o When Pro-Mix was installed, it sometimes crashed with Runtime Error 6
when editing a long song.
o The Dynamic symbols mf and mp were not displayed properly on the screen
Fixed problems in the 1999.11.07 version include:
o Print-Sheet accessory spools more efficiently
o Pro-Mix controller window is more accurate when Staff is visible
New features in the 1999.11.06 version include:
o When playing a song, cursor on staff stays over current note, rather than next note.
o When changing note duration, added option to shift following notes.
o Metronome is now in sync with song's tempo-map rather than a constant tempo.
o Audio tracks display beats and measures based on songs tempo map rather than
based on constant tempo.
o Added MIDI Effects note popup menu to the Pro-Mix accessory, so that MIDI Effects
can be edited with better resolution for the duration of a note.
It is particularly useful when you want to bend the pitch of a note from
its current value to a desired pitch.
o Added Tempo Map to Edit menu when the Pro-Mix accessory is installed, so that
you can "tap" in the song's tempo to be consistent with an existing Audio track.
o Fixed problems:
o An out-of-stack-space error that sometimes occurred when selecting a range of notes.
o A note spacing problem
o When Echo MIDI Events was set true, some delays were introduced.
o Optimized Multi-Audio 4/8 to eliminate clicks and pops that sometimes
occurred on slower machines.
o For recorded Instrument tracks, it was sometimes displaying notes as dotted
eight notes which would more accurately be displayed as quarter notes.
New features in the 1999.11.02 version include:
o Supports time signature changes in the middle of a rhythm track
and Piano Roll track, the same as it already does for an Instrument track.
o Added Prima Volta and Seconda Volta symbols
o Added more answers to frequently asked questions.
