• Installer  (thanks to Damned3!)
• Improved MIDI playback
• Bug fixes

What’s new:

• VST Support, both effects and virtual instruments!
• MIDI playback of songs!  (as alternative to audio playback)
• GuitarTetris!  (First 3rd party MusicWare made by Forcepoint - congrats!)
• Karaoke lyrics!
• MIDI Drum support!
• RockBand Drum support! (GHWT as well?)
• MIDI guitar support!
• Dynamic in-game slowdown/speedup working (also in SmartSync for easier syncing)
• Improved menu system.
• SDK 0.5 is available!

WDM-KS driver support kicked because it cause too much trouble for many users.

This is all very nice, but there is more to get excited about. For example: Multiplayer, VSTs and various instruments. This feature-trio could lead to family bands, angry neighbours and endless hours of fun. I imangine something like this:

Maybe you don’t like guitars and prefer the color button plastic axe? But your friend/boyfriend/dad/son plays real guitar? LittleBigStar lets you set up a band with real guitars and plastic guitar controllers. The former could play lead guitar and the other could play a plastic bass! From version 0.5 you can use VSTs to make great sound so just add some VST amp effects to the guitar and a bass synth for the plastic controller.

Now, ask your sister to hold the old headset microphone and she is going karaoke. If you have a set of drums (from RB , GH-WT or e-Drums) ask a friend to sit in by the drums and add a Drum VST. There is also support for MIDI piano/keyboard support which might be easier on little or untrained hands than guitars.

Soon you will be able to make turn noise up to eleven, and by time maybe even compose music with friends.

Naturally, trees will not grow into the sky - not yet - and there is a catch. We still have no game visualizations for piano, drums and controllers. You can make a lot of noise but the coherent band game experience is still missing. The good news is that there is already a SDK available at google code and I hope that more hopeful developers will see the opportunity to create next-generation music gaming experiences.

Whats new:

• Drum support!
• Karaoke lyrics!
• Dynamic in-game slowdown/speedup working (also in SmartSync)
• New menu system.

WDM-KS drivers will be kicked out because they cause too much trouble for many users.

• In-game menu and easy setup, the settings app is no longer needed!
• SmartSync is much improved!
• Karaoke support! (preliminary)
• GuitarPong (preliminary, just to get ideas flowing!)
• MusicWare framework (to be exploited by SDK 0.4)
• Note recognition senesitivity setting.
• WDM-KS drivers for low latency. (Caution! - BSOD on my podXT!)
• Input channel selection.
• Vista x64 fix!
• Performance improvements
• Many bug fixes.

What’s broken:

• Settings app is gone! (will resurrect in new dress around 0.5)
• Slowdown has become dynamic but notes currently not affected.
• Saving preferences is broken.

This is a major update and im really happy with the result - it should provide a smooth experience. However, since so much code has been rewritten I expect that new bugs have arisen.

SDK 0.4 is comming once 0.4 is bug free and broken things have been fixed.

This is a preview video of 0.4. I am showing the menu settings which are under development. I don’t actually play guitar in this video. Towards the end the video capture software caused performance problems and low frame rates.

Also take a look at the 0.4 Pong video in the previous post.

The other major thing now is the vista x64 crash. There were reports that the game mode works with x64, so bypassing the settings app with an in-game menu system may solve the problem. If that should work, its not very satisfactory for me (as i still dont know what was wonrg), so i’m currently installing vista x64 onto a second computer.

You can follow progress in the development plan: http://littlebigstar.net/w/Development_plan

• GuitarPro 5,4 and 3 support!
• Improved guitar tuner
• Option to boost synth output
• Bug fixes

Im off for Christmas, skiing and some family time. Merry Christmas to everyone!