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Wave Repair |
| last update: 16th Jan 2020 | |
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News
16th April 2020: Version 4.9.5 released
There is nothing earth-shattering about this release; it just pulls together some fixes and tweaks that have been accumulating over the last few years.The most significant bug fix is to ignore non-standard RIFF chunks in the headers of WAV files that have been placed there by other applications.
The other main change is to the default installation location. This has been moved away from the Program Files folder because more modern versions of Windows were preventing Wave Repair from storing its configuration files there (and diverting them elsewhere).
It must be stressed that Wave Repair is now an old legacy program. Although any new bugs that get reported will be fixed, no further functional development is planned.
19th April 2007: Version 4.9.2 released
The main reason for this release is that a user discovered a serious bug in two-pass equalisation that could, in rare circumstances, lead to clipping being introduced. Although the degree of clipping was extremely subtle and almost certainly inaudible, it is of course completely unacceptable that an operation which is specifically intended to guarantee that clipping cannot occur fails in this way. Therefore I have released a fixed version as a matter of urgency.3rd March 2007: Version 4.9.1 released for Windows Vista Compatibility
After checking out the compatibility of Wave Repair with Windows Vista, I discovered two basic issues:- Vista does not support the old Windows Help system (using .HLP files).
I have therefore rebuilt Wave Repair's program help in the more modern
format (compiled HTML, using .CHM files). This change is made at release
4.9.1 of Wave Repair. As a consequence, releases of Wave Repair from 4.9.1
onwards wil not run on Windows 95, as support for CHM help files was
introduced in Windows 98.
The rebuilding of the program help as a CHM file was a fairly involved task, involving a lot of cutting-and-pasting of the various pages from the old program help. It is therefore quite possible that I may have missed a few links here and there. I would be very grateful for any reports of incorrect operation of the new program help.
- Vista drivers are unavailable for many soundcards. If you can get
working Vista drivers for your soundcard, then Wave Repair will work.
But be warned that unless you have a recent model
soundcard from a mainstream manufacturer, getting it to work might prove
tricky. I have heard stories that people have upgraded from XP to Vista,
and that the XP drivers that were already
working OK continued to work under Vista. But I'd imagine that this may
well be soundcard-specific.
Please do not email me asking for help in finding or installing Vista drivers for soundcards. I simply do not have the time to experiment on behalf of others with an operating system that I have no intention of using myself.
If anyone finds any other Vista compatibility issues, please let me know.
2nd Nov 2006: Version 4.9.0 Released
This is another incremental release to take advantage of things I've figured out during the rewrite. The main new feature in this release is a significantly improved method of displaying the waveform when long section of a file are displayed.There is no significance in the fact that this is now the first 4.9.x release: I simply ran out of single digits in the 4.8.x numbering series!
Version 4.8.9 Released
I have decided that since the rewrite is going so slowly, it would be helpful to incorporate some of the new features into the existing program whenever it is possible to do so. Version 4.8.9 includes one such significant feature: the addition of a spectral view option, which I feel is very useful in some cases.Version 4.8.8 Released
Work on the ground-up rewrite has been progressing much more slowly than I would like. I still have no idea if and when it will be forthcoming. In the meantime, I have released 4.8.8, which has a few minor updates and bug fixes.Version 4.8.7 Replaces 4.8.6 Within 3 Days
In version 4.8.6 I fixed a bug in two-pass equalisation, and in doing so introduced a much more serious one, which meant that clipping could be created. Since the whole purpose of two-pass equalisation is to guarantee that clipping cannot occur, this is extremely embarrassing. (There is a technical term to describe what I did wrong, but it's far too rude to publish on a web site).Therefore I have withdrawn version 4.8.6 and released 4.8.7 to fix this problem. Anyone who has downloaded 4.8.6 should replace it with 4.8.7. My apologies for this error and any inconvenience it may have caused.
Version 4.8.6 Released
It's been a long time since 4.8.5 was released. My apologies for the extended period of inactivity; this was due to changes in my personal circumstances which mean that I am no longer able to devote as much time to development work as I would like to.There is now a very long wish list of features that various users have expressed a desire to see supported. A major problem is that the features which I regard as being most important will require a rewrite from scratch. Contemplating such a rewrite is frankly quite scary, but the time for hestitation is over, and I simply have to make a start.
What this means is that version 4.8.6 will be the last release for some time while I work on this rewrite. I will continue to make new releases based on the existing code base only for these reasons:
- Bug fixes (of course).
- Features which are obviously generally useful and which are very simple to implement.
Apart from this, I will start work on a new code base. The major new features I hope to provide include:
- Support of higher resolution WAV files (eg. 24bit, 96kHz, etc).
- A better waveform display, where the overall shape when viewing long sections is clearly shown.
- Support for ASIO soundcard drivers.
- General cut/copy/paste operations.
- Realtime preview of noise reduction and decrackling.
- Radical performance improvements following "global" operations which have not yet been saved (such as EQ, amplification, etc).
I don't have any timescale for the development, so cannot publish an expected release date. Wave Repair is very much a sideline for me, which I work on in what little spare time I have.
Soundcard Interface:
Starting with release 4.6, the way that the Recording screen interfaces to the soundcard driver was changed. There were some instances where Wave Repair could not interface properly to the soundcard's driver, and as a result was unable to allow the user to select the recording input and adjust recording levels directly from its Recording screen (requiring instead that the user fall back on the Windows Volume Control utility).It should be noted that this problem does not affect Wave Repair's ability to actually record, as this uses a different Windows subsystem which has never given any problems.
If you are still experiencing problems in this area, the workaround is unfortunately that it will be necessary to use the Windows Volume Control (or if that doesn't work, the soundcard manufacturer's own control utility) to select the input line and adjust record levels. Alternatively, version 4.5.1 (the last release that used the previous method of interfacing to soundcards) can still be obtained from the downloads page, and it is possible (but unlikely) that it will work with your soundcard.