What’s New in FORTE™ 2.0

Vista 32-Bit support

Forte 2.0 is supported in 32 bit Vista and uses Vista-specific features such as MMCSS for improved performance.

Plugin-Specific Scene Recall Fixes

Added a way to override scene capture and recall behavior for individual plugin types.  A file called "DeviceCompatibility.xml" in the install directory contains plugin-specific settings which can override the default behavior.  Plugins are referenced in this file by either CLSID or VST ID.  If your favorite plugin does not correctly restore its settings on scene change, add it to this file.  Contact support for details if the file format is insufficiently clear.  Note that this MUST be a valid XML file in order for the feature to work.

Plugin scene capture/restore compatibility fixes for:

·         Albino 2

·         Albino 3

·         RM IV

·         Kompakt

·         Kenichi Watabe LALLAPALLOOZA lite v2

·         Spectrasonics Atmosphere

·         Wallander Instruments WIVI

·         MOTU MachFive

·         East West Quantum Leap Plugins

·         East West Quantum Leap Play Plugins

·         Ohm Force Symptohm

·         Add custom fixes as described above

Improved Plugin GUI Compatibility

Some plugin GUIs, especially those that use drag and drop like Proteus X and GVI are now better supported.

Delete individual DLL names from ignore list

Added the ability to remove individual DLL names from the VST ignore list in VST Preferences.  This can help if a single plugin was ignored for some reason and avoids having to reprofile all plugins.

Store EHCo persist data as children XML elements instead of blob

EHCo now stores its configuration data as XML in the rack file.  This allows visual inspection of EHCo's configuration.  This requires the latest version of EHCo.

Removed APR

Removed Advanced Performance Recovery

New Audio Preferences and setup

Audio options and 1st time setup has been revamped to be much more flexible, require fewer restarts, and report realistic latency values.

Remap Midi Ports Dialog

Easily remap MIDI port assignments using Tools|Change Hardware Profile.

Multiple Hardware Profile Support (PRODUCER EDITION)

Added support for loading racks onto different computers or onto the same computer with different hardware.

When a rack is loaded, a new dialog is displayed showing each known hardware configuration profile in priority order and its current compatibility.  After a configurable timeout, the highest priority compatible profile is automatically selected unless the user overrides the choice by selecting something manually.  The user may also create a new profile and can then remap MIDI ports from a selected old profile to the new one.  Finally, the user can change the audio inputs and outputs to match the new hardware.

Control Surfaces

Added XML Control Surface Support - there is now a file in the install data directory (where your INI files are) called "ControlSurface.xml". This contains data Forte reads on startup to define global control of bus volume, bus insert bypass, module volume, module mute, module insert bypass and other things.  See the Operations Guide for details on how to configure control surfaces or define them.

Stomp Box

Using custom control surface definitions you can now create stomp box automation of instrument mute or effect bypass.

Improved ability to hold notes across scene changes

Added the ability to hold notes across a scene change even if the new scene has different filtering (transpose or note ranges) than then original scene.  This results in no issues with notes being cut off on scene change.

Default unreferenced MIDI ports to Disabled

By default, MIDI ports that appear after a scene is saved are now initialized to "disabled" in each scene as it is loaded.  You may enable it and update the scene to use it.

The old behavior was that MIDI ports that appeared after a scene was saved would be enabled with a unity mapping.

The old behavior may be restored by changing a flag in OPTIONS.INI:

[MIDI]
DisabledUnreferenced=0

If this value is nonzero or missing, it defaults to 1, which enables the new behavior.

Scene/Song import

You may now import scenes and songs from other rack files.  The merge of new scenes attempts to use existing instrument and bus modules by adding insert effects as necessary.

Per-channel filtering for inserts

You can now route MIDI on insert effects with the same full level of flexibility you have with instrument modules.  This includes per-port and per-channel routing and key range mapping with transpose.

Copy to All Scenes port menu option

Right click on a MIDI port on a plugin's MIDI filter section to display a new option:  Copy to All Scenes.  This command copies the current port filter configuration to all stored scenes.  You will be prompted if any scenes are protected.

ASIO improvements

Forte now defaults to ASIO mode instead of WDM (DirectKS)

Additionally, you may now dynamically choose which ASIO driver to use when you create the first output bus instead of configuring it in program preferences.  You may also reassign to a different ASIO driver using the Tools|Change Hardware Profile menu item.

MIDI Output from plugins

VST and DXi plugins that can send MIDI back to the host application now appear as virtual MIDI input ports to other modules.  These ports are disabled by default but can be enabled in the console.

Plugin Search

Added a menu option to search for plugins in the plugin add menus.  The search box shows plugin details.

Set Initial controller value on scene change

Added an init column to the CC filter.  You can add an init value to any mapping which will be sent when the scene is applied.  You may also remove this value from toggles, which adds additional flexibility for stomp box-style automation.

FIX:  Tap Tempo doesn't work when you update a scene

Modified the scene save to capture the current tempo not the starting tempo of the scene.  This means it will remember tempos that have been modified by tap tempo or other automation.  This fixes a problem where tapped tempos were not being saved when scenes were updated.