We’re pleased to announce a new BeatCleaver update is now available.
This minor update brings some modernization and bugfixes to improve the overall experience.
Changes include:
Support for High DPI displays (Windows Display Scaling) – Graphics and window sizing are much improved for users with modern, High DPI monitors.
Soundcard bug fixes – We’ve backported 8 years of bugfixes from our soundcard I/O code that went on to power Rocket Broadcaster. Includes better default device detection, samplerate detection, and better device compatibility.
64-bit – BeatCleaver is now a native 64-bit application for Windows. Windows 10 and 11 are fully supported.
Dark Mode – BeatCleaver now supports Dark Mode, if you enable it system-wide in Windows.
Windows Vista support has been dropped. BeatCleaver should run on Windows 7 and up, but we’re only QA testing it on Windows 10 and 11.
Bugfixes:
Fixed an extra note in MIDI exports if there was a slice point at 0
Fixed jittery zoombar dragging, which happened in some cases
Since we started Oscillicious, we’ve always been keen on making our products cross-platform and available for users on as many desktop platforms as possible. However, due to recent changes in macOS (formerly Mac OS X) and a longer pattern of decisions by Apple, we’ve come to the difficult conclusion that continuing to build and support our software for Mac is beyond our means.
Our current released versions of BeatCleaver, JamDeck, SodaSynth, and Analog Extracts for Mac will continue to be available for download for existing customers. Whether or not they continue working on future versions of macOS is up to Apple. Future updates to all products will be available for Windows only.
We deeply regret the disappointment and inconvenience that this will cause our community on Mac. We’re as disappointed as you are.
If you’ve purchased our products for Mac, your licenses will continue to work on Windows. If you decide to install Windows on your Mac with Bootcamp, or purchase a Windows laptop or PC in the future, you’ll be able to continue enjoying our products.
We’re pleased to announce the immediate release of BeatCleaver 1.4, a major update to our sampling audio editor and beat slicer!
BeatCleaver 1.4 is by far the biggest update we’ve ever made, and brings major improvements across the entire application. We’re excited to finally share this new release with you and we hope it opens new creative possibilities for your music sampling and slicing workflow.
What’s New in BeatCleaver 1.4?
Audio Editing with the RapidEdit™ Engine
BeatCleaver now has a powerful new Edit Mode that allows you to edit your recordings and beats like never before. Effects like fades are applied instantly, in real-time, without ever making you pause for rendering, and the results are visible immediately on the waveform. This fluid editing mode is powered by a brand new audio editing engine developed specifically for BeatCleaver, the RapidEdit™ engine. This is audio editing for the 21st century.
Remix Drum Loops with Movable Slices
With BeatCleaver 1.4, you can now rearrange beats or samples after you chop them up using Edit Mode. Using the “Duplicate” effect, any slice can be freely dragged around to create endless variations on a sample or drum loop.
Automatic BPM Detection
Time-stretching is now even easier thanks to integrated BPM detection, which will automatically find the tempo of any loops or audio loaded into BeatCleaver. New tempo and pitch controls have been added directly to the main window to speed the time-stretching workflow as well.
Slice to MIDI
The timing of slices can now be exported to a MIDI file. This feature has been much requested, and is useful for extracting the groove a drum beat in order to construct it in a DAW or with a sampler, but with different sounds. You can also use this feature for any kind of rhythm extraction, not just for drum grooves. (In the menu, go to File->Save as MIDI…)
Full list of changes in BeatCleaver 1.4:
Audio Editing through “Edit Mode”, with the following types of edits and effects available: Fade In, Fade Out, Normalize, Gain (Amplify), Reverse, Duplicate, and Cut/Copy/Paste.
Unlimited undo/redo for the audio editing capabilities.
Significant audio engine optimizations and performance improvements.
A new “Sample Properties” window, allowing you to adjust the original BPM of a sample and see some other file details.
Automatic BPM Detection
Pitch and Time Stretching toolbar for easier control
Slice to MIDI – Export the groove or rhythm of your slices as a MIDI file.
A New, Refreshed Look – New icons and new transport bar graphics.
Slicing usability improvements – Shift-click to play, Ctrl-click (Command-Click on Mac) to slice.
Saved slice templates can now be dragged and dropped back onto the BeatCleaver window to apply them.
Redesigned offline time stretching window
About a dozen bugfixes.
Get BeatCleaver 1.4
New to BeatCleaver? A free trial of BeatCleaver 1.4 is available for download today. The limitations of the trial version are that there’s no saving of audio or slice templates.
BeatCleaver 1.4 is available for purchase from the Oscillicious online shop as a digital download for $79 / €59 / £54.
Existing Customers: The registered version of BeatCleaver 1.4 is available as a free upgrade, and can be obtained from the bottom of the downloads page or by clicking the download link in your original registration email again.
The new Edit Mode enables quick and easy audio editing. It’s lightning fast.
Slicing a Drum Beat in BeatCleaver 1.4 on Mac OS X.
About BeatCleaver
BeatCleaver is a sampling audio editor for slicing up drum loops, recording, and songs. Designed with the sampling workflow in mind, BeatCleaver makes it easy to chop and timestretch audio through an easy interface with smooth zooming for precision slicing. Now, version 1.4 adds new real-time audio editing capabilities for editing and applying effects on-the-fly, further enhancing the fluid sampling workflow.
Time for another devlog update on BeatCleaver 1.4!
I’ve made huge progress since the last update (about a month ago), and 1.4 is now more or less feature-complete:
Some of the new changes coming in BeatCleaver 1.4 that are covered in this video are:
Automatic BPM detection
Slice to MIDI
Tempo and pitch controls integrated into the main window
New icons and new graphics for the transport and loop bars.
Cut/Copy/Paste in Edit Mode
Delete and Trim in Edit Mode
Normalization
New shift and ctrl-click shortcuts to slice and trigger playback in the slicer view.
This video ended up being a bit longer than I would have liked, but it covers twice the development time that the previous ones did, and you can tell how excited I was this time around. (I had to bust out the volume normalization when post-processing the video to keep myself under control.)
I’m working on fixing up bugs still, but there may be a public beta for this release because since so much has changed, I’m getting the sneaky suspicion that there’s probably tons of bugs I haven’t found yet. Keep an eye on Twitter, Facebook, and the blog here for more info!
About two weeks ago, I posted my first devlog video on BeatCleaver 1.4 to help get feedback on the new “Edit Mode” I’m working on, and since then I’ve made some progress. That first video garnered a bunch of great feedback that helped me steer what I’m working on (which was just what I was hoping for), so I’m going to continue blogging my progress whenever I have something cool to show.
In this new video, I quickly demonstrate how slice points now work in Edit Mode, show how you can use two new types of “edit” to manipulate beats, and lastly, I talk about your feedback on the last video and some of the features that you suggested:
Ok, back to C++ for me!
If you have any questions suggestions about what you’re seeing here in BeatCleaver, please leave a comment below or send me an email!
I’ve started working on a new BeatCleaver update, and rather than keeping the new feature set under wraps until right before the release like usual, I’ve decided to try developing this release in the open starting with this first “developer log” video:
Watch the video to see how the new “Edit Mode” in BeatCleaver 1.4 is going to work, and let me know what you think!
BeatCleaver now has basic MIDI controller support so you can preview your chops from your favorite controller. Just configure your MIDI controller in the preferences and you’ll be ready to go!
Snap to Zero
A new “Snap to Zero” option has been added to the Slicing menu that automatically snaps any new slice points to zero crossings in the waveform. Slicing at zero crossings helps reduce any audible clicks at slice points, and this feature will help cut down on manual labour.
Fade in/out Slices
A “Fade in/out Slices” option has also been added to the Slicing menu, that adds an additional small 2 ms fade at the start and end of any slice. This helps further reduce any audible clicks at slice points in case you slice on a region with a very sharp attack. At 2 ms, it’s short enough to ensure that kicks and other “punchy” sounds keep their punchiness even when you slice very close to the start of them.
Samplerate Conversion (WAVE export)
BeatCleaver now allows you to choose the samplerate that your slices will be saved with. By default, BeatCleaver will preserve the original samplerate of the sample, but you can choose in the preferences to resample the audio to 22500 Hz, 44100 Hz, 48000 Hz, 96000 Hz, or 192000 Hz.
Bugfixes:
Fixed a slice triggering bug where sometimes playback would always begin at the first slice.
Improved robustness of soundcard code in the preferences, fixes one crash.
Fixed a bogus 20 samples of silence at the start of some saved samples.
Existing customers can grab the BeatCleaver 1.3.1 update either by clicking the download links in their original registration email or by visiting our Oscillicious downloads page.
I’m very pleased to announce the release of BeatCleaver 1.3.0, a major update to our beat slicing and music sampling software!
What’s New in BeatCleaver 1.3.0?
Time Stretching
As we teased earlier in our Time Stretching Preview, BeatCleaver now has a state-of-the-art time stretching engine so you can warp your samples to match a different tempo or change their pitch. What we really like about this particular time stretching engine is that it does a great job at preserving transients, or the quick onset of musical events. In other words, it keeps your drums punchy even when they’re stretched, but also works to better preserve the character of harmonic instruments like pianos too. Try out the new time stretching feature and let us know what you think!
Drag Export
To make the sampling workflow even faster, BeatCleaver now has a new Drag Export mode that allows you to drag slices right out of the application and into a folder, your desktop, or even right into a DAW.
With the new Drag Export mode, you can now drag slices right out of BeatCleaver and into your DAW.
FLAC Support
Due to popular demand, BeatCleaver can now read FLAC audio files for chopping. The FLAC audio file format uses “lossless” compression, meaning it’s a 100% perfect replica (just like WAVE) except that it offers substantially smaller files. Because of these advantages, FLAC has become the format of choice for vinyl rips and we’re excited that BeatCleaver can now be used on even more sampling material.
On-the-Fly Chopping
Last but not least, we’ve added a new Slice at Cursor button to BeatCleaver (with “S” as a shortcut key) that allows you to insert slice points during playback directly at the current playback position. In other words, you can chop a sample on-the-fly as it’s playing just by tapping the S key, cutting slices as you go along.
Other Changes
Here’s a more detailed changelog for BeatCleaver 1.3.0:
New Rubber Band-powered time stretching engine
Added FLAC file reading support – Even supports 24-bit FLAC files.
Added Drag Export mode, enabling the dragging of slices right out of BeatCleaver.
Added “Slice at Cursor” button for on-the-fly chopping.
New resampling engine
Allow WASAPI Shared Mode now, so BeatCleaver doesn’t hog your soundcard when using WASAPI.
Existing Customers: BeatCleaver 1.3.0 is a free update, and you can grab it by hitting the download links in their original registration email or by visiting the bottom of our downloads page.
BeatCleaver 1.3 is available for both Windows and Mac.
There are few audio effects that match the sheer usefulness of time stretching.
Time stretching is an effect that allows you to change the tempo and pitch of a sample independently of one another. For example, if you’ve sampled a vinyl and you want to work it into an existing track, time stretching lets you slow down the sample to match the tempo of your beat. You also usually need to transpose the sample to match the key of your song as well. Time stretching is different from resampling because the latter changes both the pitch and tempo at the same time.
What’s particularly great about time stretching is that it preserves the original character of your source material, which has made it a ubiquitous technique in modern hip hop music production. Preserving the original character of a sample is more important in hip hop than in other genres because sampling is so closely tied to the “sound” of the genre. In hip hop, sound design tends to focus more on reworking existing samples to fit with each other, as opposed to say, the synth-oriented sound design of most EDM genres. (If you wander in between hip hop and EDM production, taking certain elements of each, you get post-2010 trap music, but I digress.) Although you don’t need to use timestretching or even resampling when you’re making hip hop, both techniques let you expand your palette of available sounds. Once you go timestretching though, it sure is hard to go back.
A sneak peek at BeatCleaver 1.3 for Windows. Notice anything new?
That’s why we’re excited to share the news that time stretching is coming to BeatCleaver in the upcoming 1.3 release. We’ve integrated a new, high fidelity time stretching engine and added a number of different quality presets and options to let you tweak the final sound.
BeatCleaver 1.3 adds the ability to time stretch and repitch samples (independently).
Screenshots are great, but time stretching needs to be heard, so we’ve put together a short demo track featuring only samples that were time-stretched and chopped in BeatCleaver 1.3:
You can also listen to those samples directly, in both original and timestretched versions below. We’ve placed comments inline that label each sample and list the time stretching settings:
(Full attribution and links to the the samples are provided in the description on SoundCloud.)
We’re currently wrapping up BeatCleaver 1.3 beta testing and we hope to have a final release within the next week or so. Stay tuned for more information and the release announcement!
Fun fact: Akai released the first MPC with time stretching back in 2000, the MPC 2000 XL.
After a busy week of BeatCleaver development, we’re pushing out a small (but worthwhile) update that brings a couple of bugfixes and enhancements:
Big performance boost when navigating around the waveform.
Fixed rare crash during looping.
Fixed several bugs causing inconsistent playback behaviour, especially when looping.
Fixed another bug where an invalid loop could be placed when loading a second file.
These changes don’t sound drastic, but combined they add up to make BeatCleaver feel a lot tighter and more consistent. It’s the little things, right? But that’s not all: We’ve got some news on BeatCleaver 1.3 coming soon. Most of our recently development time has gone into BeatCleaver 1.3, and we’re just about ready to start spilling the beans on what’s coming next. Stay tuned!
Existing BeatCleaver owners can hit up the download links in their original registration email to get this new BeatCleaver update or head over to the bottom of our downloads page to grab it.
