0.1.0-alpha.2

Released 2026-10-30. Compare on GitHub

Added

Autosave after recording (Settings › General › After Recording, on by default): the autosave is written as soon as a take is placed, and after Bounce in Place, Freeze and imports.
Recovering an interrupted recording: takes being recorded when Marbble crashed, was killed or lost power are repaired and offered in the Recover sheet, placed where they would have landed (cycle takes as a take folder).
Saves are atomic; a damaged project file falls back to the autosave, then the newest backup (or project.json.bak when Backups is set to 0). A panic on the main thread writes an emergency autosave.
Comps and MIDI take folders: a take folder keeps several comps (Create New Comp, Duplicate Comp, Rename Comp, Delete Comp and the comp list in its menu; the name bar shows the comp heard). Settings › Recording › MIDI › Create take folders makes each MIDI cycle pass a take, and MIDI recordings over regions take folders; MIDI folders play whole takes. Take folders crossfade with their neighbours, loops crossfade at their loop end and optionally at every repetition (Crossfade Loop Repetitions), and Settings › Editing › Crossfade Time and Crossfade Curve set the take folder, X-Fade and Crossfade menu crossfades (comp boundaries are now 20 ms by default instead of 10 ms).
Record MIDI in Replace mode: Settings › Recording › Overlapping Recordings › MIDI › Replace clears the notes and controllers in the recorded range of the regions underneath, and a Replace button in the control bar makes every recording, audio and MIDI, replace. Merge now merges recorded controllers too, not only notes.
Chase: Notes: starting playback, jumping or cycling back in the middle of a long note starts it, as in Logic. Settings › MIDI › Chase switches note and controller chase.
Tracks-area tools: Left-click and Ctrl-click (⌘-click) Tool pop-ups in the Tracks area’s bar and Logic’s Tool menu (T, then the tool’s letter), with the Pointer, Pencil (empty MIDI regions), Eraser, Scissors (Alt+click for equal pieces), Glue, Mute, Fade (fades and crossfades by dragging) and Marquee tools, each with its own pointer.
Marquee selection: a time range across tracks (the Ctrl-click tool by default). Delete, Cut, Copy and Paste act on the part of the regions inside it, and a Pointer click inside splits the regions at its edges.
Drag modes No Overlap, Shuffle R and Shuffle L (the Drag pop-up in the Tracks area): No Overlap shortens a region that an edit overlaps; the Shuffle modes keep a track’s regions butted together, closing gaps on delete and trim and swapping neighbours on a drag. Drags are drawn where they will land.
Settings › Editing › Move Automation with Regions (Never, Always, Ask): a region moved along its track takes the automation under it along, in the same undo step.
Fades and crossfades: a curve for each fade, Speed Up and Slow Down fades, and X, EqP and X S crossfades between adjacent or overlapping regions (Inspector, the region menu’s Crossfade item, or the handle on the canvas). The X-Fade drag mode crossfades overlaps automatically. Bounce, export, freeze and Join render them as playback does.
Region gain handle: hovering over an audio region shows its gain at the top centre of its name bar; drag it up or down (Shift for fine steps) to change the gain of every selected audio region by the same amount, with the waveform following, or double-click it for 0 dB. A drag is one undo step.
Snap Edits to Zero Crossings (Edit menu, and a key command): splits, trims and range edits of audio regions move to the nearest zero crossing within 5 ms. Saved with the project.
Arranging commands from Logic’s Edit menu (also in the Tracks area’s Edit and Functions menus, with Logic’s keys where free): Select All Following (Shift+F), Inside Locators, Muted, Overlapped, Same Colored, Equal or Similar Regions, Invert Selection (Shift+I); Section Between Locators: Insert Silence, Cut Section, Repeat Section and Insert Cut Section across every track (regions cut at the locators, automation, markers and arrangement sections move with their time), or within the marquee; Trim: region start or end to the playhead, end to the next region, Fill Within Locators, Remove Overlaps, Resize to Same Length, Crop Outside Locators or Marquee; Move Region to Playhead (;), Remove Gaps, Delete and Shuffle, Paste at Original Position, Paste Replace, Join Regions per Track, and naming or colouring regions by their track and tracks by their region.
Strip Silence (Edit › Strip Silence…): splits audio regions around the parts above a threshold, with Logic’s minimum time, pre-attack and post-release settings and a preview of the cuts on the region’s waveform.
Arrangement track (the top global track, View › Show Global Tracks): named sections (Intro, Verse, Chorus…) that tile the timeline, added with +, renamed from Logic’s name pop-up, coloured by name, and resized by their right edge. Dragging a section moves it with its content (regions on every track cut at its edges, automation and markers) and Alt-drag copies it; a section can be deleted with or without its content. Clicking one selects its regions.
Markers with their own lengths: set from the marker menu’s Length submenu, the Marker List’s new Length column, or by dragging the end of a marker’s bar. Clicking a marker selects it (Delete removes it); with Cycle on, or dragged into the cycle strip, it sets the locators.
Overview: the Tracks area’s horizontal scroll bar is now a miniature of the whole project (regions, playhead, cycle, markers, project end) with a box for the visible area: drag it to scroll, drag its edges to zoom, click elsewhere to jump there (View › Show Overview).
Scroll to Playhead button beside Catch (Alt+`); a second Stop also brings the playhead into view.
Settings › Editing › Mouse Wheel Scrolls: Horizontally (time) makes a mouse’s vertical wheel scroll through time in the Tracks area and Piano Roll, with Shift for vertical.
Region playback parameters in the Inspector’s Region section, as in Logic: Quantize (straight and triplet values) with Q-Swing, Transpose, Velocity, Dynamics, Gate Time and Delay (ticks or ms) for MIDI regions, and Delay for audio regions. They apply at playback and in every render, the Tracks area draws notes as they play, and region menu › Apply Region Parameters writes them into the regions.
Event List (D, View › List Editors, or the Event List tab beside the Piano Roll): the notes, controllers, pitch bend and channel pressure of the selected MIDI regions as a list, with Position and Length in bars, beats, divisions and ticks through the tempo map. Drag any value or double-click to type it, filter by event type, add events at the playhead with +, delete with Backspace; the event at the playhead is highlighted and Catch follows it. The note selection is shared with the Piano Roll, and the list can have a window of its own.
Step Sequencer: pattern regions on software instrument tracks (Track › New Pattern Region, or Create Pattern Region in an instrument track’s right-click menu), edited as rows of steps in a new editor tab beside the Piano Roll and Event List (also in its own window). Note On, Velocity, Gate and Tie edit modes with click-and-drag painting, per-row pitch (with the General MIDI drum names and Learn), mute, solo, step rate and length (polymeter), pattern length, rate, swing and loop, and the playing step lit during playback. Pattern regions show their steps in the Tracks area, play in every render, and convert to and from MIDI regions.
Step Input Keyboard (View › Step Input Keyboard, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+K, or the Piano Roll’s bar): enter notes one step at a time at the playhead, from its own keyboard, a MIDI keyboard or Musical Typing, with note values 1/1 to 1/128 (dotted, triplet), velocities ppp to fff or as played, Rest, Back, Chord, Sustain and Quantize, and key commands for them. Notes go into the Piano Roll’s region under the playhead, which grows or is made as needed; each step is one undo step.
Controller curves in the Piano Roll’s controller lane: the Line tool draws ramps along a Linear, Exponential, Logarithmic or S-Curve shape at a chosen Ramp Density, joins the points it starts and ends on, and Create Ramp and Thin Out fill and thin the selected points.
MIDI Learn and controller assignments (Marbble › Control Surfaces): Learn Assignment for Last Touched Parameter (Ctrl+L) or a control’s right-click Learn MIDI Assignment assigns the next control change or pitch bend to a fader, pan, send, Mute, Solo, Record, Stereo Out, Channel EQ setting, built-in effect or VST3 parameter, or a transport button. Assigned controllers move their parameter like the mouse (written as automation in Touch, Latch and Write) and don’t reach the instrument. The Controller Assignments window (Ctrl+Shift+L) lists, edits (Jump or Pickup, range) and deletes them; they’re saved with the settings.
More built-in effects: Chorus, Flanger, Phaser and Tremolo (Modulation; the Tremolo syncs to the tempo, locked to the bar), Overdrive and Distortion (Distortion; Soft, Hard, Tube and Fuzz curves, 4× oversampled, level-compensated drive) and Gain (Utility: gain, phase invert, swap, mono, balance). Each has its panel, automation, factory presets and freeze and bounce support.
Linear Phase EQ (EQ category): the Channel EQ’s eight bands with linear phase, in the Channel EQ’s own editor, with a Quality pop-up (Low, Medium, High: 21, 43 or 85 ms of latency at 48 kHz, made up by delay compensation). Settings change without clicks, follow automation, and render identically in bounces and freezes.
Delay compensation changes glide: inserting or removing a latent plug-in, changing a plug-in’s latency or switching Low Latency Mode while playing now crossfades each compensated path (track outputs, sends and auxes) to its new delay over 15 ms instead of clicking.
Channel strip settings: the Setting button at the top of each strip (and the strip name’s right-click menu) copies and pastes a strip’s instrument, Audio FX (VST3 state included) and Channel EQ, resets the strip, and saves settings to load in any project. Paste, Reset and loading apply to all selected strips as one undo step.
Clip indicators: each strip’s peak readout holds its highest peak until reset, turns red over 0 dBFS and lights the top of the meter (and the end of the track header’s meter); click to reset, Alt-click (or the key command Reset All Clip Indicators) to reset all.
Gain-reduction meter beside a strip’s level meter when it has a Compressor, Limiter, Noise Gate or De-Esser.
VCA faders: Mixer › Options › Create New VCA, or a strip’s new VCA slot. A VCA strip’s fader offsets the level of every strip assigned to it without moving their faders (an outlined cap on each fader shows where it really plays), its Mute mutes them, and VCAs can be nested. Volume automation, bounces, exports and frozen tracks follow the VCA.
Pre-fader side-chains: a Pre / Post switch beside the Side Chain pop-up of the Compressor, Noise Gate and De-Esser keys the effect from the source before its fader, so a trigger track pulled all the way down still works. Existing projects stay post-fader.
Automation lanes, curves, stacks and Stereo Out: the + on a lane header opens more lanes below a track, each with its own parameter; Show Used Automation (Shift+A) shows every lane with data. Ctrl+Shift-drag (Control-Shift on macOS, or Alt+Shift) bends a segment into a curve; double-click straightens it. Folder stacks automate their volume and mute, and Track › Show Output Track shows Stereo Out with lanes for its volume and plug-ins. Bounces and exports render all of it.
Project alternatives (File › Project Alternatives): versions of a project in one folder, sharing its audio files: New Alternative…, switching (the current one is saved first), and Edit Alternatives… to rename or delete them.
Backups and File › Revert to: each save keeps the version it replaces, per alternative (Settings › General › Backups, 10 by default), listed by date and time; reverting keeps the current state as a backup too. File › Revert to Saved.
User project templates: File › Save as Template… saves the tracks, routing, plug-ins and settings without regions; they appear under My Templates in the Project Chooser, where a right-click renames or deletes them.
Track alternatives (Track › Track Alternatives and a pop-up in the track header): New, Duplicate, Rename and Delete sets of regions for a track, and switch between them, with undo.
AIFF and FLAC bounces: Bounce, Export All Tracks and Export Region can write AIFF (16, 24-bit or 32-bit float as AIFF-C) and lossless FLAC (16 or 24-bit) as well as WAV; the format is remembered with the other bounce options.
File › Export Selected Tracks as Audio Files… (Ctrl+E): Export All Tracks for just the selected tracks.
Separate windows: the Mixer, the Editors (Piano Roll, Audio Track Editor), built-in effect panels and the Channel EQ can be detached into windows of their own, for example on another monitor (the pop-out button in their bar, or View › Mixer / Editor in Separate Window). They stay in sync with the main window, reopen where they were, and come back onto a connected monitor if theirs is gone.
Docked effect panels: built-in effect panels and the Channel EQ can dock in the bottom section, with a tab for each, or float (Settings › General › Open Effect Panels; Floating by default), or open in separate OS windows. Floating panels resize from their sides and bottom corners, their graphs and meters grow with them, and each effect type remembers its last size.
VST3 editor windows on macOS: a plug-in’s own interface opens in a window that floats above Marbble’s, resizes within the plug-in’s limits and hides while another app is in front. Keys the plug-in doesn’t use (Space, key commands, Musical Typing) reach Marbble.
A plug-in whose window can’t open when it’s inserted now says why, instead of only logging it.
Missing plug-ins: a project opened where a plug-in isn’t installed opens and plays without it, says which are missing, shows their slots struck through and keeps their settings. A plug-in installed in another folder than on the computer that saved the project (another OS, say) is found by itself.
macOS: recording asks for microphone access, and builds carry the entitlements a signed app needs to load third-party plug-ins.
The headless checks run on macOS too.
A LICENSE file (MIT), shipped in every bundle.
CI runs the headless checks that need no third-party plug-ins on Linux (scripts/headless-checks.sh).

Changed

Tracks can be as short as 22 px (View › Track Height has a new Mini size). Below 52 px the header goes onto one line and its M, S, R, I and Freeze buttons move into a ⋯ menu; the ones that are on stay visible.
The track header’s volume slider and level meter are one taller control: the meter fills the slider’s groove.
Automation lanes move with a plug-in dragged to another track’s strip; one undo reverts both.
Regions moved across tempo changes keep their bars and beats: with Snap on, the other regions of a drag (and Alt-drag copies) follow the grabbed one in bars and beats rather than in samples, and nudges by a bar, beat or note value count through the tempo map.
Waveforms in the tracks area are drawn at their region’s gain.

Fixed

The Mixer cut off the bottom of its channel strips when it was too short, with no way to scroll to them; it now scrolls, and every strip ends on the same line.
A plug-in that failed to load reported only “dlopen failed”; the report now gives the reason, including a plug-in built only for Intel on Apple Silicon.
The Loudness Meter drew “LUFS” and “LU” over its values.
The Compressor’s circuit tabs and other segmented buttons didn’t show the current choice.
Opening Group Settings (including from New Group from Track) blanked the window.
Play or Record right after moving the playhead could start from the old position.
M4A/MP4 imports started about 40 ms late: the encoder delay and padding are now trimmed exactly, from the iTunes gapless tag or the file’s edit list.
With Musical Typing on, Shift with a note key played the note instead of running its key command (Shift+F, Shift+S and the other Select commands, Shift+A, Shift+K, Shift+R).
Step Input’s keys (note values, Rest, Back…) did nothing in a detached Piano Roll’s window.
Controller Assignments… in a detached Mixer’s or effect panel’s right-click menu did nothing; the sheet now opens in the main window.
Step Input, the Piano Roll and the Event List put notes into pattern regions, which play their steps instead, so the notes were never heard; they now leave pattern regions alone.
Clicking the current project alternative in File › Project Alternatives, or cancelling a switch, left the menu’s tick on the wrong alternative.
Edit › Delete removed the selected regions even when automation points, a tempo change or a marker were selected; it now deletes those first, as the Delete key does.
On macOS, renaming a region, take, comp, marker or arrangement marker, Save Channel Strip Setting As… and the Piano Roll’s Transpose by…, Set Velocity…, Scale Velocity…, Custom Humanize… and Other Controller… did nothing: macOS’s web view has no window.prompt. They now ask in Marbble’s own name sheet (which detached windows show too).
Key commands reached the app behind an open sheet once the focus was outside its text fields: Backspace deleted regions while Strip Silence was open after clicking its slider. Sheets (Strip Silence, Group Settings, the name sheet, Settings, Bounce…) now hold back key commands, Esc closes them and Return presses the default button. Controller Assignments stays non-modal, as in Logic: Learn Assignment and the transport keys still work.
Copy Channel Strip Settings, Copy Plug-in and Copy Channel EQ in a detached Mixer couldn’t be pasted in the main window (or the other way round): the clipboards are now shared.
Edit › Select commands (Shift+I, Shift+F, Shift+M…) selected regions while the Piano Roll or Event List had focus; Invert Selection, All Following, Inside Locators, Muted, Same Colored and Equal now select its notes or events.
Delete or Backspace with the Step Sequencer focused deleted the pattern region being edited; they now do nothing there.
A VCA on a track inside a folder stack was ignored (level and mute) while the folder’s volume or mute automation played.
A folder stack’s automation played early by the delay compensation (up to 85 ms with the Linear Phase EQ on High) instead of in line with its subtracks.
With delay compensation, the last moments of a bounce or export (the plug-in latency) ignored automation and Stereo Out’s lanes, so a fade to silence could end with a blip.
Bounces and exports could play a plug-in parameter at a value set by hand instead of its automation in Read, on tracks and on Stereo Out; a plug-in put back on Stereo Out by undo waited for its lane to change. Bounces now also chase notes and controllers held over their start, as playback does.
After undo, a plug-in could inherit the latency of a Linear Phase EQ (or other built-in effect) that had been undone, delaying the rest of the mix to compensate for nothing.
Duplicate Track (and Move Regions to New Track) shared the original’s track alternatives: the copy’s alternatives held the same regions, so editing one changed the other. The copy now gets its own (or none, without content).
Moving, copying or deleting an Arrangement section left Stereo Out’s automation behind.
Low Latency Mode turned off the wrong plug-in after inserts were reordered.
Switching a track’s or Stereo Out’s automation to Off or Write left a built-in effect’s automated parameter at the lane’s last value, so the project sounded different once reopened; it now goes back to its own value.

Known issues

VST3 editor windows open on Linux (X11, through XWayland on Wayland) and macOS; on Windows plug-ins load, play and can be automated, but show no editor.
Windows and macOS builds are early and have had little hands-on testing. Only the system’s default audio driver is available there (WASAPI, Core Audio; no ASIO).
The builds are unsigned: macOS needs right-click › Open (or xattr -cr), Windows SmartScreen needs More info › Run anyway.
A region’s length stays in samples when it is moved across a tempo change; only its start follows the bars and beats.
VST3 side-chain buses are not connected, and VCA levels can’t be automated or assigned to a controller.
Pattern regions restart their pattern where they’re cut, so an Arrangement move or section edit across one changes what plays. Arrangement edits don’t move the regions of a track’s inactive alternatives.
The takes_check headless check “autopunch trims the take” fails about one run in five, from the null audio device’s timing.

The full list is in the User Guide, Known limitations.