Stem Hero

Clearer mode toggle and defined cut corners - Made Basic/Nerd a shared recessed track with a bright sliding selected face and readable inactive option. - Fixed bottom-left cuts on wrapped track and master volume sliders in both modes; moved labels right for clearance. - Made focus and adjustment highlights follow cut-corner control shapes. - Kept bottom and right bezel edges visible and softened shadows so corners remain clearly defined.

Soft bezels and cut-corner controls - Refreshed Basic and Nerd controls with MIDIogre design 12A’s fine highlighted bezels, soft shadows and 45° bottom-left cuts. - Adapted the treatment to Stem Hero’s green console palette, retaining distinct mute, solo, active and clipping colors. - Added matching subtle relief to mixer frames, effects racks, dialogs and fields. - Preserved the existing layout, full control hit targets, keyboard focus, guarded faders and shared playback state.

Complete history, Unlicense and a clearer start - Added a complete changelog covering every released build from 0.1.0 onward, ordered newest first. - Adopted Unlicense and included its full text in the app and as a separate file. - Moved the intro panel’s Open New action to the top and made it larger and more prominent. - Added changelog/license access in the welcome screen, loaded Basic mixer, Nerd About panel and footer.

Peak hold and slower meter fall - Master and track meters in both modes hold measured peaks for at least 40 ms. - Full-scale meter fall increased to 500 ms after the hold; smaller peaks fall proportionally faster. - New or equal peaks refresh the hold, lower readings do not, and rising levels remain immediate. - Preserved raw clipping detection, analyser cadence, shared meter state and stop/source cleanup.

Custom presets remain reachable - Fixed the preset dropdown collapsing in desktop Custom track effects. - Placed the preset menu on its own full-width row in both track and master racks. - Aligned the six effect enable buttons in equal-sized rows with square styling and clearer enabled states.

Flat tracks and smoother meters - Squared Basic track outlines, fader frames, meter strips, transport and song-row edges. - Removed decorative card gradients, inset shadows and meter/thumb glows while retaining fills and focus. - Added immediate meter attack with a time-based, proportional 100 ms full-scale fall in both modes. - Kept raw clip detection separate from meter smoothing and reset both views on playback/source teardown.

Shared welcome screen and asset guide - Added one square, flat intro panel shared by Basic and Nerd before loading. - Explained Stem Hero and supported Clone Hero/YARG songs, collection ZIPs, extracted game stems and ordinary audio. - Added a song-asset guide covering metadata, artwork, charts and formats that require unpacking first. - Improved empty Nerd startup by showing the intro first and hiding the disabled mixer workspace.

Shared logo, header and Nerd pan knobs - Embedded the one-line vined STEM HERO logo with colors and background matched to the app. - Made the logo, Basic/Nerd switch and Open New header consistent between modes. - Moved Nerd track volume above Mute / Pan / Solo and changed Pan to a dual-action knob. - Added effect-parameter explanations to the tap-open dialog, keeping floating sliders compact. - Enlarged song-selection text and added game/source and chart author to its third line.

Effect knobs and compact Basic header - Replaced all 28 effect parameter sliders per rack with labeled knobs and formatted values. - Tap opens a slider dialog; holding for 500 ms or deliberately dragging opens the shared floating slider. - Hidden disabled effect modules now retain their settings until enabled. - Shared pan/effect gesture safeguards prevent scrolling and cancelled gestures from changing parameters. - Squared Basic buttons and toggles; renamed the loader Open New and moved it beside the mode switch.

Clearer song choices and shared UI polish - Song choices use three lines: Title, Artist · Album, then stem count, with larger titles. - Removed redundant folder/metadata text from the third line while retaining search and tooltips. - Applied the square, flat theme to shared pickers, notices, summaries, warnings and loading panels. - Enlarged dialog targets and bounded filter/list scrolling so actions stay reachable.

Song/collection opening and quick pan - Renamed Open Song to Open Song/Collection and clarified collection loading throughout the UI. - Redesigned the pan dialog with a flat filled slider, center marker and large Center/Done actions. - Added hold-for-floating-slider pan editing with relative horizontal movement. - Long holds and adjustments beyond two displayed pan points suppress the release dialog, including after returning to the starting value. - Added scroll, pointer-capture, lifecycle and viewport safeguards for the floating control.

Saved-mix notice and flat Nerd console - Added Saved mix restored notices with Accept and Reset; they dismiss after 10 seconds while keeping settings. - Reset restores the newly loaded song defaults and offers Undo without changing playback position. - Mode switches preserve notice deadlines; edits, source changes and stale timers cannot affect newer mixes. - Continued the square, flat Nerd treatment across cards, effects, controls and dialogs.

Compact transport and reclaimed track space - Placed compact Play/Stop controls beside the scrub bar on one full-width Basic row. - Placed master volume and Clip on the second row, with metering integrated beneath the fader text. - Fixed inherited layout rules that collapsed the master fader and stacked transport controls. - Loaded Basic uses the remaining live viewport for tracks and hides the footer; short windows retain normal scrolling.

Transport finish and first Nerd refresh - Reset Undo now expires after 10 seconds without changing playback or the current mix. - Removed Recent Songs/Mixes and manual relinking; ordinary opening still restores saved settings. - Reduced guarded track/master volume drag threshold to five CSS pixels. - Restyled master volume and scrub controls as filled Basic-style sliders. - Started the matching Nerd fader, readout, control and Mute/Solo visual refresh.

Intentional volume drags and Basic polish - Required deliberate horizontal movement before changing track/master volumes; taps and vertical swipes preserve values. - Used relative adjustment after the initial ten-pixel dead zone and kept keyboard range controls. - Added pointer cancellation, capture and lifecycle cleanup for guarded faders. - Polished Basic panels, fader text, Pan captions and Mute/Solo states.

Reset Undo and Basic notices - Added Reset Mix Undo in both modes, restoring levels, pan, mute/solo, effects and quick-mix selection. - Undo retains settings only and is invalidated by subsequent edits/source changes. - Added an advanced-settings summary with explicit Review in Nerd and Keep as is choices. - Added persistent Basic import notices and details while keeping routine ignored files quiet. - Avoided flagging ordinary restored instrument labels as advanced changes.

Basic Mode preview - Introduced persistent Basic/Nerd selection and a simple song-opening dialog. - Added compact labeled track faders, percentages, pan values, Mute/Solo and meters. - Shared transport, source, quick mixes and mixer state with the existing Nerd engine. - Mode switches preserve playback and move existing nodes without redecoding or rebuilding effects. - Added compact mobile layout and quiet notices for active advanced settings.

Streaming recovery and desktop refinement - Added playback-health status for stable playback, streaming drift, correction and buffering. - Used the median progressing stem position as the streaming project clock. - Added sustained-stall detection and bounded playback recovery with separate diagnostics. - Expanded the desktop workspace and made the utility sidebar independently sticky and scrollable.

Experimental low-memory streaming - Added an off-by-default browser-streaming preference for the next song load. - Preflighted every stem before replacement and fell back to the stable engine if streaming setup failed. - Connected streamed audio to the existing mixer/effects graph without retaining full-song PCM buffers. - Added drift correction, readiness diagnostics and explicit media/object-URL cleanup. - Kept the stable synchronized buffer engine as the default; streaming remains experimental.

Idle suspension and bounded auxiliary assets - Suspended idle audio after a grace period and preserved delay tails before suspension. - Bounded chart/MIDI inspection, artwork size and selected-song auxiliary extraction. - Added artwork rejection, staged-data and completed-load telemetry. - Preserved the stable engine’s full-song decoded-buffer behavior.

Styled chart metadata and Neutral migration - Rendered supported chart-author color, bold, italic and underline tags safely as styled text. - Removed size tags and kept search, sorting, titles and accessibility labels free of markup. - Migrated inactive nameless/Custom effects to Neutral so dormant racks do not reopen detailed editors. - Preserved active Custom processing and dormant parameter values.

Lazy effects and visual efficiency - Neutral racks allocate no effect nodes; enabled modules allocate only what they need. - Disabling modules releases their nodes while retaining settings. - Cached unchanged parameter targets and saturation settings and coalesced slider-label refreshes. - Stopped idle visual refresh and bounded transport, level-meter and visible compressor updates independently of display refresh rate.

Memory and load-efficiency implementation - Bounded streamed ZIP extraction and checked CRC while consuming output. - Serialized native file reads/decodes so cancelled or timed-out work cannot overlap another native task. - Guarded playback starts against stale resume, seek and replacement operations. - Improved retained-memory telemetry and corrected song_length millisecond interpretation. - Grouped archive directories once and excluded previews/redundant stems before extraction.

Legacy role inference and decode telemetry - Treated rhythm.ogg as ambiguous rather than automatically labeling it rhythm guitar. - Used explicit stream mapping, Player2 metadata and chart/MIDI evidence to distinguish bass from rhythm. - Displayed role confidence and evidence in import reports and diagnostics. - Added estimated/actual decoded-memory and peak-loading measurements.

Effects lifecycle and accessibility - Created doubler/chorus oscillators only while an enabled rack actually uses modulation. - Stopped and released oscillators on bypass, preset changes, removal and page exit. - Reduced decorative motion and visual update frequency for reduced-motion preferences. - Improved slider scrolling and dialog focus restoration.

Mobile loading and lifecycle hardening - Hid unreliable mobile folder selection and recommended ZIPs or individual audio files. - Kept desktop folder loading available and explained the mobile fallback. - Added pagehide cleanup, recoverable back/forward navigation and background audio-resume handling. - Hardened interrupted pointer interactions and state persistence.

Simpler effects workflow and fewer decode warnings - Removed the redundant mixer-level Effects editing toggle; racks remain available when loaded. - Kept named presets compact and Custom detailed, with independent bypass controls. - Raised large-decode confirmation thresholds for ordinary multistem songs. - Retained estimates, cancellation, current-song preservation and post-decode memory accounting.

Full-mix presets and stereo delay - Expanded master presets with transparent glue, punch, warmth, tape finish, brightness, low-end and vocal-forward options. - Added stereo/ping-pong delay with millisecond or tempo-synced timing. - Added feedback, cross-feedback, repeat filtering and wet/dry controls with bounded feedback paths. - Persisted delay settings independently for every track and master rack.

Role-aware presets and Custom disclosure - Named presets hide module switches and detailed parameters while keeping the selector/status/bypass visible. - Custom exposes the exact currently selected settings without resetting them. - Filtered track and master preset menus by instrument role. - Added role-specific vocal, guitar, drum, bass, keys, backing and crowd presets.

Stereo modulation - Added independent Micro doubler and Stereo chorus to tracks and the master. - Added wet/dry mix, width, rate and depth controls with restrained defaults. - Added RHCP guitar double and Stereo chorus presets. - Persisted modulation settings and tracked oscillator lifecycle and cleanup.

Stereo repair and widening - Added stereo utility with independent left/right micro-delay and optional linked editing. - Added width, balance, channel swap and mono audition. - Displayed mono-compatibility risk hints and added RHCP guitar widen. - Persisted every stereo parameter independently per rack.

Compressor character and analog color - Added Clean digital, Opto smooth, FET punch and Tube / vari-mu compressor behaviors. - Added original tube/tape color with drive, wet/dry mix and independent bypass. - Added Eco, Standard and High processing-quality choices, with conservative mobile defaults. - Updated instrument/master presets and effects-cost diagnostics.

Audible EQ and clean compression - Added high-pass, low-pass and parametric mid EQ with independent bypass. - Added clean compression with threshold, ratio, timing, knee and input/output trims. - Added live gain-reduction readouts and optional approximate level matching. - Added conservative processing presets while keeping racks bypassed by default.

Independent effects-rack foundation - Added separate bypassed-by-default track and master effects racks. - Established Filter/EQ → Dynamics → Color order and real direct-versus-rack routing. - Added effects state, persistence, disclosure and diagnostics. - Processor slots were neutral placeholders in this build; audible processors followed in 0.2.18.

Desktop and laptop workspace - Introduced a wide-screen utility sidebar beside the transport and multicolumn mixer. - Expanded working width and reduced wasted desktop space. - Kept transport persistent and made track cards denser on laptops. - Preserved the mobile and intermediate-width single-column workflow.

Read/decode watchdogs and disposal - Added cancellable, size-aware deadlines for file reads and native audio decoding. - Tracked detached native tasks until they settled rather than treating cancellation as immediate browser cleanup. - Unified stem/project disposal for audio nodes, decoded buffers, source files and controls. - Added operation, timeout, decode-failure and released-memory diagnostics.

Album, playlist and stem filters - Added Album, Playlist/setlist and Available stem filters for large collections. - Grouped split drum/vocal files correctly for stem availability. - Expanded search and sorting with album, playlist, year and stem information. - Kept waveform/loop work deferred and prioritized the desktop/effects sequence.

Safe preflight and memory confirmation - Inspected candidate audio and metadata before clearing the current project. - Preserved the current song/session when replacement preflight, extraction or selection failed. - Added conservative decoded-memory estimates and Keep current song / Continue anyway confirmation. - Improved cancelled-switch and failed-load recovery.

Recent mixes and stronger song identity - Added a compact recent-mix catalog and explicit local-file relinking. - Used stronger stable fingerprints for source identity and saved settings. - Migrated older saved snapshots while storing settings/metadata only, never audio. - The recent-mix catalog was subsequently removed in 0.2.37.

Playback cleanup and diagnostic downloads - Released ended/stopped sources through a shared lifecycle path. - Guarded stale playback events and cleaned up partial start/restart failures. - Reset meters immediately on stop and handled restart errors visibly. - Added downloadable diagnostic reports containing metadata and measurements, not audio.

Clip indicators and mobile resume - Added latched master/track CLIP badges, individual clearing and Clear clip indicators. - Logged clipping peaks and reset clip state with project/reset actions. - Detected suspended/interrupted mobile audio and offered Resume from the transport.

Optional role editing and compact metadata - Hid role assignment during ordinary mixing and added Reassign roles / Done reassigning. - Preserved manual labels, crowd defaults, vocal quick mixes and saved assignments. - Combined filenames and technical details into a compact channel metadata row.

Persistent Now Playing card - Separated collapsible source controls from persistent song/artwork information. - Kept Choose another song visible with retained collection details. - Displayed stem count, duration and decoded memory and improved missing-artwork layout. - Added a retained-source recovery card after partial decode cancellation.

Cancellable, responsive loading - Added Cancel across scanning, metadata, extraction, CRC checking and decoding. - Yielded during long file operations so the interface stays responsive. - Protected newer operations from older completion/cleanup callbacks. - Preserved usable source sessions and cleaned up partially decoded replacements.

Result batching and manual roles - Rendered song choices in batches of 60 with Show more. - Added manual instrument-role correction and persisted assignments. - Reported decoded memory and pre-decode estimates for large songs. - Kept collection filtering based on retained metadata without rescanning.

Large-collection filters and collapsible loading - Added Artist, Game/source, Chart author, Genre and Year filters for collections over 100 songs. - Expanded text search, sorting, counts, filter reset and no-results feedback. - Expanded common game/source metadata codes into readable names. - Made source controls collapsible after successful loading.

Simpler green mixer and loading fixes - Muted crowd stems by default, including after reset. - Removed waveforms, zoom and A/B loops and their generation/drawing overhead. - Fixed the empty mixer message remaining visible after a song loaded. - Removed numbered workflow labels, refreshed the green/charcoal theme and corrected loading progress.

Loading progress and retained collections - Added a prominent loading panel with phase and file/song progress. - Retained ZIP indexes and folder song lists for Choose another song. - Switched songs by extracting only the selected song without rescanning the collection. - Released prior decoded stems while preserving the lightweight source session.

Compact transport and separate practice panel - Moved waveforms/loops out of the sticky transport into a separate normal-flow panel. - Kept mobile Play, Stop and seek together, with master controls on a compact second row. - Reduced mobile spacing and arranged wider playback/master controls side by side.

Large-ZIP and ZIP64 support - Indexed archives through bounded range reads instead of loading the whole ZIP. - Added single-disk ZIP64 sizes/offsets and bounded central-directory inspection. - Extracted only the selected song and streamed entry decompression. - Retained CRC checks, path/encryption rejection and archive safety limits.