Beta archive

Release notes — beta era

Every beta release, what changed, and why.

Beta release-note history from v2.02 through v2.05. The list below summarizes the changes testers saw during the public beta: sound work, stability fixes, and interface improvements.

v2.05 (final beta)

April 2026

Final OSS beta. The version that closed the public beta on April 30, 2026.

DSP

  • Per-sample center-delay buffer migrated across all 9 shared cores
  • Blue HQ replaced with multi-voice algorithm (crossfaded allpass tails, sin²/cos² 48-sample envelope)
  • Per-sample Color macro on Green / Blue / Red NQ engines (eliminated block-rate staircase)
  • Red HQ Tape Color direction aligned with OSS reference
  • Per-core output trim (additive ±12 dB, 10 ms ramp)
  • Equal-power dry/wet using JUCE DryWetMixingRule::balanced
  • Per-branch state mirrors for engine-switch isolation

Stability

  • Switch-stress regression coverage expanded across additional cores
  • Audio baseline harness: 160 deterministic WAV references regenerated and locked

v2.04 — v2.04.1

March — April 2026

Major release pulled together by 24 testers across multiple DAW rigs.

DSP

  • BBD (Red NQ) phaser sweep aliasing fixed: added interpolation, fixed filter coefficient bug
  • Tape (Red HQ) rate knob DC drift fixed (~73-sample drift) — undamped phase integrator addressed
  • Thiran (Blue HQ) zippering and noise reduced via coefficient interpolation smoothing
  • Pre-emphasis moved to wet path only; legacy compressor replaced with transparent peak catcher
  • HQ toggle latency improved (~43 ms vs ~146 ms previously); single-click reliable both directions

Stability

  • Windows freeze-on-close issue fixed during beta testing
  • Gesture freeze (~5 min) traced to a timer being reset to fire continuously instead of 10× per second during engine switches; UI event queue starvation eliminated
  • Orphan crash log false positives fixed (no more ghost reports when running multiple DAWs)
  • Color slider visual sticking before reaching target fixed
  • UTF-8 rendering issues in dialogs fixed (bullets and dashes were rendering as garbled text)
  • Multiple destructor-ordering and static-object lifetime fixes

UI / UX

  • Full preset management: browse / save / delete with factory programs and user presets on disk
  • Branded header bar: Kaizen DSP logo, preset browser (prev/next, dropdown, save/delete), engine selector
  • Animated drawer menu replaces button row — slides out with bounce, engine-color tinted, hover tooltips
  • Drawer border color decoupled from engine state (no longer stuck on green)
  • Icon resize bug on engine switch fixed
  • Drawer buttons clickable after expanding (animation timing fix)
  • About and Feedback dialogs restyled to match dark theme
  • In-app crash reporter — next launch offers to send report directly
  • Feedback button prepares an email with relevant session details
  • In-app help dialog

Build

  • Session event logging for engine switches, anomalies, crash trace
  • Knob drag sensitivity reduced based on tester feedback

v2.03

February — March 2026

First wave of feedback-driven changes after the BPB feature drove tester count past 600.

DSP

  • Knob smoothing pass (per-engine smoothed value for depth and rate)
  • Initial work on per-engine output gain compensation (Blue Focus 1.5–2 dB overshoot identified)

Stability

  • Multiple Linux compatibility reports addressed (FrettedSynth on MXLinux 23.2 XFCE)
  • AU validation failures investigated (g.reedie report)
  • Samplitude crash investigation (Hervé Dorval report)

UI / UX

  • Default rate moved away from extreme (was producing rough first impression for Elfennia)
  • Depth knob drag responsiveness improved (was getting stuck without scroll wheel)

v2.02 — v2.02.2

January — February 2026

Initial open beta. Five visible engines with NQ/HQ modes shipped to public testers for the first time.

DSP

  • Five visible engines (Green, Blue, Red, Purple, Black) with NQ + HQ modes
  • Additional DSP cores explored across tape, allpass, granular, formant, flange, stochastic, ensemble, and phase-warped designs
  • Factory preset bank shipped

UI / UX

  • Advanced panel for diagnostics and parameter detail
  • Color slider per engine driving different DSP parameters per engine
  • Hover tooltips with full parameter detail

Build

  • VST3 + AU + Standalone formats on macOS and Windows
  • Linux build via open-source build instructions
  • Public open-source repository on GitHub

A note on the 2.0x → 1.0 numbering: Choroboros went through several development versioning conventions during development. The public release ships as v1.0 because it is the first commercial release. The beta numbers (v2.02–v2.05) reflect the beta-era history. Both numberings refer to the same plugin lineage.