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The isolated step plays an instrument a note it can hear - #274

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linuxnow merged 2 commits into
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fix/isolated-step-instruments
Oct 31, 2026
Merged

linuxnow merged 2 commits into
mainfrom
fix/isolated-step-instruments

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@linuxnow linuxnow commented Oct 31, 2026 •

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The isolated step refused instruments as silent. On a Raspberry Pi 5 that was 7 of 47: Helm, Kars, Nekobi, obxd, ADLplug, OPNplug and JuceOPL, all isolated.silent-output.

Cause. isolated_signal sent its only note-on in the first cycle after jack_activate, before it linked its MIDI port, so the instrument never heard it. The live test used only an effect. The first commit adds a live test on the synth fixture. On CI it reads "added":true,"alive":true,"silent":true, and the effect test in the same run passes.

Fix.

  • The notes start once the links are made. Each third of the window adds another, held, so a slow patch is never restarted.
  • The step records midiInputsLinked, and a silent refusal says whether notes were linked.
  • A silent refusal with no such figure comes from the old tool, so the next --isolated-only runs it again. A plugin that heard the notes and stayed silent is not retried.

Threshold and window, unchanged. Silence is a peak under 1e-5 (-100 dBFS), and the window is 3 s. A slow attack should clear -100 dBFS well inside that. A plugin that takes longer than the window to start sounding after add would still read silent. That has not been measured on a real patch, so the 7 plugins on the Pi are the check.

Not covered. The live test is CLAP only; LV2 instruments such as Helm and Kars have not run the real step except on the Pi.

The tool sent its one note in the first cycle, before the MIDI link existed, so an instrument never heard it and read silent:
the live test on the synth fixture reads silent true. The notes now start after the links and each third of the window adds
one more, held. The step says how many MIDI inputs it linked, and a silence from the old tool, which does not say, is run
again by a pass; one that heard the notes is not.
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linuxnow merged commit 8becbdd into main Oct 31, 2026
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linuxnow deleted the fix/isolated-step-instruments branch October 31, 2026 09:44
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