Clavitudo Development History

From the start on, due to its way of working, Napo has had such small RAM requirements that for example it made possible playing with the ca. 1.9 GB large Marcussen/Moerdijk sample set on an iPad 2 with its just 512 MB RAM. With Clavitudo it comes in addition that the app bundle that has to be downloaded from the App Store is very small as well – the Mac App Store names a size of just 1.3 MB for Clavitudo 0.5. This allows to release updates much more often than for the previous Napo apps without having to worry about the amoung of data that must be transferred. After all, the installed instruments are preserved in case of an update of the app.

To have an overview of the development, in the following we keep a chronicle of the Clavitudo versions. Outlooks to upcoming versions are given, too. The details have to be read in conjunction with the Napo version history.

Version 0.5, Napo 5.19, 2023-12-05, free

After Clavitudo had been announced for quite some time, now with version 0.5 finally a first edition of the app is available. The version number intends to signal that this is not yet 'the real McCoy'. We simply wanted to deliver something within 2023. Only one instrument is possible – we start with the Aragonese Procession Organ of Pere Casulleras. Some things do not work at all, e.g. Audiobus or Launchpad support. Others, in particular the handling of settings, still need much development work.

Technically seen, what up to know had presented itself as an app for a single instrument, has become an instrument view in Clavitudo. In front of it there is a new root view, the administration view, for managing the installed instruments and for selecting an instrument for playing. Anybody who knows one of the other Napo apps, will thus immediately find their way.

Other than in previous Napo apps, Clavitudo's resources and library directories are not used for storing sample files. The files are located publicly accessible in the app's documents directory.

More specifically, in the documents directory of the app there is a subdirctory Instruments/, in it for each installed instrument an instrument directory, and there for sample-based instruments a subdirectory Samples/ whose structure is taken from the directory structure of the sample set and whose subdirectories contain the sound files of the sample set. Furthermore there is a subdirectory Patches/ with the same structure in whose subdirectories sound files can be places that Clavitudo should use instead of the original files of the sample set. There is until now no functionality for installing patches. Patches must be manually put in the correct subdirectory of the Patches/ directory.

Another subdirectory Settings/ of the instrument directory is already there, but still unused.

Recordings created with the built-in audio recorder are placed not in the respective instrument directory but in the documents directory of Clavitudo. So they are preserved when an instruments is deleted, but not when the app is deleted.

Clavitudo 0.5 is a very first version. Bugs must be expected. Much remains to do. Feedback is welcome.

Version 0.6, Napo 5.20, 2024-01-18, free

Instruments in the administration view are now represented by an icon with label instead of by just a label. Not installed instrument have a plus symbol as icon, installed instruments a graphical representation of the instrument.

When deleting an instrument there is the choice to delete everything or to keep saved settings, combinations and patches, so these will be available again after a reinstallation of the instrument. In case of deleting everything there is additionally the choice to also delete the saved settings and combinations from iCloud Drive, or to keep these.

This version does still not have multi instrument support, but it makes another step towards this.

Audio recordings are now stored in the subdirectory Recordings/ of the documents directory. Audio files already present in the documents directory are automatically moved to this subdirectory. This is true for the local directories as well as for the corresponding iCloud Drive directories.

Saved settings in the documents directory are automatically moved to the subdirectory Settings/ of the Aragonese Procession Organ, and combination banks to the subdirectory Combinations/. Again, this holds for the local directories as well as for the corresponding iCloud Drive directories.

Version 0.7, Napo 5.21, in the works, free

Multi-instrument version with more adapters. For this, the app's internals are being fundamentally reworked.

Version 1.0, in the works

Even more adapters.