Rogue Amoeba is out with a big update to its popular Farrago audio app for Mac. The “rapid-fire soundboard” software now features a brand new list mode, app-wide volume ducking, per-tile output controls, new MIDI controls, and much more.
Rogue Amoeba launched Farrago version 1.5.0 today and detailed all the changes and new features. In addition to the new list mode, there are improvements to the main “Now Playing” window and there’s also a new “Tile” menu
Other big changes include app-wide volume ducking via an updated Master Volume control, per-tile output controls, and new MIDI controls with MIDI Sliders support. But there are a ton of changes and improvements.
Farrago for Mac is free to download and try out with a license running $49.
Check out all the details below in the full release notes:
- Massive New List Mode Functionality
- Farrago’s List Mode has been dramatically overhauled, with many new capabilities to make it great for staged events, well-planned podcasts, and other linear events. It features both Queued and Continuous playback modes, new Next and Previous playback controls, optional fading between tiles, an improved Notes field, and much more.
- Major Now Playing Improvements
- The LCD display at the top of Farrago’s main window has been updated and improved, to better show information on what’s currently playing. Farrago now displays colored bubbles to show what audio is being played, with the playback status of that audio shown visually within the bubbles. This “Now Playing” info is also now properly accessible via VoiceOver, for our visually impaired users.
- App-Wide Volume Ducking
- With the new Master Volume control, it’s now possible to duck all audio being played by Farrago, fading between two distinct Master Volume levels with a single click or keyboard shortcut. You can also now mute Farrago from the volume control.
- Per-Tile Output Controls
- Each individual tile now has its own optional output selector, as well as channel selectors, for total control of audio playback.
- New and Improved MIDI Controls, With Support for MIDI Sliders
- Four new MIDI shortcut controls have been added. It’s now possible to control the Master Volume Slider via MIDI, and to toggle between Master Volume A and Master Volume B. It’s also possible to control a selected tile’s volume slider, and to toggle between its Volume A and Volume B.
- A New “Tile” Menu
- The new “Tile” menu provides control over selected Tiles, and simplifies the “Control” menu as well.
- Temporarily Disable Tiles
- Want to temporarily prevent playback of a tile in Grid Mode, or skip it in List Mode? Highlight it, then disable it from the Control menu, or via the tile’s contextual menu.
- Share Track Title Information With Airfoil and Audio Hijack
- Farrago now provides track titles to Airfoil and Audio Hijack. See the support articles for Airfoil and Audio Hijack for more details.
- A New “Alerts” Window
- Farrago’s new “Alerts” window puts all errors and notices in one place for easy reference and to keep your playback working smoothly.
- No More Errant Beeps
- Farrago once again correctly avoids triggering the system alert sound in a variety of situations, thereby preventing undesired sound effects from playing.
- You can now drag and drop a tile to copy it across sets. To move a tile from one set to another, just hold the command key while dragging and dropping.
- Tiles now have a contextual menu, for fast access to many useful controls. Just right-click (or control-click) a tile to access its contextual menu.
- Sets can now be manually sorted, by dragging and dropping in the Sets list.
- Tiles in List Mode are also now properly re-sortable, by dragging and dropping to adjust their order.
- Hyperlinks are now clickable in the Notes field, for easy access to relevant links.
- Tiles now feature an on-face Looping indicator in the upper right corner.
- Farrago’s minimum main window size is now 135 pixels narrower, enabling it to optionally use much less screen space.
- Both the Sets list on the left, and the Inspector on the right, can now be re-sized individually.
- Tile names now use variable text sizing on the tile face, so the full title stays visible longer as you shrink the window size.
- Hovering over a tile will now show its full name in a tooltip, perfect for tiles with long titles.
- Many other small improvements have been made to Farrago’s appearance, including darkening some labels and controls, and much more.
- Farrago’s file importing has been overhauled and greatly improved. It will now better handle importing large files, and large numbers of files at once as well.
- The Preferences window has been updated, to provide easier configuration of MIDI devices in the new “MIDI Controllers” and “MIDI Shortcuts” tabs.
- Improvements have been made to importing sound sets from Ambrosia’s defunct “Soundboard” app.
- Switching between very large sets is now much faster, thanks to backend optimizations.
- Farrago now better handles incompatible (copy-protected) audio files, displaying information about the issue with the file.
- The Set switching shortcuts of Cmd-1 through Cmd-9 now work properly even when editing text.
- Farrago no longer incorrectly allows global shortcuts to use Cmd-1 through Cmd-9, to prevent conflicts with the Sets shortcuts.
- Toggling playback with the spacebar and return keys now works correctly, with just a single keypress required for an action to be triggered.
- The Inspector’s Back button once again correctly works to start a playing tile over from the beginning.
- The “Stop and Reset All” option has been restored to the Control menu, for clearing all playing and paused tiles.
- All Fade sliders now step by exact increments of 0.1 second when controlled by arrow keys.
- The “Set Notes” area now correctly shows focus when selected.
- It’s now possible to export a tile’s sound file from the Tile menu, or by dragging the tile to the Finder.
- The error alerts for overlapping MIDI shortcuts have been improved, and now better explain where the overlap occurs.
- Because of the enhancements made to List Mode, converting a set the two mode options (List and Grid) is now a more notable action, and Farrago now prevents switching a set’s mode while audio playback is occurring. The “Sound Set” menu now offers an option to toggle a set’s mode.