Private beta

Open-source development archive

Development history, build by build.

Engineering history from v2.02 through v2.05. These notes summarize sound work, stability fixes, and interface improvements in the open-source prerelease line. They do not represent participation in the current commercial test round.

v2.05 (final beta)

April 2026

Final build in the open-source prerelease line before commercial development.

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 to v2.04.1

March to April 2026

DSP, host stability, and interface work consolidated into one development release.

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
  • 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

v2.03

February to March 2026

Smoothing, gain consistency, and host compatibility development pass.

DSP

  • Knob smoothing pass (per-engine smoothed value for depth and rate)
  • Initial work on per-engine output gain compensation (Blue Focus 1.5 to 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 to v2.02.2

January to February 2026

Early open-source prerelease with five visible engines and NQ/HQ modes.

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 development numbers (v2.02 to v2.05) belong to the earlier open-source line. Both numberings refer to the same plugin lineage.