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Wer hat nicht schon einmal davon geträumt, einfach so zu verschwinden und alles hinter sich zu lassen...

18th of February 2024

Tetris II 0.98b released

This is just a minor release, and fixes that the game crashed when starting an IPX network game, right after entering the user name. You can find it under Software. Enjoy!

- Stefan -

14th of February 2024

Joining the dotcom bubble...

After many years, this page is also finally available under https://crossfire-designs.com.

- Stefan -

5th of May 2023

Tetris II 0.98 released

I didn't think I'd ever do this again, but I've released an update for Tetris II, which is quite elaborate:

  • Improved GFX rendering speed in many, many places (for example due to RLE compressed alpha sprites)
  • Gamepad/Joystick support (beta-ish, set it up in the control settings first)
  • More precise controls
  • Several more songs (on lower-end machines, it's recommended to remove the XM songs or lower the sample rate)
  • Diffuse effect for removed Tetris stones (on faster machines)
  • Level background changes (might be slow on low end systems, colors not final)
  • Drop tile highlighting
  • Better stone randomizer (GM3-like)
  • Better song randomizer
  • Twice as fast PNG loader (improves game startup time)
  • Windows Sound System support added
  • Improved sound mixing speed (up to 25%)
  • Stereo sample support
  • Fixed crashes on MMX machines
  • Several fixes
You can find it under Software. Enjoy!

- Stefan -

5th of August 2017

"Phonomenal"

The article "Phonomenal" has been updated with new information about the Sound Blaster, Roland LAPC-I, Covox Speech thing and Disney Sound Source.

- Stefan -

22nd of February 2012
This is where one's heart is beating faster. Seeing your own efforts being recognized. I was working for Algoriddim for QA testing djay and when preparing a preset for MidiPads and djay I remembered that I was added to the QA team list. By the way, this is a really intuitive mixing app. You can get it on Algoriddim.com for iPad, iPhone and Mac OS X.

Also, see MidiPads 1.5 in the news with a great review on createdigitalmusic.com.

- Stefan -

17th of February 2012

MidiPads 1.5 released

Midipads 1.5 has been released with several new features:

  • Presets (interchangeable with other users)
  • Bouncing for touch pads and sliders
  • Virtual MIDI: Trigger other iOS apps capable of virtual MIDI
  • Multiple senders for each axis and knob
  • Buttons in bottom view
  • Resizable pads and resizable pad area
  • MIDI connection overview
  • Settings reset feature
  • White color for sliders and drum pads
  • Finger up / down message for touch pad and sliders


How to use MidiPads with several virtual Midi apps:

MidiPads 1.5 features preview:

Help me by rating MidiPads on the store and sending me new suggestions to make it even better!

- Stefan -

10th of February 2011

MidiPads released

Finally, it's been done! MidiPads (yes, that's right, changed the name slightly) has been released on the App Store. After the many positive responses and good ideas from you, I'm proud to present the full version.


See MidiPads' UI in action and how to control Traktor Pro with it:

See MidiPads easy midi learn assignment in conjunction with HALion Sonic:

Help me by rating MidiPads on the store and sending me new suggestions to make it even better!

- Stefan -

4th of February 2011

Tetris-II-Review

Now that is great! Somebody reviewed Tetris II and gave it 10 out of 10 stars :)

- Stefan -

20th of December 2010

MidiPadz Lite released

Not long ago I started music development in the iOS platform. Finally, there's also something to put (literally!) your fingers on: MidiPadz Lite! It's an iPad drumpad controller working with USB and network MIDI, which makes your iPad a wireless MIDI controller. Even the iPad's rotation can be made a controller! And it's for free...
Install it, try it, rate it! I you like it, if you hate it - write me! Your good ideas will form a full version which will be released in January.

- Stefan -

23rd of January 2008

SoundLib 3 beta 2 released


The next beta release of SoundLib3 is available. Waiting is over, the new release has many improvements to offer.
Improvements and changes (over beta 1) in overview:
  • FLAC audio file support
  • Access to mixer output and audio device output
  • Access to sound channel mapping
  • Audio streaming from user applications
  • Heavy improvements on C++ side (type safe implementation), C++ examples included
  • Improved silent output (null device for disk writing), supports multichannel output
  • Some functions and variables overhauled for easier understanding
  • Playback improvements under Vista
  • Cleaning up reduced DLL size dramatically (< 90K vs. 180k)
  • Bugfixes and improvements
  • More examples, also for Lazarus
  • Many improvements on manual
Go directly to SoundLib 3
Because it's easy to remember: you can get SoundLib also on soundlib.net.

- Stefan -

10th of January 2008

Waiting for SoundLib 3 beta 2...

You surely were waiting for a faster release of SoundLib's second beta. Well, while all features and manual are ready, I have some problems with MSVC++ 2005. It just won't start, even after several (time consuming!) re-installs. I'll try to continue development on my secondary system, still it won't be as easy because of missing configurations and dependencies. My search for a job also consumes some of my spare time.
Anyway, I wish everyone a successful 2008, and I even have a small suprise upon my sleeves: SoundLib will be hosted on soundlib.net with the next release.

- Stefan -

9th of November 2007

SoundLib 3 beta released


SoundLib is alive! After many internal improvements, extensive tests under several configurations and working on the help file, version 3 is ready to see the light of day! Beta means in this case that some parts of the interface may change and that some issues are known, but those don't affect function or stability. See release notes for details.
Improvements and changes in overview:
  • 3D sound positioing
  • HTML help file
  • C++ support
  • OGG support
  • Multichannel playback and of multichannel files (OGG, WAV)
  • Multichannel playback (instead of Stereo) of MOD files (MOD/WOW/NST, S3M, XM)
  • Heavily improved class model, more simple initialization
  • Multichannel samples
  • Cubic interpolation
  • New buffering system for seamless playback
  • Many bug fixes und improvements (the most tested SoundLib release ever!)
Go directly to SoundLib 3

- Stefan -

28th of December 2006

Read the c't magazine

The c't magazine published one of my articles. The article "Am Anfang stand die Raubkopie" is in the issue of 1/07 on page 84. It reports about the demo scene -- people who not only inspired not only mine but also many others work. While earlier being a race about challenging the hardware, today the presentation is what it's all about. The scene evolved from cracker groups in the early 80's and later splitted apart from illegal activities. Many companies were founded by scene members -- Futuremark (3DMark), Remedy ("Max Payne") and Starbreeze Studios ("The Chronicles of Riddick"), just to name a few. The research and writing down took me three months, the publishing took even longer.
So, buy the c't and enjoy reading the article -- feedback welcome!

... and soon ...

The work on SoundLib 2 continues. There should be a new release for the beginning of 2007, probably being followed by another release later. The current new features, based upon the current development status:
  • OGG support
  • Matrix mixer -- multichannel sound, for input (OGG, WAV) as well as output
  • Support of C++ with the same class model (and no support anymore for the good ol' BP7... rest in peace!)
  • Higher quality sample interpolation
  • Improved class model (clearly more simple initialization)
  • Multi channel samples (only mono was possible yet)
... and a happy new year to all visitors!

- Stefan -

9th of May 2006
Freudenreich Feinwerktechnik
Zm-schmalspur

New Designs

Two of my customers recently got a re-design of their pages, including larger technical updates. Another page is currently under construction (using a new content management). As soon as this content management is working, updates for this page will follow.

- Stefan -

17th of January 2006

Gallery opened

All the ones interested in what I'm doing with my camera may have a look at the new menu point "Gallery". You are actually able to leave your comments right under the image. Have fun!

- Stefan -

24th of December 2005

Ein weiteres Jahr...

It's a sin not updating the page a whole year. There are actually things that have changed here, but not to the usual viewer's eye.
More to happen next year -- a new content management is in work, which means less work for more content. A new, big article will follow and there are even other plans.
Merry Xmas and a happy new year to everybody!

- Stefan -

18th of July 2004

The beloved lazyness...

Somehow there happened a few things on this page, but it seems I wasn't able to document this.

  • two new images are available at "Art", probably even soon some more
  • a new article about PGP in connection with Thunderbird added by a fellow (german only)
  • a newly designed page for a customer is watchable under Webdesign/preferences (german only)

- Stefan -

4th of March 2004

Dozens of new MOD's!!

You can find a good bunch of new MOD's in coding/MODs. Have fun listening!

- Stefan -

3rd of March 2004

SoundLib 2 is back!!

The turn-away from the world of DOS is upon the time, and hence SoundLib 2 does also support Delphi and Free Pascal for Windows. It was quite a piece of work, and it also will be for the future.
The current release is an alpha-version, and should make taste for more, or simply help to find into its system. Release notes as well as SL2 itself are available under "coding".
Expect also an excerpt of my current MOD-collection these days....

- Stefan -

30th of September 2003

Updates...

Believe it or not, there are actually two updates...
On one hand, the article "Phonomenal", for which I still receive positive response, got an update. There are additional pictures while the current pictures have been replaced by some with a much higher quality. As reference for MIDI playback, Descent I has been chosen, which is far more qualified for this task. The IBM MFC got another sample. Some content-related inconsistencies have been removed.
On the other hand, you'll find another picture under "art", which is a continuity of my current photo series.

Have fun with rummage!

- Stefan -

18th of September 2003

News...

One could think, the owner of this page just lies around and lets the sun improve his tan these term holidays. Well, (almost) right!
But as this kind of unproductivity just keeps getting more and more annyoing, something is going on here! You'll find 3 (!) new pictures on the art page, shot with my new digi-cam. Actually, I have even more of them, but before presenting everything, I have to improve some page internals in order to show them.
So visiting more often could be useful right now...

- Stefan -

30th of March 2003

UPDATE

The article has been extended by some information, samples, images and links again.
This should be the last one for the next time... have fun!

- Stefan -

12th of March 2003

Article available...

Right now the english version of the article on PC sound development has been uploaded.
Enjoy!

- Stefan -

8th of March 2003

Finally...! Another article.

No doubt, it was about time for an update. Not without pride I can announce my next article - about the evolution of PC Sound.
In some way I have to disappoint our english readers for this moment. The article is currently only available in the German language.
However, the English translation will follow in a few days!

That's all about it?!...

No. If I don't run out of time, it's very likely that one or two other articles will follow pretty soon.
Not again another year waiting for the next one ;).

- Stefan -

7th of December 2002

Celebration, joy, happyness...

Finally! I've finally done the switch to a new provider for Crossfire Designs!
No just 10 K per second, the database doesn't wait for finishing its coffee-break, and anyhow and anyway.
Despite the fact that my new Webhoster is kinda bit overeager, and does everything NOW (what actually caused a bit disappointment in one case, which wasn't finished), I can't complain yet.
I don't wanna do any advertisement here, so ask me via mail, if interest.

And before I go crazy in my raptures, I just wanna warn you, 'cause soon there will be something done on this page. Probably not referring my units, but some other parts of this page.
Until then my best wishes!

- Stefan -

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