Stay in the loop

Notes from making oooo.

I write one of these when a release has something worth explaining. They cover what I wanted to add, what I changed, and the part that took longer than I expected.

Two video stills of oooo's pastel loop circles drifting across the interface while audio plays

v1.5.0 April 26, 2026 5 min read

Making oooo shimmer (without washing everything out)

I added shimmer reverb to oooo 1.5.0, then carried the new control through the engine, interface, presets, live-coding API, and tests.

All the release notes

14 entries, newest first

v1.4.0 April 6, 2026 6 min read

Making the record path less mysterious

In oooo 1.4.0 I separated new input from the audio already in a loop, then fixed the waveform, parameter order, and session recall around it.

v1.3.4 April 5, 2026 4 min read

A small oooo release about CPU spikes and stubborn loop bounds

I tracked down macOS CPU spikes in oooo 1.3.4 and fixed loop selection, parameter updates, and start/length calculations along the way.

v1.3.3 April 2, 2026 6 min read

Making the waveform bigger (and recording a little smarter)

For oooo 1.3.3 I added an expandable waveform, optional recording truncation, fullscreen mode, serialosc support, and a small-block audio fix.

v1.3.2 March 30, 2026 5 min read

Using a monome grid to select loops in oooo

In oooo 1.3.2 I turned the monome grid into a loop selector and added safer device handling, playback lights, and plugin-aware startup.

v1.3.0 March 28, 2026 5 min read

Letting loops drift, then bringing them back

I added periodic resets in oooo 1.3.0 so drifting and reversed loops can wander for a while, then return to a chosen point on schedule.

v1.2.0 March 28, 2026 5 min read

Quantizing tape speed to musical scales

In oooo 1.2.0 I made tape-speed changes follow semitone, major, minor, and open-interval scales, including during reverse playback.

v1.1.0 March 25, 2026 4 min read

Adding exact number entry without adding a wall of text boxes

I added direct number entry to oooo 1.1.0 and fixed runtime lifecycle problems that showed up while opening and closing the plugin in DAWs.

v1.0.9 March 24, 2026 3 min read

Fixing stop and play on the master tape

oooo 1.0.9 fixed how the master tape stops and restarts all four loops, and simplified the controls after I spent a day actually using them.

v1.0.7 March 17, 2026 4 min read

Teaching oooo how to check for updates

For oooo 1.0.7 I connected the plugin, website, GitHub releases, and downloads page so an available update is easy to find and easy to ignore.

v1.0.4 March 17, 2026 5 min read

Routing one loop into another

I added loop-to-loop routing in oooo 1.0.4, along with tempo-aware length steps and the state needed to make routing survive a saved session.

v1.0.2 March 15, 2026 5 min read

Adding one LFO for all four loops

oooo 1.0.2 added a global LFO and rebuilt DAW state saving so moving loop parameters come back correctly when a project is reopened.

v1.0.1 March 15, 2026 3 min read

Fixing oooo on non-Retina Macs

oooo 1.0.1 fixed display scaling on non-Retina Macs so circles, pointer targets, and plugin windows use the same coordinate system.

v1.0.0 March 2025 7 min read

Making oooo: four loops and one very long tape

How I made the first version of oooo from four circular loops, tape-speed playback, a modular C++ engine, JUCE, Lua, and monome control.