Latest News

• Updated VST plugin loading system. Previous Podium versions could make the UI unresponsive when loading large sample-based plugins. A progress dialog is now shown when plugins and presets are being loaded. The new system also fixes some issues with NI Kontakt and Reaktor.
• Added “Offline bounce buffer size” option to the Preferences dialog. Previous Podium versions used a fixed buffer size of 128 samples. Setting this option to a smaller value can produce smoother automation curves, but some plugins will crash if the buffer size is set too low.
• Added “Select All on Track” to the Select menu.
• Optimized “Convert to unique cropped copy” when applied to large sound files.
• Fix: The effect track properties dialog did not initialize the meter mode combobox.
• Fix: Undoing a “Merge” of sequence/sound events could result in empty events.

• Changed the system Podium uses to cache images of wave files. The .mini files saved by previous Podium versions are no longer used, and can be deleted. The new system uses a central WaveformImageCache.db database file that is stored in the Podium projects folder. The cache .db file can safely be deleted, as Podium will just regenerate the database on next startup.
• Fix: Using the split command in the arrangement editor would erase the first half of the split events (Podium 3.2.5).
• Fix: Repeatedly muting/unmuting audio tracks could result in a crash (Podium 3.2.5).
• Fix: Some timeline popup menus did not display the correct time (Podium x86 3.2.5).

• Added ‘Metronome sound file folder’ setting to the Preferences dialog. If a folder is specified, Podium will search this folder for sound files and use those instead of the built-in metronome sound. The sound file names must end with “1.wav”, “2.wav”, “3.wav” etc. The last numbered sound file will be repeated for any beats above that number.
• Added ‘Assign Tracks with Events at Edit Cursor’ and ‘Assign Tracks with Events in Loop Range’ to the track tag options menu (right-click a tag button in the track tag bar). These commands are helpful when you are working with a large number of tracks in your project template, and need to quickly focus on only the tracks currently playing.
• More detailed error message is shown when trying to import incompatible x64/x86 VST plugins.
• Added ‘Paste’ button to the zReverb editor and made the clipboard shared across all zReverb instances.
• Fix: The Podium file browser no longer shows system/hidden directories and files.
• Fix: Layout of some dialogs did not adjust correctly to the Windows DPI scaling setting.

Podium development is now resuming after a couple of years with slow progress. As compensation for the lack of recent updates, customers who have made purchases before August 2016 have received a one year extension to the expiration date of their upgrade period.

Podium Free has been updated to version 3.2.1. The download is available on the Podium Free product page. If you need the older version, you can download that from the My Downloads page if you have registered a free account.

The previous version 2.42 has been downloaded more than 50000 times, and was released more than two years ago, so this update is long overdue. More frequent updates to Podium Free will follow in the future. Follow Zynewave on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ to get notifications when new releases are available.

Here’s a summary of changes since version 2.42:

• Podium Free is available as both 64-bit (x64) and 32-bit (x86) builds.
• Support for Unicode file names and text input.
• New “Control Surfaces” page in the Audio/MIDI setup dialog. Up to eight Mackie Control compatible devices can be configured.
• Support for jBridge x86/x64 VST plugin wrapper.
• The installer allows specifying separate installation paths for Podium Free and the bundled Zynewave plugins.
• The installer includes an updated Podium Guide html document. Selecting context help in Podium will open this document instead of opening the online guide on the Zynewave website.
• Included a new Podium Release History html document that can be opened from the Podium Help menu.
• Reorganized the edit menu. Inactive menu commands that were previously hidden are now shown as grayed out, to make the appearance of the edit menu more consistent.
• Added several new edit menu commands to the note, curve and arrangement editors. Some of the commands open dialogs for adjusting velocities, transposition, curve points and sound events.
• Added several new mouse edit shortcuts to the velocity region. The shortcuts are listed in the popup help for the note velocity mode buttons.
• Support for mice with 4-way scroll wheel.
• Various bug fixes and minor improvements.

You can find detailed changelogs by browsing the Podium Releases on the blog.

• Moved the help panel from below the inspector to a separate sidebar on the right side of the project window. The sidebar can be shown/hidden by clicking the “Help” tab above the sidebar.
• Adjusted the layout of the inspector rack panel.
• The preferences “Default button size” setting now also controls the line height of list boxes.
• The default font is changed to Segoe UI when running Windows Vista or later.
• Reduced contrast in default metal texture background and updated the design of the splash screen.
• Added “Sound cache maximum memory usage” setting to preferences. Default is 512 MB. Previously Podium would use up to half the available free memory for sound caching. This new maximum setting can help reserve memory for loading memory intensive plugins.
• Fix: The auto-assigned audio input mapping was not assigned properly when loop recording on a composite track.
• Fix: Podium x86 running on 64-bit Windows did not properly detect VST folders in Program Files (x86).
• Fix: The project browser context menu showed a blank line for the “New Object” sub menu.

For newcomers to the world of DAW software one of the most confusing aspects is how to work with plugins. Plugins are used to extend the DAW application with different kinds of effect processing and instrument playback. Zynewave Podium supports the VST2 format which is the most popular format among third party plugin developers.

A new page has been added to the Zynewave website which aims to help new Podium users to get started with building their own plugin library. The page can be opened from the Podium and Podium Free product pages. Here is a direct link:

Recommended Freeware Plugins

If you have comments or suggestions to the list of plugins, leave a comment below or post in the community forums.

• The Podium Guide PDF file has been removed from the installer and replaced by an updated Podium Guide html document.
• Context help is using the installed Podium Guide html document instead of the old online guide on the zynewave.com wiki website. Context help can be opened by clicking Help buttons in dialog windows or by pressing Shift+F1 with the mouse cursor positioned on an element in the Podium UI.
• Included a new Podium Release History html document that collects all release notes starting with the first public release in 2004. The document can be opened from the Podium Help menu or the Podium program group in the Windows start menu.
• The Podium setup file stores plugin paths separately for 32-bit and 64-bit. This eliminates the need to reconfigure the plugin paths when switching between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Podium.
• When Podium tries to detect VST plugin folder locations, it now also looks in “Program Files\Common” and any subfolders named either VstPlugins or VST2.
• Improved security when saving project and sound files. A saved file is now flushed to disk before the temporary backup file is deleted. This should prevent cases where a file could become corrupt if the PC power was switched off before the harddisk had flushed its write cache to the physical drive.
• Fix: The plugin quarantine list and plugin crash logfile used during plugin scanning were not working correctly due to a Unicode file format mismatch.