🛡️ Audio Engine Hardening

This release is a comprehensive reliability overhaul of FineTune's audio engine — no new features, just a significantly more robust experience under the hood.

🔇 Crash Recovery

• Orphaned device cleanup — If FineTune crashes or is force-quit, aggregate devices are now cleaned up automatically on next launch, preventing the "apps go silent" issue
• Signal-safe crash guard — Aggregate devices are destroyed during crashes before the process exits, reducing orphaned devices in the first place

🎚️ EQ & Audio Quality

• Soft limiter — Post-EQ clipping prevention catches digital distortion when bands are boosted aggressively
• Preamp attenuation — Signal is reduced before EQ processing proportional to max boost, preventing internal clipping
• Nyquist guard — EQ bands near or above the Nyquist frequency (e.g. 16kHz at 32kHz sample rate) now pass through cleanly instead of producing robotic artifacts
• High sample rate support — Fixed unstable biquad filters on 96kHz+ devices

🎙️ Bluetooth & Voice Apps

• Bluetooth HFP distortion — Fixed audio distortion when using Bluetooth headphones with voice apps like FaceTime, Discord, and Zoom
• Extended Bluetooth warmup — Bluetooth device switches now use a 300ms warmup (vs 50ms wired) to account for firmware handshake latency
• Rapid reconnect handling — Fixed race conditions during rapid Bluetooth connect/disconnect cycles

🔄 Device Switching

• Crossfade state machine — Device switches use a proper RT-safe state machine, eliminating race conditions that could cause glitches
• Correct teardown order — Tap lifecycle management enforces Stop → DestroyIOProc → DestroyAggregate → DestroyTap ordering, preventing resource leaks
• Re-entrant switch guard — Rapidly switching devices no longer causes resource leaks from overlapping crossfades

🔊 Volume Control

• Fallback chain — Volume reading now tries VirtualMainVolume → VolumeScalar → channel 1, supporting more diverse hardware
• Correct API usage — VirtualMainVolume queries now use AudioHardwareService APIs (matches system volume slider behavior)

🐛 Bug Fixes

• DDC monitor leak — Fixed io_service_t resource leak and observer cleanup race in DDC controller
• Monitor deinit — Added proper observer cleanup on deallocation for DDC, audio device, and process monitors
• Volume listener lifecycle — Overhauled DeviceVolumeMonitor to properly register and unregister HAL listeners
• Mono device check — Fixed off-by-one in stream readiness check for mono output devices
• Escape to dismiss — Press Escape to close the menu bar popup (with smooth animation)
• Percentage width — Fixed UI jitter in the percentage display field

What's Changed

• Fix percentage width UI glitch by using fixed width instead of minWidth by @fcsonline in #94
• feat(ui): add Escape key to dismiss menu bar popup by @AbdulEmad in #97

New Contributors

• @fcsonline made their first contribution in #94
• @AbdulEmad made their first contribution in #97

Full Changelog: v1.3.1...v1.3.2

✨ New Features

🖥️ Monitor Speaker Control (DDC)

• External display volume — Control speaker volume on HDMI/DisplayPort monitors via DDC
• Auto-detection — Monitors with DDC support are detected automatically on connect
• Hot-plug safe — Debounced re-probing handles monitor connect/disconnect reliably

📋 Device Priority

• Priority ordering — Set preferred output device order; highest-priority device becomes default on disconnect
• Edit mode — Drag-and-drop or type a number to reorder devices inline
• Input fallback — Input devices also follow priority order on disconnect
• Persistent — Priority order survives app restarts

🔗 URL Schemes

• Automation ready — Control FineTune from Terminal, scripts, Shortcuts, or Raycast
• 6 actions — set-volumes, step-volume, set-mute, toggle-mute, set-device, reset
• Multi-app support — Set different volumes for multiple apps in a single URL
• Inactive app support — Pre-configure apps before they start playing
• Copy device UID — Click the copy button in edit mode to get device UIDs for URL automation

🔧 Improvements

• Device icons — More audio device classifications with appropriate icons
• Help tooltips — Hover over device and app names to see full names when truncated
• Hardware-only volume — Devices without software volume control (e.g. USB audio interfaces) no longer show non-functional sliders
• Virtual input devices — Now shown in input device list while still filtered from outputs

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Monitor volume slider — Fixed DDC monitor control not working in release builds (App Sandbox was blocking IOKit access)
• Auto-update — Fixed Sparkle update checks failing in release builds (same sandbox issue)
• RadioButton icon — Fixed selected device icon not displaying correctly
• Edit mode styling — Matched hint text style to header status text
• DDC probe debounce — Delayed re-probe on monitor hot-plug to avoid race conditions

What's Changed

• feat: add URL schemes by @Boettner-eric in #1
• fix(RadioButton): fix selected device icon by @St1ggy in #77
• Add help tooltips for device/app names. by @jfexyz in #85
• feat(ui): add more audio device classifications (icons) by @956MB in #93

New Contributors

• @Boettner-eric made their first contribution in #1
• @St1ggy made their first contribution in #77
• @jfexyz made their first contribution in #85
• @956MB made their first contribution in #93

Full Changelog: v1.2.0...v1.3.1

⚠️ Auto-update is broken in this version. Please download v1.3.1 manually for the latest fixes, including restored monitor volume control and working auto-updates going forward.

✨ New Features

🖥️ Monitor Speaker Control (DDC)

• External display volume — Control speaker volume on HDMI/DisplayPort monitors via DDC
• Auto-detection — Monitors with DDC support are detected automatically on connect
• Hot-plug safe — Debounced re-probing handles monitor connect/disconnect reliably

📋 Device Priority

• Priority ordering — Set preferred output device order; highest-priority device becomes default on disconnect
• Edit mode — Drag-and-drop or type a number to reorder devices inline
• Input fallback — Input devices also follow priority order on disconnect
• Persistent — Priority order survives app restarts

🔗 URL Schemes

• Automation ready — Control FineTune from Terminal, scripts, Shortcuts, or Raycast
• 6 actions — set-volumes, step-volume, set-mute, toggle-mute, set-device, reset
• Multi-app support — Set different volumes for multiple apps in a single URL
• Inactive app support — Pre-configure apps before they start playing
• Copy device UID — Click the copy button in edit mode to get device UIDs for URL automation

🔧 Improvements

• Device icons — More audio device classifications with appropriate icons
• Help tooltips — Hover over device and app names to see full names when truncated
• Hardware-only volume — Devices without software volume control (e.g. USB audio interfaces) no longer show non-functional sliders
• Virtual input devices — Now shown in input device list while still filtered from outputs

🐛 Bug Fixes

• RadioButton icon — Fixed selected device icon not displaying correctly
• Edit mode styling — Matched hint text style to header status text
• DDC probe debounce — Delayed re-probe on monitor hot-plug to avoid race conditions

What's Changed

• feat: add URL schemes by @Boettner-eric in #1
• fix(RadioButton): fix selected device icon by @St1ggy in #77
• Add help tooltips for device/app names. by @jfexyz in #85
• feat(ui): add more audio device classifications (icons) by @956MB in #93

New Contributors

• @Boettner-eric made their first contribution in #1
• @St1ggy made their first contribution in #77
• @jfexyz made their first contribution in #85
• @956MB made their first contribution in #93

Full Changelog: v1.2.0...v1.3.0

✨ New Features

🎤 Input Device Control

• Microphone monitoring — View and control input devices (microphones) alongside output devices
• Tabbed interface — Seamlessly switch between Output and Input devices with a sleek pill toggle
• Input level & mute control — Adjust input gain and mute state for any microphone

🔊 Multi-Device Output

• Aggregate device support — Route app audio to multiple output devices simultaneously
• Multi-device picker — Select multiple devices with checkbox interface in Multi mode
• Mode toggle — Switch between Single and Multi device modes per app

📌 Pinned Apps

• Pin your favorites — Keep apps visible in the list even when they're not playing audio
• Pre-configure settings — Set volume, EQ, and device routing before an app starts playing
• Persistent pins — Pinned apps and their settings survive app restarts

🔧 Improvements & Stability

• Bluetooth codec protection — Input device lock prevents Bluetooth audio quality downgrade when monitoring microphones
• Bluetooth timing — Improved device warmup delay (300ms) for more reliable volume readings on Bluetooth devices
• System sound sync — Validates "follow default" preference on startup and enforces it if macOS state drifted
• Explicit shutdown — Clean audio engine shutdown on app termination
• Code architecture — Extracted reusable components (AppRowControls, BaseMuteButton, CrossfadeOrchestrator) for better maintainability
• Consolidated state — Unified volume/mute/identifier into AppAudioState for cleaner data flow
• Auto-updates — Fixed Sparkle installer for sandboxed app; future updates will install automatically

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Popover flicker — Fixed visual flickering when popover content updates by reusing hosting view
• System daemon filtering — Added more Apple system processes to filter list (FrontBoardServices, NotificationCenter, etc.)
• Multi-device toggle — Hidden in Settings device picker where it doesn't apply
• Popover reactivity — Fixed content not updating when state changes while popover is open
• EditablePercentage — Improved discoverability and click-outside behavior

FineTune 1.1.0 brings a settings panel, sound effects routing, automatic updates, and improved device handling.

Features

• Settings panel — Launch at login, 4 menu bar icon styles, configurable default volume (10-100%), and max boost up to 400%
• Sound effects routing — Route system alerts, Siri, and notifications to any output device
• Automatic updates — Built-in Sparkle integration keeps you current
• "System Audio" routing — Apps can follow your macOS default device automatically
• Smart device reconnection — Routing preferences restore when devices reconnect
• Editable volume input — Click the percentage anywhere to type an exact value

Improvements

• Volume boost up to 400%
• Linear volume mapping
• Better USB audio interface support (MOTU, Focusrite, SSL, FIFINE)
• Device readiness checks prevent race conditions
• Polished UI with improved touch targets and typography
• Filtered system audio daemons from app list

Bug Fixes

• Fixed buffer routing for multi-channel USB interfaces
• Fixed EQ presets unreadable on dark backgrounds
• Fixed dropdown menu clipping
• Corrected default output device property

Full Changelog: https://github.com/ronitsingh10/FineTune/commits/v1.0.0