New version of ORG Maker 2: 2.1.0

Who knew the guy updated it? Well, we do now.

I don't know what's been changed or what advantages it brings, except that there are some new volume menus.

 

Welp. Time for a new translation.

 

挿入・削除機能を追加
標準MIDI形式でエクスポート機能を追加
VOL操作機能を追加
トラックの入れ替え機能を追加
ルーペ機能を追加

The Above was in what I believe was the Change Logs for OrgMaker2. According to Google Translate it says;

Add insert and delete functions
Add the export function in a standard MIDI format
Add VOL operation function
Add the function of switching the track
Add loupe function

Just throwing this out there.

 

Definitely a number of changes going on here. The colors of the notes have been changed slightly, and the moveable bars (the one that plays the song, for example) also have went through minor modifications. I think the biggest modification that I have seen so far is the instruments section:

Spoiler

As you can see, the entire section to the right is what the waves of the instruments actually look like. Seems useful to more distinctly classify the sounds, but I myself can't interpret what they mean. Besides that, more percussion has been added and most of it has been re-arranged. The order I have the percussion set up in the screenshot is the standard Cave Story percussion for modding. The new order is Bass04, Snare03, HiClose02*, HiOpen02*, Tom03, Per01**.
Keyboard shortcuts have thrown me off so far. I'm used to using Ctrl+F1 for Song Settings, but now that's F2. And wowie look at that, the middle and bottom rows of the keyboard now function as actually using the piano on the left side of the screen. Awesome.
The song settings is mostly the same, but now it lists BPM to show what it equals to in Wait time.
There seem to be a lot more volume features this time around (there are two more tabs at the top to demonstrate this). It looks like they're mostly for easy fade-outs for notes.
I want to keep trying out more new stuff, but the obvious fact that it's in Japanese is preventing me from getting too deep into it. However, I am very curious about this "export function in a standard MIDI format" feature. Sounds extremely handy. I do hope a translation will come around eventually.
EDIT: The export MIDI feature is really awesome, and it blows the stand-alone program (on the Tribute Site) out of the water. I recommend trying it if you need to (Ctrl+Alt+M for easy access). Just note that for some reason the exported MIDI went extremely fast for me unless I set the wait time very very high. Something like 1500.

*The end of the instrument name gets cut off for me, but they are both the second ones listed.
**This is the same Per01 instrument as in the previous version, so it still won't sound the same in Cave Story.

 

This is great! Rxo Inverse added helpful features and improvements. Here are some other things I've noticed.
_____

In the Instruments dialog, you can click on one of the instrument lists for the melody tracks, then the track number shows [ ] around it, then you can click on the wave pictures to change that track's wave.

In the Song Properties, there's now a BPM field. Note that the BPM field is for informational conversion only. You have to press the < button (the left button of the small pair) to convert it to a Wait value, or else it is discarded when you close the dialog box.

In the Edit menu, there's now a Swap Tracks command.

In the Operations menu, "Resize Song" was changed to "Change Resolution". Now when you resize, the Wait, Repeat Range, and Grid Display are updated so that the notes and measures have the same effective size.

In the Environment menu, you can turn on "Confirm Unsaved Discard". Then if you New, Open, or Exit with unsaved changes, you'll get a warning. (I don't know why Rxo Inverse made this an option and off by default. It seems like you would always want this and it shouldn't be an option you can accidentally turn off and forget.)

Resize By Dragging Notehead (enabled by default): You can now "paint" new notes by dragging from start to end. And you can resize existing notes by clicking on the notehead and dragging right. You can disable this if you want.

Resize by Clicking Notehead: The original method of left clicking on a notehead to lengthen and right-clicking on the notehead to shorten is still available, but can be disabled. When disabled, clicking an existing notehead (or double-clicking a blank spot) reuses the last used size, and right-clicking a notehead immediately deletes the note.

Fan Tracks' Notes: The original Japanese is very literal -- "Slightly shift the y coordinate of the notes in each track". This lets you distinguish overlapping notes a little better. [I used the word "fan" as in "fan sheets of paper to slightly separate the edges". Not sure how clear that is, maybe I'll revise that to something else.]

In the Edit Toolbar, there's buttons to Delete (erase notes but leave the space behind), Delete Time (remove space and close the gap), and Insert (insert blank space).

In the Track Toolbar, clicking Tr opens the Instruments dialog, and clicking Wait opens the Song Properties.

The Quick Help text mentions some new keyboard and mouse shortcuts. Some I found out on my own.

As Tpcool already mentioned, the bottom two rows of a QWERTY-layout keyboard can be played like a music keyboard to rehearse notes. (It doesn't seem to let you record or insert notes?) The menu option for Enable Keyboard During Playback lets you play during playback also. The C key on the keyboard plays a Middle C on the piano (OrgMaker octave 3). Press Tab+keys for an octave higher, Shift+keys for an octave lower.

The Edit Toolbar buttons have keyboard shortcuts now:
Current Track buttons = Num Pad 1 to 6
All Tracks buttons = Ctrl + Num Pad 1 to 6
Duplicate buttons = Num Pad 7, 8, 9, +
Insert button = Insert
Delete button = Delete
Delete Time button = Backspace

You don't have to go down to the select area to select ranges:
Tab+drag: Select range in piano roll, pan graph, or volume graph.
Tab+right click: Deselect range.

When you use the selection bar:
Ctrl+drag: Select all tracks
Alt+drag: Select beats
Menu+drag: Select measures

Outside of the selection bar, you can use Ctrl+Tab+drag to select all tracks. However, Alt+Tab is used by the operating system to switch windows. Instead, you can press Ctrl+G to turn on the beat selection option, then use Tab+drag. Menu+Tab+drag is technically possible, but hard to reach with one hand and use the mouse with the other hand.

At the left of the selection bar, you can click on the word Select to enable the "Always Select Current Track" mode. The Quick Help says you can also click on the Pan and Volume headers to light them up, but they serve no purpose.

 

This is really awesome. The MIDI exporting is probably the coolest part, but to me it seems that I have to bump everything up an octave to get the midi to sound right.