What's new
What changed in each build of PedalScope, newest first, as you would meet it in the app. Each entry is written when the build is made, and the notes that reach you through TestFlight or the App Store are copied from it.
1.0 (41) — 16 September 2026
The Harmonic Distortion card now states the drive it was captured at. Under the chart, beside the averaging line: the sweep’s peak level in dBFS and, when the record’s own calibration carries a metered volts factor, the millivolts at the pedal input — with the PSC-1 condition appended when the record meets it. Every other card already stated its operating point; this was the one that made a reader borrow the drive from the Transfer Curve beside it, which is a separate control.
The volts-factor sheet follows the tone that is playing. “Compute from a reading…” no longer keeps its own tone-level picker: it reads the play picker’s setting, and while the test tone sounds it shows the level that is sounding and locks it. The test tone itself now opens at −12 dBFS, the level the guide sends a meter read to. The sweep-level readout under Measure at PSC-1 shows its decimal (−33.5 dBFS reads −33.5, not −34).
A few tips lost stray references and an old name. The Live Mode toolbar tip now says Live Mode; four tips and the note a new Virtual Pedal is created with no longer cite internal document sections. Notes on a Virtual Pedal you already have are yours and were left as written.
The Waveform Matrix says what its level axis is anchored on. Under the grid: the levels are anchored at the standard drive — 168 mV peak at the pedal input, in your rig’s own dBFS — so the quiet columns read the same millivolts on every calibrated rig while the −12 dBFS ceiling follows the interface. The labels were always the delivered volts; the sentence is new.
A new app icon. A single clipped sine wave, mint on blue-violet — the shape this instrument exists to measure.
Nothing about how measurements are captured, analysed or stored changed in this build.
Known issues
In Simulation Mode, the virtual pedal’s harmonics in their highest half-octave read a few decibels off the exact answer, and a hard clipper’s even harmonics read as a faint floor rather than as absent — the simulation’s own aliasing, not the measurement’s, stated on the Simulation Mode page. Real pedals measured through an interface do not carry it.
Collapsing a family sweep’s group in the sidebar, or Collapse All Pedals from the View menu, has crashed the app a few times. Nothing is lost: the measurement is saved before the crash, and reopening PedalScope shows it. If it happens, reopen the app.
1.0 (40) — 16 September 2026
Hear-it and the pluck preview play again on the current macOS. On macOS 27 the Hear-it panels, Compare’s listening lanes, the oscillation evidence button and Settings → Advanced’s Preview Pluck could fall silent: macOS moved their audio engine onto a device with no outputs before it started, and the app said nothing. PedalScope now puts that engine on your Mac’s default output itself, checks that it is running before the first sample, follows the default output if you change it while a lane plays, and — if the engine still cannot start — says so under the control, naming the device, instead of a Play button that flicks and stays silent. The remedy is the one the line names: choose another output in System Settings → Sound and press Play again.
The calibration-step button that plays a steady tone for a meter is now called Play test tone. It verifies your volts reading; it does not calibrate the interface.
Known issues
In Simulation Mode, the virtual pedal’s harmonics in their highest half-octave read a few decibels off the exact answer, and a hard clipper’s even harmonics read as a faint floor rather than as absent — the simulation’s own aliasing, not the measurement’s, stated on the Simulation Mode page. Real pedals measured through an interface do not carry it.
Collapsing a family sweep’s group in the sidebar, or Collapse All Pedals from the View menu, has crashed the app a few times. Nothing is lost: the measurement is saved before the crash, and reopening PedalScope shows it. If it happens, reopen the app.
1.0 (39) — 16 September 2026
Hardware measurement works on the current macOS again. On macOS 27, calibrations and measurements played their sweep into an audio output the system had switched off, and then reported “No signal captured”, blaming the cables. PedalScope now switches the output on itself, checks that both directions of the interface are actually running before a sweep starts, and refuses with a sentence naming the audio engine — never your rig — if they are not. If you ever see that refusal, run again; if it recurs, re-select the interface on the Setup step. The Calibration page of the guide describes it.
The calibration tone can no longer take the app down. A tone that cannot start is reported beside the button instead of crashing the app on the next click.
The Setup step’s Input choice now stays valid when you switch to an interface with fewer inputs, and the New Measurement sheet is a little wider so its measurement picker fits at every size.
Known issues
In Simulation Mode, the virtual pedal’s harmonics in their highest half-octave read a few decibels off the exact answer, and a hard clipper’s even harmonics read as a faint floor rather than as absent — the simulation’s own aliasing, not the measurement’s, stated on the Simulation Mode page. Real pedals measured through an interface do not carry it.
Collapsing a family sweep’s group in the sidebar right after adding a single measurement to the same pedal has crashed the app twice. Nothing is lost: the measurement is saved before the crash, and reopening PedalScope shows it. If it happens, reopen the app.
1.0 (38) — 11 September 2026
When macOS refuses to load a plugin, PedalScope now says what happened and what to do. Loading a plugin from another maker makes macOS ask whether to lower the security settings for PedalScope; if that panel is declined — or was left unanswered earlier in the login session — macOS cancels the load, and the plugin’s row in the picker now reads macOS consent declined with a sentence that names macOS’s answer rather than yours, and says that Retry asks again. If Retry raises no panel, log out and back in, then Retry: a consent panel left standing stops macOS offering it again for the rest of your login session. A plugin that does not finish loading within 15 seconds says the same. Until this build, that refusal read as a plugin that had failed, and the guide’s advice — pick the plugin again — did nothing on a marked row.
Plugin load errors now show their own sentence instead of an error number.
The note above the plugin picker explains the macOS panel before you click a plugin: what it asks, why, which button loads the plugin, that a Cancel is not remembered, and to answer the panel either way rather than leave it standing.
Live Mode no longer files a snapshot under a pedal bound to a plugin. A Live snapshot is a capture from your audio interface, so when the selected pedal is a plugin’s, the Snapshot button is disabled and the reason is stated beside it. Choose a hardware pedal, or name a new one. Live Mode’s Harmonic Bars chart no longer draws its value labels over the card’s subtitle.
The user guide. Permissions now states the plugin-consent panel’s exact wording and buttons, the measured way back from a declined panel (the row’s Retry), and the unanswered-panel case and its way out (log out and back in). Measuring plugins carries the same remedy.
Known issues
In Simulation Mode, the virtual pedal’s harmonics in their highest half-octave read a few decibels off the exact answer, and a hard clipper’s even harmonics read as a faint floor rather than as absent — the simulation’s own aliasing, not the measurement’s, stated on the Simulation Mode page. Real pedals measured through an interface do not carry it.
1.0 (37) — 10 September 2026
A pedal that is bound to a plugin is now measured as a plugin, whichever source the Measure pane was on. Choosing such a pedal switches the source to Plugin and opens the Audio Unit picker with that plugin already selected — highlighted and scrolled into view, never loaded until you click it. And a measurement can no longer start while the source and the pedal disagree: a hardware source under a plugin-bound pedal, or a plugin source under a hardware pedal, disables the Measure buttons with a line saying why, so a capture from your interface can never be filed under a plugin’s pedal. Until this build, on a Mac with an interface connected, exactly that could happen without a word.
Switching the source to Plugin no longer opens the plugin chooser by itself; when nothing is loaded, the panel offers Choose Plugin…. When one plugin backs many pedals, the pedal chooser scrolls instead of growing off the screen.
The “Which input?” help now explains that inputs are counted in the order your interface presents them — not always the order printed on the panel, and a count that can change with the sample rate — and that on a silent input the calibration stops with “No signal captured” rather than reporting a bad number.
The user guide. Setting up your rig now says that PedalScope needs one audio interface that both plays and records. A Mac on its own does not qualify: the built-in speakers and microphone are two devices, combining them in an aggregate device is not a supported measurement path, and the headphone jack’s microphone contact is a microphone input, which a pedal’s output overloads.
Known issues
In Simulation Mode, the virtual pedal’s harmonics in their highest half-octave read a few decibels off the exact answer, and a hard clipper’s even harmonics read as a faint floor rather than as absent — the simulation’s own aliasing, not the measurement’s, stated on the Simulation Mode page. Real pedals measured through an interface do not carry it.
1.0 (36) — 9 September 2026
PedalScope now works with audio interfaces that have more than two inputs. Until this build, an interface presenting more than a stereo pair — which is most interfaces above the entry level — could not calibrate, measure or run Live mode at all. Now they do, and you can select any input rather than only the first two. Interfaces whose input count changes with the sample rate, as anything with ADAT does at 88.2 and 96 kHz, connect correctly too, and the Input picker offers the inputs your interface has at the rate it is running. When an interface cannot be connected, the message now names what actually failed instead of reporting something else.
Setting up a hardware measurement now says where the signal leaves: PedalScope drives your interface’s first output pair, with the same signal on both channels, so there is no output to choose.
The 0 dBFS = … V peak field can now be emptied — delete the value and leave it blank — and PedalScope empties it for you, with a line saying why, when you pick a different interface: the factor describes one interface, and measuring it again is the point of changing rigs. The source impedance is kept, because it describes your fixture, which moves between rigs with you.
The Transfer Curve card now says that without a Harmonic Distortion measurement of the same pedal at the same setting, a plugin capture’s up-or-down orientation is arbitrary — and the “Remove filter phase rotation” checkbox reads unchecked when there is nothing for it to remove.
The safety notices no longer describe an amplifier mode as planned. PedalScope does not measure amplifiers; the guide has said so since the last build, and now the app agrees.
The user guide. Setting up your rig has been rewritten around what you need to establish about any interface — where the signal leaves, where it returns and what PedalScope calls that input, what sets its sensitivity, and the one rule that matters: calibration and measurement must travel the same electrical path, single-ended where it meets the pedal. An interface whose only outputs are XLR is now covered, there are two worked examples instead of one, and the roughly 6 dB a balanced output gives up when it is single-ended is explained as the ordinary thing it is. The calibration page’s gain staging carries the same rule.
The amplifier safety page states the line-level tap as its own requirement, with the warning never to connect an interface across a load or a speaker output, and says plainly that a load device with no line out cannot be measured through. The rig page no longer claims a clean calibration proves your monitoring is not reaching the loop; it gives the safe setting instead.
Part 2 lists the measurements in the same order the app does, and two pages moved to the names the app uses: Gain Map and Harmonic Distortion. Further reading now cites an archived copy of a source whose site went offline.
Known issues
In Simulation Mode, the virtual pedal’s harmonics in their highest half-octave read a few decibels off the exact answer, and a hard clipper’s even harmonics read as a faint floor rather than as absent — the simulation’s own aliasing, not the measurement’s, stated on the Simulation Mode page. Real pedals measured through an interface do not carry it.
1.0 (35) — 8 September 2026
The user guide has caught up with the app. The Bench fixtures page now opens with the Breakout Box — a small die-cast box with a probe point on the loop, a 10 kΩ series source on demand with a probe point after the resistor, and a straight pass-through for null runs — with three photographs; the improvised fixtures the page used to describe are kept as alternatives for anyone without the box. Calibration, first measurement and rig setup point to it where a bare plug or a soldered resistor was suggested before.
The Simulation Mode page now states the one limit the virtual pedal has that a real pedal does not: because it applies its clipping shape sample by sample, its harmonics near the top of the band carry an aliasing error, largest for hard clipping and for the highest harmonics.
Guide text that no longer matched the app has been corrected: the Fuzz preset is named by its current name in every figure caption; the welcome page no longer promises a virtual pedal for later; the Harmonic Fingerprint’s list of the suite names the Waveform Matrix; the Reference Box is named consistently and described by what is actually in it; rig setup says to declare a series resistor on the pedal’s SOURCE control and in the calibration’s source-impedance field rather than in a note, and points to Permissions for the other things that raise the microphone prompt; the unlock page describes the lock badge on the measurement controls and lists the charts by the names the app uses for them; and an earlier entry on this page named the completion-sounds setting’s pane wrongly — it is General.
The Further reading page’s Electrosmash entry names the circuits it analyzes.
The safety page for amplifiers and the rig-setup page now say plainly that PedalScope does not measure amplifiers, instead of describing a mode that does not exist; the safety rules on that page are unchanged.
When a plugin-window screenshot cannot be captured, the notice now reads as a caution rather than a footnote, and its text can be selected and copied.
The App Store images and the transfer-curve figure are re-rendered from this build.
Known issues
In Simulation Mode, the virtual pedal’s harmonics in their highest half-octave read a few decibels off the exact answer, and a hard clipper’s even harmonics read as a faint floor rather than as absent — the simulation’s own aliasing, not the measurement’s, stated on the Simulation Mode page. Real pedals measured through an interface do not carry it.
1.0 (34) — 7 September 2026
Restore Purchases reads your purchase record even when the App Store’s own refresh fails, so a poor connection no longer refuses a restore that should succeed; a restore that finds no purchase says so, and a dismissed sign-in prompt still says nothing.
Before the unlock, the controls that start a measurement look locked: New Measurement and Live Mode in the toolbar, and Measure Fingerprint on an empty pedal page, carry a small lock badge, and hovering says that the Measurement Unlock is what opens them. Clicking still opens the unlock panel, as before.
After you grant Screen Recording in System Settings and choose Later instead of relaunching, Capture Screenshot in the plugin settings window no longer does nothing: it shows the relaunch notice again, with Quit & Reopen, because macOS hands a changed permission to the app’s next launch.
A summary sentence about how much of the clean signal survives a soft clipper now describes the circuit rather than naming a product by its nickname.
Launched from a Terminal with –help (or -h), PedalScope prints every launch flag with what it does and exits before opening a window. When a developer flag is in force — a scratch or developer library, a purchase override, the simulated rig — a coloured badge at the end of the toolbar says which; a plain launch shows none. Developer builds launched from Xcode open a separate developer library rather than the one you measure into.
1.0 (33) — 6 September 2026
Help ▸ What’s New in PedalScope opens this page. In the controls editor, the first row no longer sits under its header after you add a control.
On the Gain Map, the peak-distortion tile states a bound (“≤ … at the floor”) when the loudest cell is not clearly above what the rig and the analyzer can resolve, instead of naming a number that is noise — a passive divider reads a bound on both of its measured dates, and the reference clippers read as before. The floor behind that tile now includes the analyzer’s own residue at the bottom of the sweep, reads the calibration stamp through a running median rather than point by point, and never sits below what the calibration itself measured at louder drives. A cell counts as the peak only when a neighbouring note clears the floor too.
When a pedal has no controls defined, the measure pane says the measurement will record no setting and offers Define Controls…; measuring is still possible. A record can be renamed from the sidebar’s context menu (an imported record keeps its title, and the item says why). A fingerprint’s control-state photo now shows on every measurement in it, labelled as the fingerprint’s; replacing, rotating or removing it from any of them changes the one photo they share. In the sidebar, an ungrouped record’s row shows its setting beside the kind (“Chord IMD · P3”).
Nothing in the app or the guide describes a measured difference as a heard one: the Hear-it footer’s floor is a contrast floor on the measured metric, not a hearing threshold; the transfer curve’s subtitle and the summaries state what was measured; the guide’s rules of thumb about hearing a percentage are gone, and the blind A/B/X trial and the Hear-it lanes are where listening happens. The guide’s worked comparison is now the Reference Box’s P3 against P4, every number from the records. Third-party product names appear in the guide only where you need them to operate a plugin host.
1.0 (32) — 5 September 2026
The library sidebar has a search field: one query narrows the list by pedal name, maker, record title, tags, control settings, aliases and sweep titles. Option-click a disclosure triangle to open or close a whole pedal; View ▸ Expand All Pedals / Collapse All Pedals (⌥⌘→ / ⌥⌘←) do every pedal, and the same items sit in the sidebar’s gear menu. The collapsed state now survives a library rewrite.
Simulation Mode’s presets are named for what the clipper does — Hard clip (Si), Hard clip (LED), Soft overdrive, Fuzz. Its chart strip follows the same order as a real record and includes the Waveform Matrix, and a line under the Clipper group says how Drive relates to the clip threshold in the virtual pedal’s own volts.
The Harmonic Distortion and Distortion vs Note charts fit their vertical axis to the solid data by default; the toggle is now “Extend the vertical axis to include the dotted and dashed data”. The rotated axis label stays inside the plot, and Distortion vs Note’s label reads “added harmonics, %”. In a compare view, clicking a harmonic’s distance bar opens that harmonic in the Overlay.
A short system sound plays when a measurement finishes, when a full fingerprint completes, when a family run ends, and when something is aborted or fails — on your default output, never through the interface being measured. They are on by default; Settings ▸ General changes or silences each.
A record’s notes fold. Each card shows one summary line that keeps the verdict, and “Notes on this reading” opens the explanation; the disclosure remembers its state per card. Where every product on an older record shares a bin, that is said once under the table rather than per row. The Growl (sub-octave) tile’s hover says where a sub-octave reaches a listener through a cabinet. One contradiction between two floor sentences is gone.
The guide’s Further reading page links the Reading Room on pedalscope.com. On first launch the main window may reappear at its default size; nothing in your library changes.
Builds before 32 were described in their TestFlight notes.