# Vangelis (technology preview) progress **URL:** \ **Category:** Software\ **Tags:** zynbleton, vangelis\ **Created:** [December 4, 2025, 12:43pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619 "2025-12-04T12:43:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1

**Author:** ![core.east](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/core.east/32/13283_2.png) [@core.east](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/core.east)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2025, 12:43pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/1 "2025-12-04T12:43:29Z")

Hi there, is zynbleton in vangelis now? Tried finding out myself, but did not succeed 😉 Regards ---

**Author:** ![riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/riban/32/2331_2.png) [@riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/riban)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2025, 12:52pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/2 "2025-12-04T12:52:40Z")

No, not yet. ---

**Author:** ![riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/riban/32/2331_2.png) [@riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/riban)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 8:14am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/3 "2025-12-27T08:14:32Z")

**PLEASE TAKE NOTE** Within the next few days we will be merging our bleeding-edge development into vangelis (testing) branch. This will make vangelis a development branch that **should not** be used for production. (Not that you should have been anyway!) Please move to oram to continue to experience a (relatively) stable workflow. Vangelis may be broken at any point (hopefully for not too long!) and should only be used to test the latest bleeding-edge developments. We strongly recommend using a dedicated device (or boot media) for vangelis, separate to your normal, day-to-day zynthian usage (which should use oram). There are many changes in this development version and full forward / backward compatibility is not guaranteed. Indeed, you are unlikely to be able to move between oram and vangelis without a degree of hurt. **Please heed this warning!** Move from vangelis to oram and / or do not update vangelis unless you want to feel the same hurt that we developers experience. ---

**Author:** ![riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/riban/32/2331_2.png) [@riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/riban)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 8:15am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/4 "2025-12-27T08:15:38Z")

---

**Author:** ![maartmaart](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/maartmaart/32/12972_2.png) [@maartmaart](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/maartmaart)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 8:39am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/5 "2025-12-27T08:39:44Z")

Thanks for the clear notification!! Cheers, Maarten ---

**Author:** ![core.east](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/core.east/32/13283_2.png) [@core.east](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/core.east)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 3:51pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/6 "2025-12-27T15:51:20Z")

Wow. Time to test this microsd extender i bought for occasions like this: ![20251227_164920](https://discourse.zynthian.org/uploads/default/original/2X/a/ad9cbe88761b43e81ef289a85344ea97275cdfe8.jpeg) ---

**Author:** ![fussl](https://discourse.zynthian.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/d07c76/32.png) [@fussl](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/fussl)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 8:43pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/7 "2025-12-27T20:43:24Z")

Going back from Vangelis to Oram Staging breaks the Internet Radio (and probably other things as well, I suspect…). So we are anyway forced to set up a fresh Oram, with all that setup-hassle and preset and data transferring involved, is that correct? NO LIKE 😡 Could you please enable a fully functional rollback to Oram, please 🙏 PS: The chaos is there already whith trying to make a new Oram Staging microSD. TAL-U-NO-LX-V2 is not useable any more, because it is not possible to reinstall the presets: ```auto /zynthian/zynthian-sys/sbin/regenerate_lv2_presets.sh https://tal-software.com/TAL-U-NO-LX-V2 ``` locks up and vomits errors once killed… It did work in Vangelis. Many of us were forced to use Vangelis, because of many fixes that have been Vangelis exclusive and now we shall not use it any more? ---

**Author:** ![fussl](https://discourse.zynthian.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/d07c76/32.png) [@fussl](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/fussl)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/8 "2025-12-27T22:01:25Z")

and this: ![image](https://discourse.zynthian.org/uploads/default/original/2X/0/0eceff1eeaf6097243c6a670d2d8050712c662d2.png) ---

**Author:** ![riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/riban/32/2331_2.png) [@riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/riban)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2025, 7:18am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/9 "2025-12-28T07:18:58Z")

We will merge the latest Vangelis fixes into Oram before we change Vangelis. This should go into Oram staging and then we will do a point-release. I may do the merge soon. I had been waiting for @jofemodo to do it (so that I want blames for another Christmas nightmare release! I am still traumatised from last year.) ---

**Author:** ![riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/riban/32/2331_2.png) [@riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/riban)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2025, 2:00pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/10 "2025-12-28T14:00:19Z")

I have merged vangelis into oram (staging). @fussl please test to see if you can now move back to oram. Anyone on staging please check this update still works as expected. You are our beta testers 😄 . ---

**Author:** ![fussl](https://discourse.zynthian.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/d07c76/32.png) [@fussl](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/fussl)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2025, 2:25pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/11 "2025-12-28T14:25:21Z")

> [@riban](#): > > You are our beta testers 😄 . never felt any different! 🧐 Unfortunately, the above problems persist. I have no more online Vangelis installations to test on, as the last one is now fried. The last Island Zynthian still works and will never see updates, nor will it ever be connected to a network, to prevent update problems and I’ll keep that for making music. I think the other two will be decommissioned and taken apart… lost the love for them… ---

**Author:** ![jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/jofemodo/32/2_2.png) [@jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/jofemodo)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2025, 6:37pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/12 "2025-12-28T18:37:04Z")

HI @zynthianers! I hope all of you are enjoying the winter these days. 🎅 I’m away from home, sharing christmas with family and friends in Pamplona, so little time for zynthian these days. Regarding this thread, I would like to say that recently i moved from Oram to Vangelis and back with no issues. I always use a good connection and preferably update from command line because it’s easier to detect and fix issues while updating. Anyway, although Vangelis (our current testing branch) has been quite stable in the last times, we always warned against using it for production, specially moving between Vangelis and Oram and back, what is a “dangerous” operation. It’s always better to use several SD cards, one for Oram, one for Vangelis, or make a copy before updates, etc. Finally, please, remember we have been warning about the upcoming breaking changes in Vangelis. In a few days/weeks, things are going to move a little bit in Vangelis and those of you wanting a working device should move to Oram stage ASAP, not missing to backup your snapshots, etc. because moving back from testing to stable is, and probably always will be, a “dangerous” operation. All the best! ---

**Author:** ![jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/jofemodo/32/2_2.png) [@jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/jofemodo)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2025, 6:58pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/13 "2025-12-28T18:58:51Z")

> [@fussl](#): > > Could you please enable a fully functional rollback to Oram, please Hi @fussl ! This is not a very common feature in any system. I mean, when you update from a version to the next one, it’s rarely supported to rollback to the previous version. You can upgrade from Debian 12 to 13, but downgrading from 13 to 12 is not supported. I don’t know if you can upgrade from Windows 10 to 11, but i’m almost sure you can’t rollback from 11 to 10. Of course, i’m sure we can find some examples, but it’s not commonly offered, and this is because it’s not easy at all. Zynthian is one of the rare systems that offers this possibility, but we warn about it because we can’t be sure this is going to work always. It would be really time consuming to test every update in both directions and ensure you always can undo all changes when going back between versions!! Perhaps we should remove this possibility and avoid the headaches, but we normally prefer to keep all options and let the user to take the decision. Perhaps we should add some extra warn when moving from Vangelis to Oram 😁 Regards, ---

**Author:** ![riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/riban/32/2331_2.png) [@riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/riban)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 10:05pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/14 "2026-01-05T22:05:57Z")

**It has happened today!** We have merged the zynbleton development branch into Vangelis branch. This is likely to break your workflows. Please ensure you have switched to Oram before doing any further updates. Oram staging is updated with the most recent changes in Vangelis so you should have the same experience. We will shortly release a new stable Oram version (image) with the latest fixes and enhancements. After today, Vangelis will be **very different** and may be broken at any time. There will not be a simple way to move between the two branches without breaking snapshots. If you want to use Vangelis then please use a separate SD card. You have been warned. ---

**Author:** ![riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/riban/32/2331_2.png) [@riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/riban)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2026, 4:54pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/15 "2026-01-06T16:54:47Z")

Okay - now that you have been warned and have all dutifully moved to Oram, I cordially invite the more entrepid users to consider helping with testing the new developments. As we always recommend, it is advisable to use a separate boot media for stable (oram) and testing (vangelis) so that you can use your zynthian for production whilst _playing_ with the new developements. Vangelis aims to support backwards compatibility, i.e. your oram snapshots _should_ work on vangelis but the opposite is **not true**. Vangelis snapshots will **not** load on oram. Further, vangelis may be broken, suffer regression or change significantly at any time and without warning. It may behave different tomorrow than it does today. We are aiming to refine the current feature set so do not plan to make such large breaking changes, but it is within our gift to do so at our whim. Here is a list of _some_ of the changesin vangelis for the brave to try: - Sequence launcher integrated into mixer view - farewell zynpad, my old friend. - When launchers are visible, still have access to mute & solo and can still see fader level, pan/balance and meters (reduced in height). - Arranger disabled - not accessible but dormant, awaiting a revivial at a later date. - Audio clip launcher (I call him “clippy”) providing synchronised, warpable audio samples to be played in sync with sequences. - Bypass fore every effect - allows for true stomp-box workflow. - Audio mixer controls are now a processor allowing consistent access to all parameters and MIDI binding using standard MIDI learn process. - Visual chain management - weird tree view is gone and graphical block-based layout is here with abilty to add, remove and move processors and chains (including dragging with touch - cool man!) - Pinned chains - as well as the main mixbus, any other chain may be pinned to the right of the mixer view. Pinned chains are always visible and do not scroll. Other chains will scroll underneath them. - Additional mixbuses (send / return loops) - as well as the main mixbus, any number of extra mixbuses may be added. These act like effects returns and each additional mixbus gets a “send” control in each chain. So you can build effects chains and send signals to them with different levels. - Changed (more ugly???) launcher colour scheme that better matches RGB LED colours in Novation and Akai hardware controllers. - Better touch interface, e.g. block/icon driven new-chain chooser - this is very much a work-in-progress and may not make it into the next release. - Display of tempo, time signature and current beat in top bar. - Ability to automate playing next / previous phrase after specified quantity of bars - we call rows of launchers a phrase. - Ability to set the beats per bar and tempo for each phrase - with the ability to switch between 7 and 13 beats per bar, now you can perform you favourite prog rock songs! - Access to chain parameters directly from the chain manager view puts all the chain configuration in one place - change MIDI channel, audio or MIDI input and output routing, key range and transpose, etc. You know this makes more sense… - Akai APC40 integration - but other devices are probably broken - we need help from their authors. There are many other changes under the hood and quite possibly some user facing features I have forgotten about. This is quite a change in UI and may require some documentation changes which we tend to avoid too early because updating the wiki too early is awkward and things are still changing… but we can add some tips here. ---

**Author:** ![core.east](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/core.east/32/13283_2.png) [@core.east](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/core.east)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2026, 6:08pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/16 "2026-01-06T18:08:19Z")

I have updated a MicroSD to the latest Vangelis and have successfully booted with it on both my homebuild and V5.1. I got my Tascam USx08, waveshare 7” and Romoral keypads working. My Akai APC Key25 MK2 did not work, it seems there is no driver. It looks very nice. and the above list are fill of very fine points! Here are a couple of questions: > [@riban](#): > > Audio clip launcher (I call him “clippy”) providing synchronised, warpable audio samples to be played in sync with sequences. I have looked for clippy but did not find. How/Where? (just a pointer in the right direction) > [@riban](#): > > Akai APC40 integration Hmm - there is a second hand APC 40 MK1 available locally - is it both MK1 and MK2 that is integrated? This is a joy-ride! Thanks a lot! ---

**Author:** ![niels](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/niels/32/5005_2.png) [@niels](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/niels)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2026, 6:45pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/17 "2026-01-06T18:45:26Z")

Can your share pointers to the changes device drivers need to make? I can look into the akai APC key25 family. ---

**Author:** ![riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/riban/32/2331_2.png) [@riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/riban)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2026, 7:25pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/18 "2026-01-06T19:25:49Z")

To add a clip launcher simply add a “Clip” chain. This is a first class citizen so gets its own “Add engine” menu option. I have only integrated the APC40 MK2. I am not sure what would be needed for the MK1. ---

**Author:** ![riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/riban/32/2331_2.png) [@riban](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/riban)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2026, 7:27pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/19 "2026-01-06T19:27:01Z")

We are considering how we might write some guidance on driver migration / writing. I will try to put together some pointers in the next few days. Some things are simpler so some of the workarounds done in old driver code needs to be removed. ---

**Author:** ![core.east](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/core.east/32/13283_2.png) [@core.east](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/core.east)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2026, 8:00pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619/21 "2026-01-06T20:00:05Z")

Is there somewhere where it is possible to control which chains that go to record? The “Audio Recorder → Record chain” is no longer an option in the audio out section of a chain (also not on main) [Next page](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/vangelis-technology-preview-progress/12619.md?page=2)