Modern sequencers - a lost art in midi control

[maudioradium]

Hi,

I just wanted to raise something I've noticed from very old-style sequencers (trackers), and how they had many features such as: vibrato, tremolo, fine porta up/down, glissando control, panning, vibrato waveform, volume slide - all of which modern day traditional sequencers lack.

I am aware some of these midi control features are available (ableton live) - but they are extremely cumbersome to use (manually having to draw in pitch changes). I'm aware that renoise does this, but that's a tracker, so one would expect that.

So, in terms of modern day traditional sequencers, I'm feeling that there's now a lost art to midi control creativity and I'm interested in others opinions.

[GeckoYamori]

I moved on from trackers in the early 2000's, but the effects bracket is the one feature I really miss in a modern DAW workflow. It made automating those things so much faster and more intuitive. Over time I started developing techniques to achieve the same thing in FL Studio and other DAWs. For vibrato I just create automation clips for the modwheel and just set some basic points and adjust the curves. Some VSTs allow me to be lazy though and just use a key-synced delayed LFO for automatic vibrato on longer notes (seriously, delay should be a standard feature in any LFO). And for pitch bends I very often set the instrument to monophonic legato/portamento mode, and then just make these sort of glissandos of overlapping notes in the piano roll. It helps a lot that you can select and then stretch around groups of notes in the timeline in FL. I also do the classic fake echo/reverb notes a lot, since they create a very different feel from just applying a standard delay FX.

This is usually what a melody sequence ends up looking like for me

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

I second this. Vibrato and other such stuff should be a thing in modern DAWs.