NUSofting

steffensen · Post by **steffensen** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:12 am

One really important feature (imo), would be to keep everything open for midi controlling (CC). Many of the VST stepsequencers, have their notes bound to only be set with the mouse, so u cant control the notes by lets say a MIDICC knob, which kinda spoils it all.

I would LOVE a ARP (or MAQ) sequencer, that could be controlled thru my BCR for example, but that still havent happened.
Which is kinda strange, judging by the amount of seqs out there..

Im still hoping tho!

liqih · Post by **liqih** » Sun Oct 11, 2009 12:54 pm

steffensen wrote:One really important feature (imo), would be to keep everything open for midi controlling (CC). Many of the VST stepsequencers, have their notes bound to only be set with the mouse, so u cant control the notes by lets say a MIDICC knob, which kinda spoils it all.

I would LOVE a ARP (or MAQ) sequencer, that could be controlled thru my BCR for example, but that still havent happened.
Which is kinda strange, judging by the amount of seqs out there..

Im still hoping tho!

Ok, that sounds reasobable, <wink>, surely it would be much more flexible allowing full mapping,

steffensen · Post by **steffensen** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 10:59 am

liqih wrote: Ok, that sounds reasonable, <wink>, surely it would be much more flexible allowing full mapping,

Ok, ill bite. Do you have something cooking or what?

Cordelia · Post by **Cordelia** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 11:05 am

Hey I've been wondering about this project. I'm very happy to see it's still in the works!

liqih · Post by **liqih** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 12:09 pm

Yes guys, I'm working on this and 20 other projects, <sigh>
to make a long story short, within some months of intense creativity I accumulated many working alpha plugins, now I'm in a jungle of updates and project to finish, I hope you'll have patience.
(BTW I'd take the help of a C++ coder if he accepts being paid thru royalties, spread the voice)

About the sequencer, I have some questions for you, what about Sugar Bytes Thesys?

My sequencer design is simpler (one track) and different, but I'd like to know what you think
of that new plugin, which features you like and which you miss?

steffensen · Post by **steffensen** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 1:15 pm

Great to see your working on it tho!
I would surely help out if i knew the code.

Sugar Bytes Thesys,
Its a cool one, if u like spending some time with your mouse. (the pain)
I know some musicians that have waited a long time for such a thing, but i do believe most of us find it to be a bit overkill.

All a decent analog seq need, is the option to change pitch on each note,
length and modulation. Thats it.

What we could add to that to make it interesting and more useful would be:

- Scale option for the notes. To be able to use a pre-set scale, or make your own.

- Be able to control the sequencer from your synthkeys. Controlling which ground note the sequence should play from.

- Sequence start/play options. So we could choose from what step the sequencer should start to play, back and forth etc. If it should retrigger each time u start it with a synth-key, or if it should start from where u let the key go.

- The option to choose a midiCC for the modulation (by modulation here, i mean mod wheel), or perhaps a extra row of knobs for midiCC modulation.

- Swing/Shuffle, but that goes without saying.

And i cant stres this enough, full midi control. This is the thing all (?) step sequencers miss out on.

liqih · Post by **liqih** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 4:56 pm

noted, <grin>

topaz · Post by **topaz** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 5:33 pm

Take a look at vaz+ sequencer

There is no mac version

Sequent · Post by **Sequent** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 5:42 pm

I'm glad this is still 'alive'. I haven't picked up Thesys yet, which looks great and has lots of fantastic options. But there is still room for something simpler. Think Maq16/3 vs. Octopus. Would love to have a refined Maq type plugin sequencer.

Another thing I would aim for is to gear it more towards live performance, which is what these types of sequencers were all about, imo. So, I would...

a) try to maximize the gui in terms of size - but keep it small enough so that it will fit easily on the typical notebook display. this includes the size of the controls.

b) try to minimize the amount of controls so that it's still useful but not overly crowded - again, thinking in terms of live playability.

c) keep the gui looking 'clean'

d) it also has to be easy to set it up for use with a controller. the midi learn functionality has to be transparent.

Thesys is great, but it has a lot of small-ish widgets, etc., which is cool but maybe something to worry about in a live performance situation. As I mentioned last year... ERA was great but also was a little overblown in terms of things it had on it and a gui that was not necessarily the easiest to read, with lots of little widgets, etc. I'm forever trying to remember what all those little widgets mean!

As I said, look at the Maq vs. Octopus. I think a lot of us are looking for a Maq type of thing.

If you do want to explore a more involved type of sequencer then maybe some of us would be interested in a virtual Zyklus type of thing! There was a discussion about that elsewhere on KVR.

Sequent · Post by **Sequent** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 5:44 pm

Hmm... another cool soft sequencer that is no longer around (and that was unfortunately not vst) is the techno toys one. That one had lots of functionality but was easy to use.

liqih · Post by **liqih** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 6:52 pm

yes I used the techno toys one, very nice and simple. Also whyterabbyt asked Maq oriented features, unfortunately I don't know Maq except from the web. Also I'd like to stay away from multipages things, I mean we have energyXT and FL Studio and Reaktor and others, which can run as plugins and build step sequencers as complicated as you like. That's why I aslo want my plugin to be complementary to those and to the new Thesys, which is very well made but too chinese boxes for my taste, a bit like ERA.

One thing I'd like to do is resizable GUI to fit any screen for live use, another one is realtime scale filtering, and auto variations after a fixed number of loops

- Be able to control the sequencer from your synthkeys. Controlling which ground note the sequence should play from.

that is already done in my alpha build

- Sequence start/play options. So we could choose from what step the sequencer should start to play, back and forth etc. If it should retrigger each time u start it with a synth-key, or if it should start from where u let the key go.

proceeding by logic can lead to an infinite set of possible features for a sequencer,
and the choice becomes a matter of taste.
Anyway from what step and back and forth should make sense for everyone

b) try to minimize the amount of controls

absolutely yes, <grin>

dnigrin · Post by **dnigrin** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:19 am

Software Klee is coming...

http://electro-music.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37570

steffensen · Post by **steffensen** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 9:36 am

dnigrin wrote:Software Klee is coming...

http://electro-music.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37570

Wow!
That looks great, even more than i hoped for!
But where is the Length option on each step? (im assuming the knobs i see, control the pitch right?) Or does it work like the old ARP seq, where section A can be pitch and B can be gate/length?

Can the step-lights send out midi CC? (to control the led's on my midi controller for example)

Sorry for the takeover ligih..

Edit: Just found out its a max/msp creation, so i wont be buying it, as i already have a similar thing cooking on my own. I will demo it however. Who knows.

dnigrin · Post by **dnigrin** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:07 pm

steffensen wrote:But where is the Length option on each step? (im assuming the knobs i see, control the pitch right?) Or does it work like the old ARP seq, where section A can be pitch and B can be gate/length?

That's not how the Klee works - you can use the Merge mode if you want steps of longer duration, but in general, steps are of fixed length.

Can the step-lights send out midi CC? (to control the led's on my midi controller for example)

MIDI control of GUI elements will come in a later version. I hadn't thought about outputting the LED state, though that's a good idea.

steffensen · Post by **steffensen** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 3:03 pm

Great thanks. You should consider length options tho, it feels so essential, even if its only the length for all the steps and not induvidually.

NUSofting

KVR Audio

Analogue Sequencer (plugin style) features?