creating an expressive full-board sequencer

[Kirilligum]

Hi,

I started with a desire to be able to record a sequence as a natural play, and then be able to loop it and modify it.

Right now I'm in the brainstorming and information gathering stage. I would love to hear other people's ideas and criticism. Here are my thoughts:

1. Use a full keyboard and record all the MPE signals: x,y,z, aftertouch
2. Inspired by the tape looper of pulsar-23 it has add, delete, and replace functionality. Initially, we will be giving up seeing the stepper and would just have to train our ears and brains. I mostly got used to it on p23.
3. The tape loop (tl) is always rolling (at whatever bpm is set to)
4. Tap switch 1 button (s1) to add. Whatever you play gets added. Tap s1 to exit add mode
5. Tap s1 and s2 (switch 2) to replace all. Whenever you press a note, all the notes at that time get replaced. tap s1 and s2 to exit replace
6. While in replace all, hold s2 to delete silent and delete all of the sounds
7. Tap s2 to enter per-key delete (pkd). Whichever keys you press will be removed in the NEXT loop (this gives an opportunity for Philip-Glass-style changes of one note in a sequence. For the next loop, you can play the new key). In this pkd mode, you can press s1 to remove the sounds in the next loop. tap s2 to exit pkd.
8. The bottom row shows steps by changing the color of the button where the active step is, but it doesn't change the functionality, meaning you can still play the bottom row

future:

9. Press octave to modify the sequence length
10. have some regime to have lfo on the attributes of the notes
11. I'm also thinking of displaying xyz of note's envelope as a histogram with y-axis being xyz intensity and x-axis time. Keep in mind that this is all for looping techno, drone or minimal music live
12. I'm also thinking of some kind of a sequencer idea similar to ornament-8 where the sequence can branch

let me know what you think

Best,
--Kirill

[Kirilligum]

I'm slowly going through https://github.com/rogerlinndesign/linn ... uencer.ino figuring out which components I can use and how things work. If someone has some write up that could be helpful or if you can give me a road map on how to implement it, please let me know.

[Dirk Diggler]

Sounds like you want a looper.
I know of nothing that can handle midi looping and MPE, that's why an audio solution might work out better. The onboard sequencer is nice, but not as robust as a dedicated looper.

Plenty of hardware options available and many software versions too. You might check out Melda Msuperlooper, or maybe Audio Damage Enso for software. Personally my favorite hardware is a Looperlative with 8 stereo loops possible.

[Kirilligum]

what do you mean by "handle"? not enough processing power?

[TigerBalm]

That's cool that you're dreaming up an expressive sequencer. Do you have any sketches of the interface you have in mind? I think an expressive sequencer would need its own set of controls. Layering a sequencer on top of the LinnStrument grid might be asking too much of one interface

[Dirk Diggler]

Nope it has nothing to do with power, but more to do with existing.
Midi processing would be less power consumption, but forcing that on the Linnstrument seems like a problem.
That's why the audio solutions might work out better, they don't have to deal with the complications of MPE.

[DarkenedMonastery]

Sounds like you want a looper.
I know of nothing that can handle midi looping and MPE, that's why an audio solution might work out better. The onboard sequencer is nice, but not as robust as a dedicated looper.

Plenty of hardware options available and many software versions too. You might check out Melda Msuperlooper, or maybe Audio Damage Enso for software. Personally my favorite hardware is a Looperlative with 8 stereo loops possible.

The synthstrom deluge can loop both audio and MIDI, including MPE

[Dirk Diggler]

Deluge looks interesting, but not the workflow I would prefer
Also not exactly a budget sequencer, but certainly very feature packed.
I'm amazed it's got a built in sampler, that's pretty cool.

[Kirilligum]

I was able to get what I wanted with digitakt in terms of recording notes. The recording is polyphonic, not quantized, and I can modify each note; however, I don't think it records MPE, and linnstrument just has a lot more buttons. So I'm still interested in writing the sequencer at some point and looking for any guidance on how to understand the code while i'm slowly going through it

[FranklyFlawless]

I was able to get what I wanted with digitakt in terms of recording notes. The recording is polyphonic, not quantized, and I can modify each note; however, I don't think it records MPE, and linnstrument just has a lot more buttons. So I'm still interested in writing the sequencer at some point and looking for any guidance on how to understand the code while i'm slowly going through it

Geert Bevin explains the LinnStrument's firmware in more detail in this 2014 presentation.

https://invidious.projectsegfau.lt/watch?v=iENVztlxWuk

[SteveElbows]

Overdubbing/adding more notes in MPE has complications. Because the additional note being played by the MPE controller later might have the same MIDI channel as an existing recorded note that is active at that same moment in the recording, and this will mess up MPE. DAWs and hardware sequencers (eg Squarp Hapax) that can handle MPE and overdubbing deal with this by reallocating MIDI channels for MPE notes themselves so there is no clash. Some people complain about DAWs that end up using different MIDI channels compared to what the controller has used for specific notes in MPE mode, but this is one good reason why they behave that way.

[DarkenedMonastery]

Not to go full shill but the deluge handles mpe overdubbing as well