Another step in the Great Midi Adventure!
BN - Dec 16, 2017
(I’ve always thought of ‘Multi Arp’ as an interim name, but after several months now I haven’t found anything else and the search must continue.)
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Non-linear pattern sequencer with the focus on live exploration, improvisation and (sooner or later) performance.
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Non-linear means having more than one list of events playing at a time. The lists are interleaved, or played all at once, or played in any combination in between.
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A real time midi looper adds additional elements to a pattern.
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A single instance of the app plays one polyphonic pattern on one midi-channel. Run multiple, synchronized instances to play on different channels.
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Ableton Link synchronization protocol is used to keep everything playing together. You do not need to have Ableton Live or any of its components for this to work.
The UI is text mode, 80 by 25 characters. This avoids the use of mouse/touch on a cramped table top or flimsy laptop stand, but also comes from a sense of nostalgia on my part - think Voyetra Sequencer Plus on DOS, or even Fairlight.
Use the command line within the app to control the sequencer. A simple horizontal menu system exists for some commands and extends their functionality.
Pattern data is transferred in and out using copy/paste key combinations. There is no conventional file open/save mechanism.
Note entry is via midi keyboard. There are two step modes and one 'looper-style' real time mode.
You can add and change note data from within the app, but this is only intended for small additions or minor tweaks.
Within the app everything runs from the UI thread using a timed render loop. Linux’ ALSA Sequencer is used for timing and event scheduling. Ableton Link is used to determine when events should be scheduled.
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Written in C++ with a few bits that look like plain old C.
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Built with gcc for Linux 64 bit (C++14, by default). Heavy use of the C++ Standard Library, in particular string, vector and map.
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The IDE used for this source tree is CodeBlocks.
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Double precision floating point maths for Ableton Link and other parts of the sequencer (though this is problematic in areas where consistent conditional branching is required and a switch to integers in these places would be useful).
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UI uses NCurses library.
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ALSA sequencer for internal timing and midi event scheduling, receipt and delivery.
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Ableton Link for synchronization with other instances of itself, and of course other apps using Link on the current IP LAN segment.
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Linux utility xclip is used for copy/paste.
Build instructions are here. Good luck!
You can read a more detailed overview of things here. The beginnings of a command reference is here.
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