My Idea of Pattern-Based Arranger

[GraysonPeddie]

Hey guys. I have something that came from an idea that it is simple to write only a section of a song instead of from the beginning to the end. That idea came from Graham at The Recording Revolution as part of a one-song, one-month challenge. Take a look at the video:

Have a look at the two articles that contains a video:

From Blank Slate To The Hook (One Song One Month Challenge 1/8)
Map Out Your Song’s Foundation (One Song One Month Challenge 2/8)

(Yes, there are 8 parts of the one-month, one-song challenge and I participate in it.)

This is my song that I participated for the one-month, one-song challenge:
https://soundcloud.com/grayson-peddie/car-free-village

I have attached a ZIP file containing multiple MIDI files. The "hook 1," "hook 2," "verse 1," and so on and so forth are used to put together a song.

Car-Free-Village-MIDI-Files.zip

(49.18 KiB) Downloaded 62 times

Now, I'm going to focus away from my topic just a little bit: While doing a search for microphone isolation shields in Google about how the shield could affect the tambourines and shakers to no effect, within a search result, I came across an article in Sound on Sound about Recreating The ’80s Home Studio Experience.

This is what gets interesting as I get back to my topic at hand. Within the article discusses the use of C-Lab's Notator program. I took a look at the screenshot and what's cool about the program is the patterns are in the left, which is called the "Arrange" section and to the right are the patterns, each with its own instrument names. "Ha... That screenshot piqued my idea," I thought, so I've been thinking about the Hydrogen Drum Machine.

What I had in my mind is this: "Hey, why not take the Hydrogen Drum Machine and turn it into an arranger?" So the way this would work is this:

• The top of the song is the arranger.
  • The left side of the arranger are the names of the patterns, which could mean a section of the song, such as intro, hook, verse 1, verse 2, and so on and so forth.
  • To the right of the pattern names will be where to place patterns for sequencing.
• The bottom is the pattern section which contains each, individual tracks that has an instrument.
  • Instruments can be double-clicked which will open a piano roll for that instrument.
  • MIDI notes can be viewed at a glance for all instruments, similar to Qtractor and MusE Sequencer.

So what are your thoughts? Does anyone like the idea of making a new software that is based off of Hydrogen but for song creation? Without exporting/importing MIDI files? Is there something similar that fits my idea?

I know I've created a thread about looking for a MIDI sequencer, but that's before the one-song-one-month challenge that empowered me to write a song differently and then arrange the song. I did it with MusE Sequencer ver. 3, but what if I have about 30+ tracks? Once I import the MIDI tracks into MusE-Sequencer, I've had to drag the tracks to the right bar/measure, select all the excess tracks that MusE added during the import, and delete them. For me, that is an inefficient way of how I arrange my song. If there is a program that is pattern-based and can export the song via MIDI format to Qtractor for humanizing and adding melody, that would speed up my workflow tremendously.

[nbd]

Hi, one that could be up for the job is Schism Tracker http://schismtracker.org/wiki/Schism%20Tracker

[gimmeapill]

Seq24/Sequencer64: Pattern based, midi only, treats each midi file as an individual pattern
https://github.com/ahlstromcj/sequencer64

But Renoise comes also to mind, with its Pattern Matrix (not sure if it does really export to midi natively though):

[GraysonPeddie]

I'm compiling sequencer64. I opened up seq64 and it does not look like I can have multiple tracks inside a single pattern, so I don't know how I can program seq24 to act similar to Hydrogen sequencer. Hydrogen Drum Machine can let me choose between pattern or a song and it does not look like I can do that in seq24.

(Compiling is done, but...)

Seems I'm having trouble even though I got gtk2mm installed:

Code: Select all

sequencer64: error while loading shared libraries: libseq_gtkmm2.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Weird...

I will check out Renoise, but I'm not into some kind of tracker. Yes, the fourth screenshot in the Sound on Sound article looks like a list editor to me, but I'm more into piano roll/matrix editor format for adding notes.

[tnovelli]

I started making a home-studio-oriented DAW/sequencer called Tritium a few years ago, inspired by Hydrogen, Qtractor, Traverso, Impulse Tracker..... Here's a post about it with a screenshot: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10241&start=60#p41998
It's down a few notches on my priorities but I would kinda like to build a usable version of it this year.
Is that the sort of thing you have in mind?

[gimmeapill]

Sequencer64/Seq24 has a song mode that should do what you describe, more or less the same as Hydrogen.
Speaking of Hydrogen, it can also spit out midi notes, but it's quite a kludge and I don't think there was any easy way to import midi files (last time I checked was several months ago, things may have changed).

For that gtk2mm issue, try to look for that "libseq_gtkmm2.so.0" in the file system, it may exist under a slightly different name. If that's the case, you can usually fix it with a symlink. Better report it upstream anyway.

[GraysonPeddie]

Okay. I got sequencer64 running after I symlink /usr/local/lib/libseq_gtkmm2.so.0 to /usr/local/bin/ and it works, so I think I will report the problem in GitHub. But now I don't have JACK-MIDI which I can connect Sequencer64 with plugins in Carla, so that will require a2jmidi bridge and I will make a separate request from a libseq_gtkmm2.so.0 issue.

[GraysonPeddie]

I started making a home-studio-oriented DAW/sequencer called Tritium a few years ago, inspired by Hydrogen, Qtractor, Traverso, Impulse Tracker..... Here's a post about it with a screenshot: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10241&start=60#p41998
It's down a few notches on my priorities but I would kinda like to build a usable version of it this year.
Is that the sort of thing you have in mind?

I took a look at your sequencer in GitHub and that's what I have in mind when it comes to rapid composition, although I would leave the audio recording to Ardour when it comes time to render out all the MIDI tracks to Ardour for mixing and touching up.

Are you still in phase 1?

(Ugh! I've had a lot of Internet outage interference lately! Trying to submit my posts to my thread.)

[tnovelli]

Yeah, I'm still in phase 1. I've barely touched it since I made the Qt+JACK version in late 2013. Got too busy with other programming work.

I hadn't thought about using this alongside Ardour or Qtractor... that might expedite development. I could just focus on MIDI patterns at first. I'll look into it. I also need to try Ardour again; last time was early v3 when the new MIDI features needed more work. And now that I'm using Linux Mint & KXStudio I'm not swimming upstream just trying to compile Ardour and its 34 dependencies.

[GraysonPeddie]

Yeah, I'm still in phase 1. I've barely touched it since I made the Qt+JACK version in late 2013. Got too busy with other programming work.

I hadn't thought about using this alongside Ardour or Qtractor... that might expedite development. I could just focus on MIDI patterns at first. I'll look into it. I also need to try Ardour again; last time was early v3 when the new MIDI features needed more work. And now that I'm using Linux Mint & KXStudio I'm not swimming upstream just trying to compile Ardour and its 34 dependencies.

I think it's important that each application should focus in its strength instead of trying to do everything at once. In Ardour, In-place MIDI editing is not my thing without a draggable window or something that is similar to Hydrogen or Logic where the piano roll is below the arranger which I've used MusE Sequencer for my first song. If your sequencer borrows heavily from Hydrogen that is focused in writing music with instruments other than drums, then that should be it's strength.

Perhaps I might want to elaborate even further. If you refer to the MIDI files contained in the ZIP file, each MIDI file has it's own group of patterns. Each pattern is in it's own track. Take hook 1.mid, verse 1.mid, and verse 2.mid for example. Each of the MIDI files have a fixed number of tracks. However, if I were to add any additional instruments to verse 2.mid and want to use the same instruments in verse 1.mid, I've had to add number of tracks to verse 1.mid so that I can add some MIDI notes later. Now, as for arranging, instead of something like this:

hook 1.mid -> verse 1.mid -> verse 2.mid -> ...

I can arrange it something like this:

verse 2.mid -> hook 1.mid -> verse 1.mid -> ...

To do that in MusE Sequencer, I would have to select all the tracks within a group (which I refer to as "section"), move them to the right where it's empty and there are no segments of MIDI notes there, move another group where I want it to be, and then move the other group from its temporary position to the position I intend it to be.

Now, I took a look into the song editor of seq24/sequencer64 and it looks similar to MusE/Qtractor and not Hydrogen. I don't see how all the patterns can form a group so that I can rapidly select/deselect a group to play them in different order to hear how they are arranged. Plus, I'd prefer the workflow and keyboard shortcuts of MusE Sequencer. At least I'd like to have the best of both worlds: MusE for keyboard shortcuts/MIDI editing workflow, and Hydrogen for rapid composition.

[Baggypants]

It's not open source, but it sounds like sunvox

http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/




There is a tracker based interface at the top and the patterns are at the bottom. in the middle are built in modules which you plug together. It has no support at all for plugins, rudimentary jack support and basic midi implementation. I use it all the time.

[GraysonPeddie]

Does Renoise have a piano roll and complete JACK-MIDI support?

[gimmeapill]

No, if you need a piano roll, then forget about Renoise. It is also probably too fat to integrate with Ardour - it works best as a self contained environment. I'm also interested in a pattern based sequencer that could fill that ugly void in Ardour and potentially be used live, but never found anything that fits my needs.

[tnovelli]

I think it's important that each application should focus in its strength instead of trying to do everything at once. In Ardour, In-place MIDI editing is not my thing without a draggable window or something that is similar to Hydrogen or Logic where the piano roll is below the arranger which I've used MusE Sequencer for my first song. If your sequencer borrows heavily from Hydrogen that is focused in writing music with instruments other than drums, then that should be it's strength.

Ok, yeah, MusE does a lot of things right, but talk about featuritis.. it makes Ardour look simple.. and in the past I could never get anywhere with it because it kept crashing. But I'll happily copy MusE's keyboard shortcuts as a 'standard' wherever they make sense. And I'll take the term "Arranger"... "DAW/sequencer/drum machine" is a mouthful

I want to support drums too, but using standard MIDI and piano roll. No need for a whole "drum mode" like Hydrogen, just a few little features like a way to label the keys Kick, Rimshot, Snare... instead of C1, C#1, D1.... eventually.

In your OP you said...

- The left side of the arranger are the names of the patterns, which could mean a section of the song, such as intro, hook, verse 1, verse 2, and so on and so forth.
- To the right of the pattern names will be where to place patterns for sequencing.

Tritium is deliberately different from Hydrogen here, because patterns can be any length. So there's a list of tracks down the top left (typically 1 track = 1 instrument). In the top right timeline area, the patterns will be labeled and color coded within each track, not staggered vertically as in Hydrogen. I would label my patterns something like "A1 intro", "B1 verse", "C1 chorus" so I can tell what they are when I'm zoomed out so far I can only see A!, B1, C1. There'll be a Pattern List window, so you can remove a pattern from the timeline without deleting it, then re-insert it somewhere else.

Cool feature: a pattern can have lead-in/out notes (anacrusis) but it snaps to the barlines when you move it around in the timeline, so you don't have to zoom in when you're doing high-level arranging.

.....To do that in MusE Sequencer, I would have to select all the tracks within a group (which I refer to as "section"), move them to the right where it's empty....

Yep.. so you want to take a vertical slice (say verse2) and lock all the clips/patterns together across all the tracks, so you can move them left/right as a unit. That sounds workable. Not a huge can of worms like "pattern nesting"... never say never, but I know I'll never finish phase 1 if I go down that rabbit hole.
Groups could also be in the pattern list, but when you insert a group in the timeline, the patterns always go into the same tracks they were in when you created the group. To move one pattern to a different instrument, say, you'd have to ungroup, move it, and create a new group.

Does any of that sound awkward to you?

[GraysonPeddie]

This is an image taken from the article: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov15/ ... eature.htm



(Credit goes to Sound on Sound; I'm using this image as an example.)

So, what you are saying is instead of having patterns listed from top to bottom, the list of patterns will be listed from left to right in the timeline, right? I think I get what you're saying.

If you are getting back into development of Tritium, I would be very interested and will keep track of development of Tritium.