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The Sequencer
First, what kind of sequencer?
There's the box, the hardware.
And then there's the software program,
even a complete MIDI/multimedia computer.
Early software sequencers probably came along
for the Mac, Amiga and Atari in the PC's
DOS 3.3 days, of 'fond' memory (edlin, anyone?).
And hardware sequencers, equipment, might even
still be available.
But the software of today would be more powerful,
and more typically what's used by pro and
amateur, alike.
The sequencer, minimally, records a MIDI from
a synthesizer, or lets you enter the notes manually,
and then plays the MIDI back.
But that wouldn't be so much fun, if that's
all they did.
What kind of software?
So, the sequencer includes a lot of add-ons and features.
It's even more than just a sequencer.
There are different sort of creation and composition
programs available, separately, as stand-alone products,
some free, some shareware, many commercial and shrink-wrapped.
Basically, top end sequencers might tend to
include many, if not most, of these different
sort of products, or sub-products, perhaps just without the
full capabilities of the stand-alone sort.
Other sequencers would be more limited, and you
might actually require the addition of one or another program
to be able to do what you want, more easily.
Just to note, as this is presented here as a sort of quick reference
for a variety of MIDI software, first, I've used only a few
of these programs myself. The rest I might have never used,
but just mention here because they are available.
And, second, there will be some products that just fit a miscellaneous
category.
Here, for example, is a site using many more categories.
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This is the most straightfoward method of basically writing
a MIDI.
A blank staff is shown on the screen, and you just write
down the notes and chords as if you were writing them out
on staff paper, including performance marks,
accents, however comprehensive the program is.
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An example of a notation program would be Noteworthy
Artware's very comprehensive, but very inexpensive -
Composer.
There's this simple little tabulature editor -
Bucket o Tab.
And here's a more sophisticated MIDI/tab editor -
TablEdit.
An interesting looking program designed just for
a variety of stringed instruments (lute, mostly, also guitar) -
StringWalker.
And two that are far, far more expensive, but also are said
to possess far more features for professional musicians,
are
Finale
and
Encore.
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Single Instrument Sequencer
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Computer Based/Aided Instruction in chord recognition,
fingering, scales, harmony, whatever, using MIDI.
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An example of this would be
Chord Trainer.
Another would be a tutor that apparently shows what to
play from famous pop/rock songs, on a fretboard picture -
Guitar Magic.
And people have sung the praises of a piano tutor from
Midisoft called -
Play Piano.
And here's a list of other
related training software
from Pro Audio Music.
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A program designed to give a 'live' performance feel to
an otherwise plain or mechanical sounding MIDI.
This may suggest the timing pattern based templates of various
sequencers; or whatever stand-alone programs.
But a different approach is suggested, here, perhaps in
addition to the 'groove quantize' or other pattern fixes.
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The one that sort of defines the category is
Ntonyx Style Enhancer.
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As with other categories, there's some overlap.
This includes programs that, minimally, generate rhythms and repetitive
backing tracks. So that includes obviously, accompaniment programs,
the drums programs mentioned above, even
various 'soft synths' mimicing the old analog synthesizers,
and which save to MIDI.
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Ntonyx has an elaborate rhythm machine, called -
Pattern Variator.
Or there's this little program
to generate rhythms and a lead line, as well -
Auto Composer.
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This may include the ability to record MIDI off a synthesizer,
but it's basically a way to generate, if not random sounds,
then leads, harmonies, rhythms based on some sort of
algorithm, which might sound sort of random,
depending on the program.
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An example of such would be
Koan Pro.
There are a couple of others, as well, among them -
Aleatoric
Composer, and Wind Chimes.
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Program (or box) which can set up, record, store, manage,
read
SysEx,
for some particular synthesizer; even more than one.
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An example here would be Jeff Cazel's -
Canvasman, for GS/Roland synths.
Another one geared for the Roland GS is Gary Gregson's -
SCedit.
And if you have the Yamaha XG, you'd probably want his -
XGedit.
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The ability for a computer program to literally try and
read a piece of sheet music, you scan in, and convert
it into a MIDI file.
Sort of the music equivalent of OCR.
[OCR tends to be 90-99% accurate, given a good scan. Some have suggested
that this MIDI conversion is more like voice recognition, which
is even less accurate, and bears a rather high typo/correction overhead.]
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The oldest and probably most well known is Musitek's -
MIDISCAN.
And from merry ole England, there's this from Prof. Jones -
SharpEye.
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In a way, for some, the 'holy grail' of MIDI.
You have a recording from your favorite band.
But you can't quite pick out the chords, the notes, whatever.
What if a program could automatically convert the whole thing to MIDI,
separating out the instruments, including pitch bends,
effects, whatever else.
Well, some say to a certain extent, this is just
logically impossible, that no program would have enough
information to work with.
But if the input were much more limited, then some things
might be possible.
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Here's a rather expensive program that
figures pitch bends, expression changes, and other things -
AutoScore Pro.
One can try this single instrument, but multiple note, recognition
program from the Russian Akoff Sound Labs, called -
Composer.
Here's another single instrument recognition
program, actually pretty accurate with the right settings,
from Epinoisis Software, called -
Digital Ear.
And here's one that actually tries to convert any audio recording, of however many instruments
and voices -
Intelliscore.
There's this, which also tries to convert straight from audio,
using a 'base tone' for reference -
Amazing MIDI.
[Note - of the two of these that I've tried, Digital Ear and Composer,
Digital Ear is probably to be preferred because, as mentioned,
with the proper settings, it gets a lot of notes right - though to be
fair, an old version of Akoff that I tried isn't so bad, either (probably better now).
Intelliscore looks promising, as well.]
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While sequencers, by definition, can play back a MIDI,
and some even come with fairly simple, or even full featured,
MIDI players, these stand-alone programs are probably
best, as it's all they're really designed for.
There would be a couple of types.
One would play back MIDIs and allow you to organize
MIDIs into playlists or albums for easy reference.
Another might include a mixer board, so you could
change the instruments, or reverb levels, or something.
Another sort might cater to those playing back MIDIs
as karaoke files, taking care to show the lyrics
on the screen, if the MIDI included lyrics.
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There's the inexpensive -
vanBasco player -
with its sort of WinAmp design.
There's the freeware -
Mikey Karaoke player.
And here's a
whole list of MIDI and Karaoke players, and a couple of 'soft synths',
from the Win95 shareware site.
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A program, often including many or most of the above sort of
programs, and then some, and particularly a notation view, a drum
view or program, the measure or 'song' view, perhaps some digital
audio capability or even full-on recording and editing of same, and
whatever else.
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I use
Winjammer Pro, of course
(note: the shareware version is only recommended for the MIDI player,
and as a demo for the Pro version).
But the more popular, and more powerful in various ways, is
the standard -
Cakewalk, in it's various varieties.
Formerly made or bought by Cakewalk, Metro
was a 'home version', and now owned by Sagan.
Voyetra has their -
Digital Orchestrator Pro.
From the makers of Encore, there's -
Master Tracks Pro.
And for any I might have left out, both here and above, there is
Synthzone's really
comprehensive list.
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Of the many various features and sub-programs such a full feature
sequencer might
include, one would have to suspect the more expensive products,
such as Winjammer and Cakewalk, Cubase and perhaps Voyetra's,
would include:
- a notation view or window
- a mixer
- a measure or song view
- piano view
- a piano roll view
- a drum view
- a track view
- an event view
- a controller view
The
notation view
is the notation program, mentioned above, but
likely just not a full-featured as the stand-alone programs.
You can type in notes,
just like you would write them onto staff paper,
but then modify their placement and timing, their
length, and volume (or velocity, in MIDI-speak).
You can show as many staves as can be shrunk to fit in a window.
The mixer
is a picture of a little mixer board,
with sliders for track volume, reverb, chorus, and things
like that.
It's similar to the studio engineer with the big board
in front of him, as he slides the controls and twiddles the
knobs to mix the song to get it to sound just right.
The drum view is the drum program from above, again probably just
not as full featured as the dedicated, stand-alone products.
The measure view, or
song view,
shows the measures of the song
in a matrix or table (there's even a stand-alone program,
a very simple sort of
underpowered sequencer
which does basically just this,
and gives a piano view and track view, as well).
The piano view would be a virtual keyboard.
There may be separate programs that just have this, but they
wouldn't be so useful if that's all they did.
This shows a keyboard on screen, and matches keys from your
computer QWERTY keyboard to keys on the piano;
either that or you have to click on the keys one at a time
with the mouse.
You couldn't play, real time, very much, very well, that way.
Or it might match preselected chords or presets, more in the
way of a synthesizer, to 'hotkeys' on the computer keyboard
to match some on this piano picture.
But the piano roll is something else, and is a note and controller
view that probably goes back to the earliest way in which software
sequencers were designed for the old mid-80s micro-computers.
It shows rectangles at certain positions, and of certain lengths,
corresponding to notes and note length, and whatever other MIDI
elements might be represented.
Even though it matches the MIDI metaphor as piano roll, perfectly,
I personally don't find much use for it, and prefer instead the notation
view for primarily composing, typing in and modifying notes.
The
track view
just displays the overall track info, such
as number of notes and other events, a name for the track,
which instrument/patch is used first, what channel and port
it plays out to start with, and so on.
The example on the previous page
is an example of a track view.
The
event view
is a list of literally every item on a particular
track (or tracks, if it reads data from all tracks you've selected
with the mouse).
It'll show the measure and beat that the note is on, the
velocity (volume) of the note, it's length, and show all the
markers, controller values, SysEx strings, everything.
It's just a long listing.
It's probably the most detailed view you get of the MIDI.
I can be a bit too detailed and confusing, though.
But, it's a good way to make sure you get specific events,
or select a particular run of controllers, and don't modify
or delete something you didn't want to.
The
controller view
can show notes as well, and just presents
a sort of chart or histogram, that moves along as the song
moves along.
The height of the bars gives the value of whatever you're looking
at.
You could be looking at pitch bend, or the velocity of notes,
or whatever.
It allows you to make mass, gang changes very easily and quickly
by just drawing lines or curves on the screen with the mouse to
define some pattern of pitch bend, or change in note volume, or
anything else.
That's then just the overview of the parts of a sequencer.
Here's a little more detail.
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