Which sequencer for drumpatterns ?

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nebelfuerst
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Which sequencer for drumpatterns ?

Post by nebelfuerst »

I'm addicted to edit drumpatterns in the "trackerstyle", like the early sequencers like octamed offered.
Here I can edit similar to text editors what each drum should do.
In modern DAW I feel a little lost, as they seem to expect me to record my drums in realtime with the keyboard.

Is there a software for a "tracker"-addict like me ?
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dante
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Re: Which sequencer for drumpatterns ?

Post by dante »

What DAW are you running?
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valis
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Re: Which sequencer for drumpatterns ?

Post by valis »

There's two options that come to mind, the first would be to simply use this: https://www.renoise.com/

That is a tracker with excellent modern plugin support and ridiculously tight timing. I know people who use it to write bass music & dnb and get results that are excellent.

The second thing that comes to mind is this: http://revisit.info/

reViSiT will integrate with most DAWs just fine and give you a tracker style workflow right in your familiar environment.
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Marco
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Re: Which sequencer for drumpatterns ?

Post by Marco »

Atari St 1024 with cubase 3.0 or newer on PC
:wink: out and about for music production. Are you still configguring your Studio :lol: music first!
nebelfuerst
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Re: Which sequencer for drumpatterns ?

Post by nebelfuerst »

For a long time I used medsoundstudio as midi-sequencer with cubase VST5 for controler automation and asio tracks.
(At the beginning, I used octamed on Amiga4000, which was the most precise sequencer, I ever had.)
Although medsoundstudio looked like a toy, it enabled me to easily create sysex-messages which can be sent during the start of a song, setting up all my synths to the required modes.
As medsoundstudio has been abandonned, I tried reaper , bought samplitude X3, Cubase LE and tried some linux-stuff.
None of them gives me that "midi song programming features", I'm looking for. Most of them can record/playback sysex, but midi seems to be a neglected feature.

I'll try revisit, as I didn't have it on my radar yet.
Renoise didn't feature any sysex when I tried it a year ago.
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valis
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Re: Which sequencer for drumpatterns ?

Post by valis »

With Renoise, Sysex is catered to by Guru & Sysex Librarian which are 3rd party "Tool Files' that have to be installed to Renoise via drag & drop. Sysex Librarian seems more suited to sending sysex files to load parameters at the start of the song, versus sending control data to modify a filter or other parameter during the song itself. No clue on Guru...but it seems to have limited support.

All of the DAWs you've mentioned have capable midi support, but you don't want to live in the piano rolls alone if you're looking for tracker style data editing.

In Cubase for instance you want the List Editor and Event List respectively. This shows midi data in the same format as a tracker, though in use it's still slightly different. I'm not 100% sure how this is presented in the LE version, but it would surprise me if it's not present.

In Reaper, you have the Event List mode alongside the piano roll, but it seems to be a separately floating window. I see this documented in the manual online.

In Samplitude, the Midi Event List Editor is shown alongside the piano roll to the left: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl19yC_7OeM

I use the Midi event list in Logic Pro X as well, and find it perfectly capable of viewing data in the same way as a tracker. The usage is different, as it will be with all 3 above, but in Cubase, samp & Logic you can transform & quantize the data to achieve most of the things you'd do in a tracker. I only own Cubase & Logic from these DAWs listed (as well as Studio 1 & Ableton Live).

I also own ReViSiT and find that it works just fine, but setting it up in a given DAW may take a bit of work. This is not a standalone tool, just so you know.
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