Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] ncurses-based MIDI step sequencer a la muse (matrix mode)?
From: Dave Phillips (dlphilp_AT_bright.net)
Date: Wed Oct 06 2004 - 18:05:01 EEST
Maarten de Boer wrote:
>>environment? Tired of muse crashing on me, and
>>Rosegarden is a lot to load into my limited 128MB
>>RAM... ;-)
>>
>>
>
>To think that my Atari ST had 1MB of RAM and a 4 Mhz CPU, and that I
>have never again seen MIDI sequencing as straightforward, reliable and
>accurate (on any OS or platform) is rather sad.
>
>
>
Interesting, I feel the same about my use of Sequencer Plus. I also
owned an Atari 1040ST for a while, but frankly I was put off by the
whole sequencer & GUI thing. That was the main reason I was so
disappointed by the sequencers that first appeared for Windows: they
presumed a working style completely at odds with what I had become
accustomed to working with an MS-DOS based sequencer. I'm not a
keyboardist, I have almost no skill at playing a piano or any other
keyboard instrument, and every GUI-based sequencer flatly assumed that
the user would be working with a MIDI keyboard (or other controller). My
personal working method was based entirely on Sequencer Plus's superb
use of the qwerty keyboard, and my experience with the program gave me a
very fast method for composing and editing MIDI music. The fact that the
sequencer was DOS-based was also a benefit, since the entire machine
was dedicated to running the sequencer, i.e., no multitasking found
there, thus with better timing and performance.
When Windows first arrived I had been using Sequencer Plus for close to
eight years. I couldn't believe that the amenities I was so fond of in
the DOS world had become instantly dismissable by the MIDI software
houses, and I was very unhappy with Voyetra's decision to abandon the
keyboard-centric design of Sequencer Plus. Happily, not much later I
discovered Linux, then DOSemu, then the fact that Sequencer Plus would
run under the emulator. To this day I still prefer to use Sequencer
Plus, but that's also because my working method is itself so
keyboard-centric. I don't disdain MusE or Rosegarden or seq24, I think
they are all wonderful programs, but my methods don't work so well with
them.
Btw, if you really have a desire to use your Atari MIDI software again,
check out the STEEM project. Xsteem runs many MIDI applications very nicely.
Best regards,
dp
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