Zynseq - A native step sequencer

I considered a horizontal keyboard and vertical time (like the old automatic pianos in western movies :smile:) but decided it was a less familiar layout. We can add it to the feature request list. I think it may be time to add a github issue for this or maybe use my earlier post (updating the features list) to track requests and status.

GUYS

:face_with_monocle:

That Radiohead tune in the TV series “Westworld”!

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We just finished watching series 1 and started on series 2 last night so yes, just like that old piano. Do I need to implement a LED skin for you and a punch-paper pianoroll skin for @wyleu?

I’ll settle for a web api :slight_smile:

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Funnily enough I was speaking to a piano teacher about just such a feature to use with pupils. If we can get a decent MIDI latency between zynths then this would be an interesting way of locking a pupil and teacher together for a lesson, if they each had zynths . . .

Obviously they couldn’t play together, but it would help. It’s also a characteristic that I’ve played with on my machine zynthian-touch which I do on occasion run in landscape . . .

Interesting to see it on a big screen. It works well with a mouse.

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I have added a git feature request to track progress of this including managing requirements.

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Amazing :+1: :+1:

You can tell it was designed by a right hander !! :smiley:

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I was waiting until it was a bit more stable but some changes I made just now make it playable so with apologies for sound quality…

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I feel bad that “ESP32 with LED matrix display” didn’t even make it into the " Describe alternatives you’ve considered " section of this, git.

I’ll get you next time, dangermouse.

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Wow!

Nice, I love it.

There’s an awful lot of them :grimacing:

Have you thought of a .mid file import?
A chain from midi recorder to the step sequencer?
Maybe using lilypond as intermediate format?
There is a midi to lilypond tool which lets you quantise the midi stream.

Interesting… I have added as spec. S18.

Hi Riban,
first of all a huge hurrah for the amazing step sequencer. I think most of us have dreamed of that feature, and now, it becomes reality :+1:

I’ve updated the software this morning and the problem with back buton went away (see on github), but now:

  • I can’t start the sequence anymore (it was with “select” switch I guess ?)
  • I can’t access to pattern, midi channel, … (“snapshot” switch)

I will try to follow your progress, it will be a “good tutorial” for me to learn python programming and zynthian internals.

I changed the controls after some feedback. I have updated the brief guide above so you can read that for instructions on use. I was going to add something to the wiki but stopped when I realised I really needed to gather requirements (now in github) and detail what is implemented. I also wanted to avoid adding to wiki before it was merged into master. The changes to input are driven by workflow and what I feel is intuitive. There are some people who may think this cack-handed - we may all have our opinions :wink:.

Regarding following my coding - I do tend to stretch the boundaries of zynthian coding and am sometimes reined back in by the all-powerful @jofemodo.

Everyone: Update regularly to see rapid development on this. It now plays without missing beats but still triggers x-runs. The list of features is being ticked off steadily but also growing as you all have such great ideas. Keep them coming. I don’t promise to implement them all but will consider anything.

Or maybe turn this around a little bit, and use .mid as the native format to store patterns? That way there’s always just one format (and standard at that) to deal with, import is no different from load, and the creations can be copied to other systems without separate export functionality.

I can imagine that the .mid file might be too complicated to use. It has to be normalized and quantised before it can be used. And if we want to add customezynthian stuff into it we need our own format anyways.