Yes! Do it!
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Hi there,
THANKS A LOT, you made this Zynthian thing my favourite jamming boxā¦ the sequencer is the perfect addition !
I used to plug a beatstep pro and use the Zynthian as an expander but I had some isues with stuck or skipped MIDI notesā¦ Itās been a month or so since Iāve discovered the new function and it rocks !
Iām dreaming of some probability or swing parameters or MIDI CC sequencing, Ableton Link option to stop worrying about getting out of sync when it plays aside other gear / mobile apps.
My new game is trying to see how far i can push it before it crashes, it runs on a Raspberry Pi 3B+, encoders on GPIO, using RPi onboard audio and it seems like I canā go further :
-6 sequences of 16 beats
-LinuxSampler (TR808) for drums
-5 layers of NoizeMak3r (303, Ohm Duck, Pop Pluck, Hard 80ās and Ambient Valley, using the 2LFOs and some reverb on each, Delay on 4 of them, some bits of chorus)
I found out adding more FX on a layer could kind of ābreakā the layer on reboot (sequence running, controls responding but no sound being output for this layer when rebooting), adding another layer doesnāt affect the Zynthian OS but adding another 16 beats makes it crash instantly.
I guess my next step is working on those MIDI controls to simplify the access to the sequencer and the layer controlsā¦
Iām really amazed by the speed you guys work and bring up things like this ! Thumbs up and keep up this awesomeness !
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Swing is captured as feature request 326.
CC sequencing was on the original list of planned features but I canāt find it in the feature request list. You may add it.
Ableton Link has been requested by you as feature request 448.
I am taking a little break from sequencer to let it settle and see where the most benefit would be in next steps (pun intended). There are some other areas I am looking at, e.g. I am eager (as are others for me) to revisit audio mixer and I am working on some of the deb packaging.
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Hi, itās since long time i donāt follow updates, but i had finally time to play with sequencer. actually i had to take time to get familiar with commands, and most of all i found more usable on an original zynthian setup (complete with knobs etcā¦). Itā s really powerful, itās a good companion, but maybe because my zynthian is a v1 with a 2.8 inches display, my opinion is now a zynthian workstation should miss the highly portable form factor and have a large capacitive touch display instead 
or some aggressive integration with serious midi controllers such as Maschine MK3ā¦
You are absolutely right that the UI is designed for slightly larger screens. The sequencer works well on larger screens but was validated to work acceptably on the standard 3.5" screen. Smaller is likely to prove challenging. It can be used via VNC which may help. Certainly the use of a stylus is essential on resistive screens which are prone to errors unless fine points are used. A stylus goes a long way to improving experience on smaller screens. Larger capacative screens work quite well but accuracy can be undermined by the finger blocking view. The click and drag features implemented in some of the grid views prove useful for both scenarios. You can always use the knobs or a computer USB keyboard for input - all are fully supported and tested. (Most development and testing was done using a QWERTY keyboard.)
It is a boon for Zynthian to be small and portable. You can throw some in a bag and go. Where larger format is preferable, remote access or external peripherals may be used, e.g. you can plug in a large monitor and configure to use HDMI. It is great how flexible the standard device is and how configurable the design is for custom builds.
Iām glad people are finding the sequencer useful. It took a lot of effort and hopefully may be revisited when sufficient feedback is received and enthusiasm rekindled!
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oh right! forgot to mention, even had a better experience with a lenovo yoga with 11" touchscreen and VNC !
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At ZynthClub a cool effects software called Glitch 2 was mentioned with a question of whether something similar could be implemented in Zynthian and how it might interact with the step sequencer. I resisted the obvious suggestion that I should drop everything and implement someoneās whim immediately 
but maybe it could be a side effect of an already planned enhancement:
Currently the sequencer only controls MIDI note-on/off events. If and when we add sequencing of continuous controllers it may be possible to map controllers to audio effects, e.g. enabling / disabling effects, adjusting depth, other control which may provide something similar in that a looped sequence could modulate audio effects and hence periodically dynamically affect the sound.
Anything is possibleā¦ Nothing is easy!
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Its really good how it feels integrated into Zynthian and the experience is great also with a touch-screen . The only disadvantage I find , its the rests system and the inability to record and playback midi with duration included .
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I quite like the idea of combining the SMF recorder (which allows recording and playback of MIDI tracks) with the sequencer (which although pattern based does have the concept of lineal tracks). This was discussed at a recent Zynth Club where the idea was challenged on the basis of workflows and simplicity. If those concerns could be resolved, such a merge might bring benefits such as better live recording. I completely agree that live loop recording in the sequencer is sub-optimal which I do plan to resolve (as I would like to use it more) but first want to consider the idea I mention here.
Note that you can record into the MIDI (SMF) recorder and import those recordings into the sequencer but that isnāt necessarily what you want.
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Its funny that it was my first thought when I tried the record midi function !
It is currently not safe unless using an usb drive ( if I understood the docs correctly , because of data corruption )
As I mentioned, Im very new to the code base so Im just chatting here . But it is currently really hard to find such a simple functionality.
Try non-sequencer , giada , seq64,ā¦(ā¦) All of them appealing and nice approaches , but all lacking what Zynthian really has as a shining option : The simple GUI, ease of use and light fast easy audio integration. Tbh , I downloaded the Zynthian image ājustā beacause of Zynseq ! , thinking it would have this mentioned function. Normally I run patchboxOS lately and have a vnc to setup things , but it cant compare with Zynthian in the ease of use side of things with the UI.
For sure its messy to code polyphony handling , the long presses that exist betwen takes of the same loop , etc. But assuming the record to midi code does actually kind of half of that , would be just a matter of avoiding writing data and use some buffer magic .
Hi riban !
Would the Zynseq interface be usable (in terms of latency) when used remotely ā my usecase, due to huge eyestrain issues, would be to control it from my e-ink Android tablet. My former experience with VNC was that it really not meant for realtime applications 
But it was 15-20 years back !
Cheers I hope I donāt pollute / hijack the thread by asking that 
I run a zynth (zynthian-steel.local in the wyleu world) entirely via VNC GUI and I have to say itās generally pretty transparent. I use cabled Ethernet, which it probably a good base line. WiFi seems a little bit more risky, but this could just be a personal prejudice.
I havenāt tried the zynseq this way, contenting myself to overdub with Guitar and Microphone using the Audio Recorder.
Iāve love an accurate marker to lay down against a nacent track.
Could you describe your workflow here? Are you starting with a sequence and recording audio against it as a rendered audio track + overdub?
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Triggering sequences from the pads via VNC should be fine. They all start at the next sync point (start of bar) so you donāt need to be precise with timing. As @wyleu says, a wired network connection will be pretty fast but it sounds like you want to use WiFi which will have larger and more variable latency. You may struggle with time critical activities but I donāt think there are any driven by UI within the sequencer.
It is very simple to get VNC running now so just give it a go. Note that VNC does add an overhead so we recommend disabling when not needed but if it is part of your workflow then you may need to consider which / how many engines you use simultaneously, i.e. how much load is placed on the Zynthian.
There are alternative ways to drive the pads, e.g. you could use RTP-MIDI or similar but that is a slightly different subject.
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Hi,
I am fond of all electronic-midi-synth-boxes like this.
What I realy miss is a play mode to start all pattern in the same moment like a song mode.
To improve the usability I tried to update the sequencer using the repository āfeature/stepsqā.
But I canĀ“t find.
Is there some plan to offer another?
I use the version āstaging-2109ā.
Best Regards!
Andreas
Hi @aw-bs!
Welcome to Zynthland. The natives are mostly friendly 
.
Staging-2109 has the most up to date version of the sequencer. There is currently not a feature to start all tracks simultaneously although it is something that has been requested and makes sense in the Arranger view and may be suitable in the grid view, similar to Novationās scene launcher. The current work around is to add a pattern to the start of one track that is long enough to allow priming (starting) all other tracks, i.e. start one track playing an intro / count-in / silence and then quickly click all the other tracks to start them playing from the next bar.
Of course, as I write this I see it is pants! I will consider how to add a launch mode but it wonāt be in the next stable release which is due for release within the next few days (or hours @jofemodo ?). There are a few scenarios where a similar but slightly different workflow would be required so I will have a think about it.
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Thank you @riban ,
that sounds really good. Looking forward to have a songmode known from daw.
Indeed! That was certainly there in the original development but things changed. What we have now is a fairly novel implementation that provides various familiar or useful functionality but in a way that may appear unfamiliar - the reason being that it gives some advantages / flexibility / workflows that other devices donāt.
I am due to get a Novation Launckey Mini soon and will be considering how best to integrate it with the Zynthian sequencer. Some integration is already there but I have relied on others to test it. I am looking forward to playing with this myself.
I have added Ability to start multiple sequences simultaneously Ā· Issue #514 Ā· zynthian/zynthian-issue-tracking (github.com) to the issue tracker.
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@aw-bs I remembered that there is already the equivillent to a song mode in Zynthianās sequencer as described in its user guide in the section Exmaple Workflows - Linear Song. You can create a single sequence with several tracks. The sequence can be configured as one-shot so play from start to end and it will play all of its tracks simultaneously.
I have played with Ableton Live for a very short time and am sceptical of the benefit of their Scene launcher within the context of Zynseq. We have a lot of flexibility in the duration and mode of each sequence allowing different loop or one-shot modes. Maybe it can be useful to fire off a whole row of sequences but I am not sure how this differs from firing off a single sequence with many tracks in it. (There are differences, like individual tracks are not controllable from the grid view.) AL user manual describes moving through a song by firing off the scenes. I guess this gives some flexibility on how long you might sit on a section of the song before progressing to the next although similar behaviour can be done using multiple tracks within a song. I am now reminded of why I didnāt implement the row launcher - I am not convinced it adds significant benefit when similar workflows can be achieved - but i remail willing to be convinced.
Hi @riban
I will try to use this proposal and do the work around.
Thank you for your support!