[linux-audio-dev] Developing a music editor/sequencer

[Paul Davis]

>That said, I completely agree with Frank: the track concept is *very*
>restricting when doing composition - you want to be able to define
>relationships between objects not only by defining time links but
>perhaps logical, statistical, etc... (that's why I use non-visual
>software à la Csound, SC3), hence the notion of 'time' becomes much less
>important.

actually, Frank didn't quite say that :)

but anyway, i just wanted to note that tracks don't have to be
considered as this kind of burden at all. when you get down to the
core of it, tracks are a grouping mechanism, that's all. and they
don't group by using time relationships, but signal processing
relationships. entities in the same track see their data passed
through the same pathway and sent to the same destination.

you *could* define these in a freeform way ("click on the object, and
from the "output" menu select ..."), but the track presentation model
just makes it faster and acts as a visual mnemonic for the current
state of things. unless you are composing music where shared signal
processing pathways and common outputs play no role, i suspect that
tracks are your friend.

i suspect that simply removing the horizontal lines that separate
tracks in most sequencers, so that you have simply lines of objects
arranged along a timeline, would be quite inspirational. rather than
seeing these lines as "restrictive", i suspect you'd find them to be a
handy notational aid during composition.

--p