[linux-audio-user] ncurses-based MIDI step sequencer a la muse (matrix mode)?

[Dave Phillips]

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