[LAU] ANN: Jacker 2010.5.4

[Leonard Ritter]

On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 4:08 PM, James Stone <jamesmstone at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry I haven't added a ticket for the build problem I reported. Will
> try to do that this evening.

Don't forget to give your OS/Machine specs!

> Out of interest, how do you see Jacker fitting with Tutka (another
> midi tracker)? Does it have improvements over the older program, or is
> it "just different"?

Oh, never heard about that one. I just had a look at it and from the
quick glimpse I can point out following differences in Jacker:

* has a Cubase-style sequencer, with tracks assignable to individual
ports and MIDI channels, patterns concurrently playable, and full
keyboard/mouse support (see cheatsheet.txt).
* patterns have dedicated columns for note volume and commands. Allows
to do a bit more than just send MIDI.
* each pattern can have a different count of channels.
* supports different signatures than just 4/4, so measures like 6/8,
5/4, 3/4 are all possible.
* has Jack MIDI support only, but supports 16 JACK ports, and 16 MIDI
channels per port = 256 MIDI channels in total.
* loads/saves files in JSON, not XML, which makes generating and
parsing documents in Python ridiculously easy.
* has a compact UI.
* has been released as Beta right now, where the last Tutka release is
from 2006.