Hello all,  With all the Linux audio tools around, is there a way to have the type of sequences/arpeggios like Tangerine Dream was using ?  A simple example would be ZynAddSubFx's 'Sequence 2' patch.  I wonder how Tangerine Dream were doing these sequences and arpeggios.  Like for instance the beautiful sequenced synth right after the piano intro on 'Ricochet'.  In those times they surely did not have powerful sequencers to store all of these for live concerts.  They must have relied on some programmable arpeggio type of function.  Is there a way to have such a flexibility to create similar things in Linux and if so, which tools ?

Le Mercredi, 20 Janvier 2010 22:57:10 -0300, robert lazarski <robertlazarski(a)gmail.com> a écrit : That's not it I think. Using a sequencer for that is like painting the Mona Lisa by number. Tangerine Dream surely have used some sequencers but a large part of their work resided in the capability to modify in real time what sound like 'sequences' by turning knobs and plugging wires as sounds were made. As such, it was really a performance, more than we could think in general. So I think rather they were using complex arpeggiators. Today we can listen to that and write it down in a MIDI file, but that's not what I'm looking for. Recently I got the latest by Ozric Tentacles (Yum-yum Tree) and they also are using some of those real-time modifiable pseudo-'sequences' so I guess some synths are sold with that capability. I had the suggestion that qmidiarp could do something similar, so I'll check it out soon. Using too much of that could be unnerving (a critiscm I make towards the Ozrics sometimes) but by itself it sure sounds fun to groove to. I like the 'Sequence 2' in zynaddsubfx for starters. Cheers.

As far as I recall, Tangerine Dream's best known work was characterised by heavy use of analogue sequencers. Maybe something like SoftWerk would fit the bill?

current version is http://ardour.org/files/softwerk-3.0.tar.bz2

!  Isee some have a lot of settings that can be modified.  I wonder what woudl be the interface.  Mouse clicks wouldn't do it.  A computer keyboard would be better.  Controls knobs, buttons, pads and sliders commonly found on MIDI keyboards would be quite good.  In any case, it could be extra nice to be able to record (Seq24, upcoming MIDI Ardour perhaps) the changes made using controllers to the arpeggiators, to be able to reply a live performance to add tracks to it (in Ardour).

The modern equivalent to what you describe could be live coding in Pd, SuperCollider etc., e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zKzxqN5mUI or http://vimeo.com/5272693

with higher values of resolution and length, when hand-drawing an LFO waveform, the mouse needs to move very very slow to avoid skipping points.