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A music sequencer (or simply sequencer) is a device or application software that can record, edit, or play back music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically MIDI or CV/Gate, and possibly audio and automation data for plug-ins and DAWs.

Overview[link]

Types of music sequencers[link]

As mentioned above, musical sequencers are often categorized by handling data types, as following:

• MIDI data        on MIDI sequencers
• CV/Gate data  on analog sequencers and others
• Automation data for Plug-ins and DAWs

  software sequencers with DAW feature and software instrument/effect Plug-ins on them

• Audio data      

  on audio sequencers^{[note 1]} including DAWs, loop-based music software, or on phrase samplers including groove machine, etc.

An example of realtime sequencer on synthesizer

Also music sequencer can be categorized by its construction and supporting mode.^{[clarification needed]}

Real-time sequencer (real-time mode)

On the real-time sequencer, musical notes played by human are recorded in real time, as on an audio recorder, and played back with designated pitch, tempo and quantization. For real-time editing, punch in/out features are often supported; however, to edit details, another editing mode may be needed. Built-in sequencers on electronic keyboards often support real-time mode.

An example of analog sequencer

Analog sequencer

An analog sequencer generates sound with analog electronics. It is designed for both composition and live performance. The user may change the notes in a sequence without entering record mode. Steps (the time interval between each note) are independently adjustable.

An example of step sequencer

Step sequencer (step mode)

On the step sequencer, musical notes are divided into steps, and each step is recorded without exact timing. Instead, the timing of each step is designated separately, either by the order in which the steps are programmed (on bass machines), or by the selection of column buttons (on drum machines).^{[clarification needed]} Analog drum machines and bass machines often utilize this mode, along with semi-real-time mode.

Software sequencer

A software sequencer is application software that provides the functionality of a sequencer. A software sequencer may simulate an analog sequencer. The user may control the software sequencer by using either a graphical user interface or a specialized input device, such as a MIDI controller.

Piano roll editor with strip chart

Score editor

Audio and MIDI tracks on DAW

Loop sequencer

Sample editor with beat slicer

Vocal editor for pitch and timing

Modern sequencers[link]

Today's typical software sequencer, supporting multitrack audio (DAW) and plug-ins (Steinberg Cubase 6^[1])

The interface of Steinberg Cubase v6.0, a digital audio workstation with an integrated software sequencer.

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With the advent of MIDI and particularly Atari ST in 1980s, programmers were able to write software that could record and play back the notes played by a musician. Unlike the early sequencers used to play mechanical sounding sequence with exactly equal length, the new ones recorded and played back expressive performances by real musicians. These were typically used to control external synthesizers, especially rackmounted sound modules as it was no longer necessary for each synthesizer to have its own keyboard.

As the technology matured, sequencers gained more features, and integrated the ability to record multitrack audio. Sequencers mainly used for audio are often called digital audio workstations (or DAWs).

Many modern sequencers can also control virtual instruments implemented as software plug-ins, allowing musicians to replace separate synthesizers with software equivalents.

Today the term "sequencer" is often used to describe software. However, hardware sequencers still exist. Workstation keyboards have their own proprietary built-in MIDI sequencers. Drum machines and some older synthesizers have their own step sequencer built in. There are still also standalone hardware MIDI sequencers, although the market demand for those has diminished greatly due to the greater feature set of their software counterparts.

History[link]

Barrel with pins on large stationary barrel-organ (1615)			Music roll on barrel organ
Player piano (1920) controlled by piano rolls	RCA Mark II (1957), controlled via punch tape
Buchla 250e (2004), seems to be influenced from Circle Machine		Drawn sound  films on Oramics (1957) resembles strip chart
	xx	x

Earlier sequencers[link]

The earlier music sequencers had appeared in the form of various automatic musical instruments, including music boxes, mechanical organs, player pianos, etc. For example, authoring of piano roll resemble the definition of music sequencer. Several composers recorded their composition on piano rolls, then specialists edited rolls for the preparation of mass duplication, and finally consumers played back music on their player piano.

The origin of automatic musical instruments seems considerably old. As early as 9th century, Persian inventors Banū Mūsā brothers invented hydropowered organ using exchangeable cylinders with pins,^[2] and also automatic flute player using steam power,^[3][4] as described on their Book of Ingenious Devices. In 14th century, rotating cylinder with pins were used to play carillon in Flanders,^{[citation needed]} and at least in 15th century, barrel organs were seen in the Netherlands.^[5] In 19th century, as the results of the Industrial Revolution, various automatic musical instruments were invented, for examples: music box, barrel organ and barrel piano using barrel / cylinder / metal disc with pins, or mechanical organ, orchestrion and player piano using book music / music rolls (piano rolls) with punched holes, etc. These instruments were widely spread as the popular entertainment devices, before the inventions of phonograph and radio. Amongest of all, especially punched tape media had been long lived until mid-20th century: earliest programmable music synthesizers , RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer in 1957, and Siemens Synthesizer in 1959, were also controlled via punch tapes similar to piano rolls. ^[6][7]

Another inventions were came from sound film technology. The drawn sound technique which appeared in the late 1920s, may be also important as a precursor of today's intuitive graphical user interfaces. On this technique, notes and various sound parameters were controlled by hand-drawn waves on the films, resembling piano rolls or strip charts on the modern sequencers/DAWs. It was often utilized on early experiments of electronic music, including "Variophone" developed by Yevgeny Sholpo in 1930, and Oramics designed by Daphne Oram in 1957, etc.

Raymond Scott, an American composer of electronic music, invented various kind of music sequencers during 1940s–1960s for his electric compositions. The "Wall of Sound", once covered on the wall of his studio in 1940s–1950s, was a electro-mechanical sequencer to produce rhythmic patterns, consisted with stepping relays (used on dial pulse telephone exchange), solenoids, control switches, and tone circuits with 16 individual oscillators. ^[8] Later, Robert Moog explained it “the whole room would go 'clack - clack - clack', and the sounds would come out all over the place”.^[9] The Circle Machine, developed in 1959, had dimmer bulbs arranged in a ring, and a rotating arm with photocell scanning over the ring, to generate arbitrary waveform.^[10] And relatively well known Clavivox, developed since 1952, was a kind of keyboard synthesizer with sequencer.^{[verification needed]} On its prototype, theremin manufactured by young Robert Moog was utilized to enable portamento over 3-octave range, and on later version, instead photographic film and photocell were utilized to control pitch by voltage. ^[9]

One of the earliest commercially available analog sequencer (front) on Buchla 100 (1964/1966)^[11]

Moog sequencer module (left, probably added after 1968) on Moog Modular (1964)

Analog sequencers[link]

This section is empty. You can help by adding to it.

Step sequencers[link]

Eko ComputeRhythm (1972), ^[12][13] one of the earliest programm-
able drum machine

Firstman SQ-01 (1980), ^[14] one of the earliest step bass machine

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The step sequencers played rigid patterns of notes using a grid of (usually) 16 buttons, or steps, each step being 1/16 of a measure. These patterns of notes were then chained together to form longer compositions. Sequencers of this kind are still in use, mostly built into drum machines and grooveboxes. They are monophonic by nature, although some are multi-timbral, meaning that they can control several different sounds but only play one note on each of those sounds.^{[clarification needed]}

Computer music[link]

CSIRAC played earliest computer music in 1951

125px Max Mathews playing a violin connected to the GROOVE system(c.1970)

On the other hand, software sequencers were continuously utilized since 1950s, in the context of computer music, including computer played music (software sequencer), computer composed music (music synthesis), and computer sound generation (sound synthesis). In June 1951, first computer music Colonel Bogey was played on CSIRAC, Australia's first digital computer.^[15][16] In 1956, Lejaren Hiller at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign wrote an earliest program for computer music composition on ILLIAC, and collaborated on the first piece, Illiac Suite for String Quartet, with Leonard Issaction.^[17] In 1957, Max Mathews at Bell Labs wrote MUSIC, a first widely-used program for sound generation, and 17 second composition was performed by the IBM 704 computer. Since then, computer music were mainly researched on the expensive mainframe computers at the computer centers, until minicomputers and later microcomputers went into practice on this field in 1970s.

Digital sequencers[link]

EMS Sequencer 256 (1971), branched product from Synthi 100

Roland MC-4 (1981), a successor of MC-8 (1977)

In 1971, Electronic Music Studios (EMS) released one of the first digital sequencer products as a module of Synthi 100, and separated products Synthi Sequencer series.^[18][19] After then, Oberheim released DS-2 Digital Sequencer in 1974,^[20], and Sequential Circuits released Model 800 in 1977 ^[21]

Also in 1977, Roland Corporation released their first microcomputer-based digital sequencer, MC-8 Microcomposer, also called computer music composer by Roland. ^[22] It equipped keypad to enter note in numeric code, 16KB RAM for maximum 5200 notes (large enough at that time), and polyphony function which allocates multiple pitch CV into single Gate. ^[23] The earliest known user was Yellow Magic Orchestra, an electronic music group in 1978, ^[24] they created new sounds not possible until then.^{[peacock term][25][not in citation given]}

Software sequencers[link]

Synclavier I (1977)

Fairlight CMI (1979)

In 1975, New England Digital (NED) released ABLE computer (microcomputer)^[26] as a dedicated data processing unit for Dartmouth Digital Synthesizer (1973), and based on it, later Synclavier series were developed. Synclavier I, released in September 1977,^[27] was one of the earlier digital music workstation product with multitrack sequencer. Synclavier series evolved throughout late 1970s–mid 1980s, and they integrated digital-audio and music-sequencer, on the Direct-to-Disk option in 1984, and later Tapeless Studio system.

In 1980, renewed Fartlight CMI Series II with its sequencer, “Page R”, combined step sequencing with sample playback. In 1987, this led to the development of similar software sequencers of this kind, called Trackers, which became popular in the 1980s and 1990s as simple sequencers for creating computer game music, and are yet popular in the Demoscene and Chiptunes.

Visual timeline of rhythm sequencers[link]

mechanical (pre 20c)

Rhythmicon (1930)

Drum machine (late 1950s–)

Step drum machine (1972–)

Digital drum machine (1980–)

“Page R” on Fairlight (c.1980)

Groove machine (mid 1980s–)

Tracker[disambiguation needed ] (1987–)

118px Beat slicer (1990s–)

Spectrogram editing (1994)

126px Loop sequencer (1998–)

Note manipulation on audio tracks (2009–)

Hardware sequencers[link]

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Many synthesizers, and by definition all workstations and drum machines, contain their own sequencers.

Following are specifically designed to function primarily as sequencers:

Rotating object with pins[link]

• Barrel or cylinder with pins (since 9th or 14th century) utilized on barrel organs, carillons, music boxes
• Disc with pins — utilized on several barrel organs

Punched paper[link]

• Book music (since 1890) utilized on several mechanical organs
• Music roll utilized on player pianos (using piano rolls), Orchestrions, several mechanical organs, etc.
• Punch tape system for earlier studio synthesizers
  • RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer (1957)

    Room-filling device built in 1957 for half a million dollars. Included a 4-polyphony synth with 12 oscillators, a sequencer fed with wide paper tape, and output were recorded on a shellac record lathe.

  • Siemens Synthesizer (1959)^[7]

Sound-on-film[link]

• Variophone (1930) — on earlier version, hand drawn waves on film or disc were used to synthesize sound, and later versions were promised to experiment on musical intonations and temporal characteristics of live music performance, however not finished. Variophone is often referred as a forerunner of drawn sound system including ANS synthesizer and Oramics.
• Composer-Tron (1953) — rhythmical sequences were controlled via marking cue on film, while timbre of note or envelope shape of sound were defined via shapes hand drawn with a grease pencil on a surface of CRT^{[disambiguation needed ]} input device.^[28]
• ANS synthesizer (1957) — An earliest realtime additive synthesizer using 720 microtonal sine waves (1/6 semitones × 10 octaves) generated by five glas discs. Composers could control time evolution of amplitudes of each microtones via scratches on glass plate user interface covered with black mastic.
• Oramics (1957) — hand drawn contours on a set of ten sprocketed synchronized strips of 35 film were used to control various parameters of monophonic sound generator (frequency, timbre, amplitude and duration).^[29] Polyphonic sounds were obtained using multitrack recording technique.

Electro-mechanical sequencers[link]

• Wall of Sound (mid 1940s–1950s) — earlier electro-mechanical sequencer developed by Raymond Scott to produce rhythmic patterns, consistead with stepping relays, solenoids, and tone generators.^[8]
• Circle Machine (1959) — electro-optical rotary sequencer developed by Raymond Scott to generate arbitrary waveforms, consisted with dimmer bulbs arranged in a ring, and a rotating arm with photocell scanning over the ring.^[10]
• Wurlitzer Sideman (1959) — first commercial drum machine; rhythm patterns were electro-mechanically generated by rotating disk switches, and drum sounds were electronically generated by vacuum-tube circuits.^[30]

Analog sequencers[link]

Analog sequencers with CV/Gate interface

• Sequencers on Buchla 100 (1964/1966–) — One of the earliest analog sequencer in the modular synthesizer era since 1960. Later, Robert Moog admired Buchla's unique works including it.^[11]
• Moog 960 Sequential Controller^[31] / 961 Interface ^[32] / 962 Sequential Switch^[33] (c.1968)^[34]

  modules for the Moog modular synthesizer system, a popular analog sequencer following earlier Buchla sequencer.

Analog-style MIDI step sequencers

Since the analog synthesizer revivals in 1990s, newly designed MIDI sequencers were released. These equip multiple knobs or sliders similar to analog sequencer, CV/Gate and DIN sync interface, and even patch memory for sequence patterns. These analog-digital hybrid machines are often called Analog-style MIDI step sequencer or MIDI analog sequencer, etc.

• Doepfer MAQ 16/3 — MIDI analog sequencer, designed in cooperation with Kraftwerk
• Doepfer Regelwerk — MIDI analog sequencer with MIDI controller
• Frostwave Fat Controller
• Infection Music Phaedra
• Infection Music Zeit
• Latronic Notron
• Manikin Schrittmacher
• Sequentix P3

MIDI pattern sequencers

Several machines have also song mode to play sequence patterns on patch memory in specified order, as on drum machine.

• Doepfer Schaltwerk —MIDI pattern sequencer

Step sequencers (supported on)[link]

Typical step sequencers are integrated on drum machines, bass machines, groove machines, music production machines, and these software versions. And also these often support (semi-)realtime mode.

Several machines have white & black chromatic keypads, to enter musical scale of bass lines, etc.

embedded CV/Gate step sequencers

• Multivox / Firstman SQ-01 (1980) — a forerunner of TB-303
• Roland MC-202 (1983)
• Roland SH-101 (1982) — monophonic keytar synthesizer with sequencer, similar to MC-202
• Roland TB-303 (1981)

embedded MIDI step sequencers

Other groovebox-type machines (including several music production machines) also often support step sequence mode, of course. :

Recently emerging button-grid-style interfaces/instruments are naturally support step sequence. On these machines, one axis on grid means musical scale, and another axis means timing of notes.

• Akai APC40 — interface for Ableton Live
• Arduinome — interface
• Bliptronics 5000 — instrument
• Monome — interface
• Novation Novation Launchpad — interface for Ableton Live
• Yamaha Tenori-on — instrument

In addition, newly designed hardware MIDI sequencers equipping series of knobs/sliders similar to analog sequencers, are sometimes called "MIDI step sequencer", etc. For details, see #Analog-style MIDI step sequencers.

Digital sequencers[link]

CV/Gate

Also often support Gate clock and DIN sync interfaces.

Proprietary digital interface (pre MIDI)

• NED Synclavier series — CV/Gate interface and MIDI retrofit kit were available on Synclavier II. Also MIDI became standard feature on Synclavier PSMT. ^[36][37]
• Fairlight CMI series — CV/Gate interface was optionally available on Series II, and MIDI was supported on Series IIx and later models.
• Oberheim DSX (Oberheim Parallel Bus)
• PPG Wave family (PPG Bus)
• Roland JSQ-60 (Roland Digital Control Bus (DCB))
• Sequential Circuits PolySequencer 1005 (SCI Serial Bus)

Also Yamaha used proprietary digital interface on their earlier digital products. For example, YIS PU-I-20/PU-I-10 ca. 1981, a home automation computer system before MSX, enabled integration of home electronics including player piano, Electone (electronic organ), and remote music keyboard.^[38][39]

MIDI sequencers[link]

Embedded MIDI sequencers

• Philips Micro Composer PMC100
• Yamaha Walkstation series: MU5/MU10/MU15/QY8/QY10/QY20/QY22/QY70/QY100 — (palmtop sequencer with sound module)

  Accompaniment machines

• Yamaha QR10

See also #embedded MIDI step sequencers.

Standalone MIDI sequencers

See also: #Analog-style MIDI step sequencers

MIDI phrase sequencers

• Zyklus MPS

Software sequencers / DAWs with sequencing features[link]

Free/Open Source[link]

Not categorized yet

DAWs/HD recorders

• Ardour - Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD (Note: No sequence feature found)

Others

Commercial[link]

Not categorized yet

Realtime orchestral accompaniments

• Sinfonia , from Realtime Music Solutions (Note: It seems not the sequencer)

Hard Disk recorder solutions for MIDI sequencers

• WinAudio from Zadok Audio & Media Products

Others

See also[link]

• Drum machine
• Groovebox
• Music workstation
• Digital audio workstation
• Tracker (music software)
• Scorewriter
• Electronic music

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Music sequencers

• A list of software DAWs, Sequencers, Hosts, etc.
• Audio Sequencers on Shareware Music Machine
• MIDI Sequencers on Shareware Music Machine
• Early sequencer controllers from the Vintage Synth Explorer
  • The sequencer comparison chart
• Early Roland sequencers (1977–1984)
• 1974 newspaper article about digital sequencer