seq66 VS Rack

Back in the day there was a very nice and simple little MIDI sequencer for X-Windows called something like Seq24 that I used a bit on and off. Of course there are much more complex music software that also happens to have MIDI-support (LMMS, Renoise, ...) but I liked Seq24 because it only did short MIDI patterns and had quite good GUI (holding down various modifiers and using the different mouse-buttons to do most edits).

Searching I get a link to a URL that looks like it could have been the Seq24 home page, but Firefox throws up a security warning for that domain. There is also a hit for this project that claims to be based on Seq24 and that has commits as recently as a few days ago, so maybe this is worth looking at:

https://github.com/ahlstromcj/seq66

Maybe https://github.com/ahlstromcj/seq66? Spiritual successor of seq24.

I use Seq66 and Luppp. Seq66 + Carla for midi looping and Luppp for audio looping.

~ Sequencing: seq66 / seq24

I don't use Ardour's MIDI performance features very much, as I prefer Musecore and https://github.com/ahlstromcj/seq66 as more featureful players/sequencers. Otherwise my MIDI workflow is DAWless.

VCV Rack - Modular Synth

> It’s haven’t bought any Modular’s yet but I’m really looking forward to getting into other on the new year.

http://cardinal.kx.studio

https://vcvrack.com/

The former is libre and gratis, runs as a standalone or plugin and in the browser!! and is based on the latter.

Ther former has a libre and gratis standalone version, the plugin version is non-gratis.

A music synthesizer. It's a pathway to learning electronics, music, and the nature of sound. There are cheap kits, cheap synths, lots of kinds of synths, and there are much more complicated and expensive systems you can grow into. You can get software synths also, VCV Rack is a free though complex one:

https://vcvrack.com/

However I'd recommend an inexpensive hardware one with real knobs you can turn, like one of the Korg Volca series:

https://www.korg-volca.com/en/

Recording the sounds can lead into exploring all the concepts and gear involved in recording and mixing music. It's not mutually exclusive with doing other things also, you can play with both synths and computers and being involved with something artistic can add dimensions to and an escape from the nature of classwork/work.

Some other suggestions: gardening, high voltage electronics (with lots of supervision), electronics, photography, movie making, ham radio (gnu radio), show lighting systems (there's more than disco lights, robotics is involved), robotics, acoustic instruments (guitar, piano, flute, drums), sensors (you don't necessarily have to know electronics, get a data logger with built in sensors), weather monitoring/forecasting, hydraulic systems (with supervision), wood working, metal working, 3D printing, bird watching, painting, minibikes/small engines.

What really opened my eyes was the Nord Micromodular; it taught me what I just described. It showed me how limited other synths were - but that limitation was a trade-off because it's much faster to make something on a fixed-structure synth than on a modular, in most cases. Nowadays, you can use https://vcvrack.com/ instead of a small limited box that needs Windows 98 to run the editor on.

Also I would suggest the paid version of VCV rack which works as a VST too ( the free version is just stand alone ) Expecially when experimenting with modular ( believe me, it can save you a fortune whilst you learn what different modules do ) I would also recommend Omri Cohens Youtube channel for learning this too.