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A music sequencer (or audio 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 CV/Gate, MIDI, or Open Sound Control, and possibly audio and automation data for digital audio workstations (DAWs) and plug-ins.[note 1][1]

The advent of Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) and the Atari ST home computer in the 1980s gave programmers the opportunity to design software that could more easily record and play back sequences of notes played or programmed by a musician. This software also improved on the quality of the earlier sequencers which tended to be mechanical sounding and were only able to play back notes of exactly equal duration. Software-based sequencers allowed musicians to program performances that were more expressive and more human. These new sequencers could also be used to control external synthesizers, especially rackmounted sound modules, and it was no longer necessary for each synthesizer to have its own devoted keyboard.

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Many modern sequencers can be used to control virtual instruments implemented as software plug-ins. This allows musicians to replace expensive and cumbersome standalone synthesizers with their 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.

Analog sequencers are typically implemented with analog electronics, and play the musical notes designated by a series of knobs or sliders corresponding to each musical note (step). It is designed for both composition and live performance; users can change the musical notes at any time without regarding recording mode. And also possibly, the time interval between each musical note (length of each step) can be independently adjustable. Typically, analog sequencers are used to generate the repeated minimalistic phrases which may be reminiscent of Tangerine Dream, Giorgio Moroder or trance music.

On step sequencers, musical notes are rounded into steps of equal time intervals, and users can enter each musical note without exact timing; instead, the timing and duration of each step can be designated in several different ways:

Realtime sequencers record the musical notes in real-time as on audio recorders, and play back musical notes with designated tempo, quantizations, and pitch. For editing, usually "punch in/punch out" features originated in the tape recording are provided, although it requires sufficient skills to obtain the desired result. For detailed editing, possibly another visual editing mode under graphical user interface may be more suitable. Anyway, this mode provides usability similar to audio recorders already familiar to musicians, and it is widely supported on software sequencers, DAWs, and built-in hardware sequencers.

Software sequencer is a class of application software providing a functionality of music sequencer, and often provided as one feature of the DAW or the integrated music authoring environments. The features provided as sequencers vary widely depending on the software; even an analog sequencer can be simulated. The user may control the software sequencer either by using the graphical user interfaces or a specialized input devices, such as a MIDI controller.

In today, "DAW integrated with MIDI sequencer" is often simply abbreviated as "DAW", or sometimes referred as "Audio and MIDI sequencer",[7] etc. On the later usage, the term "audio sequencer" is just a synonym for the "DAW".

The early music sequencers were sound-producing devices such as automatic musical instruments, music boxes, mechanical organs, player pianos, and Orchestrions. Player pianos, for example, had much in common with contemporary sequencers. Composers or arrangers transmitted music to piano rolls which were subsequently edited by technicians who prepared the rolls for mass duplication. Eventually consumers were able to purchase these rolls and play them back on their own player pianos.

The origin of automatic musical instruments seems remarkably old. As early as the 9th century, the Persian (Iranian) Ban Ms brothers invented a hydropowered organ using exchangeable cylinders with pins,[8] and also an automatic flute playing machine using steam power,[9][10] as described in their Book of Ingenious Devices. The Banu Musa brothers' automatic flute player was the first programmable music sequencer device,[11] and the first example of repetitive music technology, powered by hydraulics.[12]

Additional inventions grew out of sound film audio technology. The drawn sound technique which appeared in the late 1920s, is notable as a precursor of today's intuitive graphical user interfaces. In this technique, notes and various sound parameters are triggered by hand-drawn black ink waveforms directly upon the film substrate, hence they resemble piano rolls (or the 'strip charts' of the modern sequencers/DAWs). Drawn soundtrack was often used in early experimental electronic music, including the Variophone developed by Yevgeny Sholpo in 1930, and the Oramics designed by Daphne Oram in 1957, and so forth.

Clavivox, developed since 1952, was a kind of keyboard synthesizer with sequencer.[verification needed] On its prototype, a theremin manufactured by young Robert Moog was utilized to enable portamento over 3-octave range, and on later version, it was replaced by a pair of photographic film and photocell for controlling the pitch by voltage.[22]

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]

In 1965,[33] Mathews and L. Rosler developed Graphic 1, an interactive graphical sound system (that implies sequencer) on which one could draw figures using a light-pen that would be converted into sound, simplifying the process of composing computer-generated music.[34][35] It used PDP-5 minicomputer for data input, and IBM 7094 mainframe computer for rendering sound.

In 1971, Electronic Music Studios (EMS) released one of the first digital sequencer products as a module of Synthi 100, and its derivation, Synthi Sequencer series.[39][40]After then, Oberheim released the DS-2 Digital Sequencer in 1974,[41] and Sequential Circuits released Model 800 in 1977 [42]

In 1977, Roland Corporation released the MC-8 Microcomposer, also called computer music composer by Roland. It was an early stand-alone, microprocessor-based, digital CV/gate sequencer,[43][44] and an early polyphonic sequencer.[45][46] It equipped a keypad to enter notes as numeric codes, 16 KB of RAM for a maximum of 5200 notes (large for the time), and a polyphony function which allocated multiple pitch CVs to a single Gate.[47] It was capable of eight-channel polyphony, allowing the creation of polyrhythmic sequences.[48][43][44] The MC-8 had a significant impact on popular electronic music, with the MC-8 and its descendants (such as the Roland MC-4 Microcomposer) impacting popular electronic music production in the 1970s and 1980s more than any other family of sequencers.[48] The MC-8's earliest known users were Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978.[49]

The Synclavier I, released in September 1977,[51] was one of the earliest digital music workstation product with multitrack sequencer. Synclavier series evolved throughout the late-1970s to the mid-1980s, and they also established integration of digital-audio and music-sequencer, on their Direct-to-Disk option in 1984, and later Tapeless Studio system.

Yamaha's GS-1, their first FM digital synthesizer, was released in 1980.[53] To program the synthesizer, Yamaha built a custom computer workstation designed to be used as a sequencer for the GS-1[citation needed][failed verification]. It was only available at Yamaha's headquarters in Japan (Hamamatsu) and the United States (Buena Park, California).[citation needed]

While there were earlier microprocessor-based sequencers for digital polyphonic synthesizers,[note 4] their early products tended to prefer the newer internal digital buses than the old-style analogue CV/gate interface once used on their prototype system. Then in the early-1980s, they also re-recognized the needs of CV/gate interface, and supported it along with MIDI as options.

In June 1981, Roland Corporation founder Ikutaro Kakehashi proposed the concept of standardization between different manufacturers' instruments as well as computers, to Oberheim Electronics founder Tom Oberheim and Sequential Circuits president Dave Smith. In October 1981, Kakehashi, Oberheim and Smith discussed the concept with representatives from Yamaha, Korg and Kawai.[54] In 1983, the MIDI standard was unveiled by Kakehashi and Smith.[55][56] The first MIDI sequencer was the Roland MSQ-700, released in 1983.[57]

It was not until the advent of MIDI that general-purpose computers started to play a role as sequencers. Following the widespread adoption of MIDI, computer-based MIDI sequencers were developed. MIDI-to-CV/gate converters were then used to enable analogue synthesizers to be controlled by a MIDI sequencer.[44] Since its introduction, MIDI has remained the musical instrument industry standard interface through to the present day.[58] ff782bc1db