Dino sequencer 0.2.2 review
DownloadDino is a MIDI sequencer for GNU/Linux
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Dino is a MIDI sequencer for GNU/Linux. Dino is a pattern-based sequencer, which means that you write small patterns of MIDI events that you can repeat and arrange to create a whole song.
Each track has its own patterns, so you can for example play the same drum pattern over and over again while you play different lead synth patterns and basslines.
The arrangement editor
The GUI is divided into three tabs. The first tab, "Arrangement" is where you
add new tracks, arrange patterns, and edit the tempo map. When you first
start Dino there will be no tracks and all you will see is the "BPM" track.
Here you can add new tempo changes with the left button, remove them with
the right button (except the first one - if you removed it the BPM for the
whole song would be undefined, so Dino will not let you remove it) and change
their BPM by middle-clicking and dragging up and down. This mousing pattern
is used in most places in Dino - left adds, middle modifies, right removes.
If you click the '+' button in the arrangement tab you will add a track. When
you add a track you can choose a name for it, which MIDI port it should connect
to, and the MIDI channel it should send events to. You can edit all these
properties later too by clicking the 'Properties' button (the one with the
tool). The selected track (the one that has a dark blue background for its
name) can be removed by clicking the trashcan button.
Each track is shown as a strip of blocks, where each block represents a beat.
When you have created patterns for your track (see the text about the "Patterns"
tab below) you can use the left mouse button to click on a track and bring up
a popup menu listing all patterns for that track. The one you select will be
added to the track at the beat you clicked. You can modify its length with
the middle mouse button and delete it with the right (this does not affect
the actual pattern at all, just how this instance of it is played).
The pattern editor
In the pattern editor you can add, edit, and remove patterns for the different
tracks. Look at the tooltips for the buttons in the upper row and it should
be fairly obvious how to add and delete patterns. When you have added a pattern
you can also add and delete controllers in it. Controllers are e.g. pitchbend
and MIDI CC controllers. The active controller can be edited in the box at the
bottom of this tab.
The main box here is the note editor, where you edit the notes in the active
pattern. You add new notes with Ctrl-left button, change their length with the
middle button, change their velocity with Ctrl-middle button and delete them
with Ctrl-right button. You can also use the left mouse button to select,
unselect, and drag notes around - clicking a note will select it, shift-clicking
will unselect or select it depending on whether it was selected or not, clicking
and dragging notes will move the selected notes around on the grid.
There are also basic clipboard commands, you can cut, copy, paste and delete
the current selection. When you paste you will have to click where you want
the clipboard content to appear. You can also middle-click outside all notes to
insert a copy of the current selection there without affecting the clipboard
content.
The info editor
The third tab simply has entry fields for the songs title, author, and info. It should be obvious how to use them.
Requirements:
libjack
libglademm
What's New in This Release:
This release adds the namespace prefix Pango:: in a couple of places to avoid ambiguity (Pango::Layout vs Gtk::Layout) that stopped compilation.
Dino sequencer 0.2.2 keywords