Talk:Music sequencer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of the Professional sound production WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the technology, equipment, companies and professions related to professional sound production. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the assessment scale.

I think this article would be improved by highlighting which samplers are most popular and/or powerful and/or easy-to-use etc. The POV line is harder to cross if they're not ranked - just isolating a few into a group and perhaps giving quotes from established websites to justify the view.

1 "Main" and "Other" Categories
2 What does a sequencer do?
3 Proposal
4 Most popular music sequencers
5 Cleanup

[edit] "Main" and "Other" Categories

User:Bfinn said this in my users page after I removed the "Main" and "Other" categories in the sequencer's links:

Re Music sequencer, the point of the 'main' and 'other' categories was (as in the Scorewriter article) to distinguish between those that are widely used from the obscure ones, which I should think is useful information for at least some people. The big 4 in terms of market share are undoubtedly Logic, ProTools, Cubase and Cakewalk. (I have some industry stats on these.) I'd guess that Digital Performer comes next. Of the rest in the list, Reason and to a lesser extent Acid are quite widely used; GarageBand increasingly so too, though the fact that it is effectively free makes it a special case. But most of the rest are very obscure products AFAIK.

I don't personally think that main and other are reasonable encyclopedia terms. If you've got actual dated statistics with sources and all that which could be included they would come across as less arbitrary.

But as you said this gets tricky; truth be told GarageBand is probably the most used, but I'm not sure how "main" that makes it. Ableton Live I would guess is probably up there with Reason and possibly Acid -- it's at least the competing product to those two and gets a similar amount of press attention. Many of the rest on the rest on the list are special because they're Linux only.

I suppose some of my opposition to those terms as well is that it kind of implies that they're interchangeable and that there are some that are market leaders whereas I think more appropriate categorization might point out that there are in fact functional groups -- based on features, focus, platform, price, etc. Scott.wheeler 02:11, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the industry stats I have are in the public domain unfortunately, so I can't really cite them as a source. Grouping the sequencers by functionality might be a useful solution, and/or indicating those that are Linux based (which at least clarifies that those ones are probably not commercial nor very widely used). Ben Finn 10:50, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

If you're fine with such I'll go through and lump them into "Traditional", "Loop Based" and "Linux / UNIX" categories. Alternatively a table somewhat akin to some of the tables in Comparison of media players would be possible, but I think that'd likely be overkill. Scott.wheeler 01:19, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

I just wanted to hop in and say that the "main five" was extremely helpful to me when I had to choose one a few months ago. Is it possible to list the current list by popularity? Fire 18:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem was that the "main five" was just someone's guess at what the main five are. If you can find a reliable source with sales figures then sure. However, there's the additional problem that sequencers aren't interchangeable. You can't really "choose" for instance between Reason and Protools. If one fits your needs the other almost certainly does not. At least all of the products left in the commercial category are major products with significant followings. What might be more appropriate would be a feature matrix. Scott.wheeler 21:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I did finally stumble across some US sales figures and was a little surprised by them. I'm going to see if I'm allowed to source them. Just a hint -- two the the undoubtedly top 4 are not in the top 4. Scott.wheeler 13:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What does a sequencer do?

MIDI control information is what a sequencer records. They do not record audio. That would be a recorder. Often, the software blends these features leading to confusion about which is which. I've edited the article to make this more clear. --Trweiss 14:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

That may have once been the distinction, but not any more. Products called 'sequencers' are nowadays used as much for audio as for MIDI; ProTools for many years didn't support MIDI at all AFAIK (though I imagine was called a sequencer then, and certainly is now). Ben Finn 20:05, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Protools is a DAW. --Trweiss 14:22, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal

I propose to split the list of software sequencers to separate "software sequencers" and "DAWs with sequencing features" and yet another split (maybe first) to open source/closed source applications. --- Nedko^{self bias resist} 11:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

so do it Chavatshimshon 02:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that line is well defined enough to group things effectively. There are some pieces of software that fall clearly on one side of the line, but others like, say, Live (just one example from many) that don't clearly fit in one category. I think Commercial / Open Source / Free- or Shareware would probably be better groupings. Scott.wheeler 20:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Most popular music sequencers

Which Music sequencer is the most popular one? An important detail that is left out here! Chavatshimshon 02:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I've not had a responce and am I am putting the big four at the top of list to mark them out. Chavatshimshon 17:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with the currently listed "top five." Reason is undoubtedly one of the best sequencers I've used yet. CaptainHowdy2528 02:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The "main five" is again both inaccurate and not sourced and I'm removing it again as such. The most important commercial sequencers / DAWs arguably are Logic, Live, Cubase, Protools, Sonar, Digital Performer and kind of amusingly, Garage Band, with Acid and Reason (and maybe even Fruity Loops, though it's even more removed from the mainstream) being somewhat arguable. The problem is that all of these have established niches and somewhat distinct markets. Reason can't be used for film scoring, Cubase wouldn't be used for live performance and so on. (Note that I do work in the music software industry, so this isn't just prognostication.) Scott.wheeler 20:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

This was the list of sequencers I removed. I went through the entire list doing a little research on each. There were a few main reasons for removal:

did not meet WP:SOFTWARE (most of the list)
had not been in production for more than 5 years (i.e. Buzz)
are not in fact software sequencers (i.e. Reaktor, Ardour)
did not contribute significantly to the notion of a software sequencer (i.e. things that are mostly just bundled with sound cards)

The first four items are somewhat arguable. I'd be fine with them being readded if another semi-established WP editor wants them in. The others I'd expect to see citations to proove that they meet WP:SOFTWARE.

Also remember that there is no need to have an exhaustive list in this article. At some point it make make more sense to simply create a category and then to weed out the non-notable members from there.

Sagan Technology Metro
Pyramix from Merging Technologies [1]
Orion Platinum from Synapse Audio Software
PowerTracks from PG Music
Jeskola Buzz
Reaktor from Native Instruments [2]
Anvil Studio
Audio Dementia from Holladay Audio
| EnergyXT
MIDI Maker [3]
Making Waves [4]
MusicPhrase music sequencer [5]
OrganAssist
Psycle from your contributions
Techno Ejay [6]
Tunafish free software based VST/midi controller
Turtle Beach/Voyetra MIDI/Digital Orchestrator Pro
Vision, AKA Studio Vision - from Opcode Systems. (Once-popular Classic Mac OS MIDI/audio sequencer)
Virtual Composer [7]
WinJammer Shareware/Professional (discontinued)
Yamaha SOL2
Yamaha XGworks ST
Zadok Audio & Media Products' WinAudio
Ardour