Err sorry to barge in, but the honor of the very first visual sequencer should go to the Fairlight CMI II. And if i recall correctly it got MIDI as soon as the protocol was established around 1983 in the upgrade called CMI IIx.
Cheers

 

multiple programs could probably make the claim by using different qualifiers. "visual" or whatever, and they can both sorta be right.

Or we could say "I mean on Mac", and end up with an answer of MOTU Performer. (1983), or Voyetra Sequencer Plus (1984). Would you call Voyetra "Visual"? It looked like a tracker.

 

Motu Digital Performer user guide p.783

 

You can achieve this goal with Pro Tools. I believe you can achieve this goal with other DAWs as well. Perhaps approaching your end-goal from a different angle will yield results. What you want to do is create a “tempo map” from your MIDI notes, or perhaps in your case, you may only wish to create a “portion” of a tempo map which will cater to your MIDI notes, then return to a constant BPM. Whatever it is exactly that you wish to do, a “tempo map”, or “tempo mapping” is what you're looking for.

Added note, just in case: If for some reason you can't create a tempo map from MIDI notes (which seems absurd) then you can always assign a sound to your MIDI notes - something with an immediate transient (a closed hi-hat, for example), then bounce it to audio, then use the audio track to generate custom points in your tempo (map) at which the timeline and session metronome will adjust according to your original MIDI performance.

 

Here is an example of tempo mapping. I used the original song to create my tempo. If you pay attention, you'll hear that the tempo is not 100% constant. It slightly speeds up and slows down. It does this exactly inline with the original song. This was achieved via tempo mapping. Once your tempo is mapped, you can “snap” MIDI notes and all other things to the grid as you would in any other normal circumstance if you wish to do that. But I understand that in your situation, you do not wish to do that. You want the tempo and the grid to conform to your MIDI performance.

Listen to the last 60 seconds.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Oct 10, 2024

Correct and agreed. Also agreed on Motu. With that said, Fairlight's sequencer, at least to me, looks more close to what sequencers came to look years later, as it doesn't deal with numeric values (trackers) but rather musical ones.

 

That are all audio examples, not MIDI, audio is easy.

 

check bottom of p785... refers to adjusting beats for MIDI

 

yes it's much easier with midi where starting point of a note is much more visible than in a waveform
you just have to drag the barlines or the beats to the desired note
(in motu dp "adust tempo")

 

when you drag the barlines you create multiple tempo changes in the tempo map (conductor track in dp)
you can do so in dp then export in midifiles to your favorite daw
dp 11.22 available in sista site you can apply r2r kg to last version available in motu site
i suppose you can apply it on mac but not sure

Danny Elfman speaks about motu dp in his masterclass, seems he loves it

 

Last edited: Oct 11, 2024