I am wondering for those of you that do most of your work ITB do you still find hardware sequencers useful or do you find sequencing in the daw more powerful/more convenient/whatever?
I have found myself working more ITB lately and am thinking about how I should streamline my workflow in 2023. I ended up selling my MPC and getting a pad controller for doing sampling related stuff in the daw, but I am still hesitant to totally abandon my hardware sequencers as well (like my hapax).
If I do decide to get rid of my hardware sequencers that would clear up desk space for a daw controller which would be helpful (Iām using bitwig), so trying to consider the options hereā¦
personally I cannot stand DAW sequencers. I do all of my recording and mixing ITB, but all my MIDI stuff comes from hardware. I find the VST sequencer experience to be uninspiring. It feels like programming code instead of being in an organic creative workflow.
Just my opinion tho and to be perfectly fair the capabilities of software sequencers are crazy nowdays, I just cant get into it
Iāve found hardware sequencers great for generating ideas Iād never come up with in a DAW but eventually I find they can get in the way when wanting to just get a track done ITB. Syncing, recording etc. Some of the newer sequencer plugins for Live have really helped provide some of the inspiration generation which Iād previously had to rely on hardware for. Euclidean Sequencer Pro etc.
I have a iConnectivity MioXL hub and whatever hardware sequencer(s) that I am using all dump into that. Then my usual audio routing is my hardware synths ultimatly come into my MOTU 16A which gets sent into my DAW, and then any software synths are in the DAW. I just multi-track record everything, then work from that.
Hardware sequencers are more fun to use and easier to get a song started then finish in a DAW. I prefer jamming live with an external hardware sequencer than record stems to an SD card and finish edit in DAW. Using DAW to sequence stuff works but is too much like work and programming a computer versus playing an instrument. It has its place with plugins and so forth.
Itās slightly blasphemous but I would be pretty damn happy if Elektron released a sequencer plugin with a dedicated MIDI controller. But thatās a topic for another thread. Haha
I was about to mention HY-SEQ32 (all of that companies vst sequencers really) when I mentioned how some of the newer software sequencers are EXTREMELY powerful.
Out of all of the VST sequencers Ive dabbled with this one is easily my favorite. I have to admit despite my general dislike of āsequencing ITBā I have made some pretty cool stuff with HY-SEQ32
Personally I find DAW sequencers somewhat uninspiring, and I mostly like hardware, but when I want to sequence something on a computer I use Renoise ā Renoiseās pattern editor is by far my favorite computer sequencer.
Which DAW sequencer are you using? Do you like trackers by any chance? Renoise has a plugin called redux, which can be used for sequencing samples, but unfortunately does not send MIDI out, so it wonāt work for synths ā if it did, that would be my ideal sequencer to use in a DAW.
I like the idea of streamlining, because Iām always split between different machines with different sequencersā¦ It probably wonāt happen for me though, because my short attention span will inevitably keep me from consolidating on a single platform
For drums Iām a lot more comfortable with hardware sequencers
Melodies though? Iād rather use daws because of the automation. I mean elektronās p-locks are nice for those weird glitchy stuff and have their own place, but for everything else is rather use a daw
Hybrid setups are still the most convenient imo. Triggering elektron program changes as clips from ableton does the trick for me
Hybrid sequencing, this is a really good thought too! Although I have never really figured out how I like to program drums (finger drumming with 16 pads, step sequencing, etc., all are ok with me) :-).
I do both, currently messing with the polyend play, but in Ableton where I import my parts, I love the mono sequencer.
HY-SEQ32 looks almost overwhelming to me. Any good tutorials or demos out there on how to use it? That bad boy looks deeeeep.
There is a chord sequencer I need to dig up. It is a pretty obsure M4L chord sequencer that does really awesome chords and voicings but also does killer effects like chord sweeps and portamento and other wild things that I have not seen in another sequencer.
I will try and find it in ableton and share the name with you all.
Music should come to mind first. For me, Its easy to translate an idea into reality by using daw sequencer. However, hardware has its own fun but most of the time i end up with something unexpected or unplanned and I need to force an idea onto happy accidents that came through hardware sequencers. Later on, that kind of unplanned set of actions bog me down and ruin the composition most of the time. So best way is to āimagine the musicā before sitting in front of whatever medium you are using and try to make it real before muses disappear.
I have never made any music that way. All my inspiration comes from tinkering around with tools, be it a hardware synth, sampler, sequencer, computer, guitar or piano
Iām quite impressed if people can come up with something just from imagination
Totally. Thatās what I was saying about redux (by Renoise) ā if it could send MIDI out it would be perfect for me to work in a DAW. The full Renoise of course can send MIDI to hardware/software synths and I think itās excellent.
This thread made me check out that Stochas sequencer plugin I mentioned above. Itās actually pretty rad! Iāve spent a total of 20 minutes with it, but so far I like it.
