
Show HN: An attempt to rethink a music sequencer design - peterrudenko
https://github.com/peterrudenko/helio-workstation
======
archagon
This looks very nice! I'll have to give it a try soon.

If anyone is interested, I've also taken a whirl at solving the problem of
overcomplicated DAW interfaces, albeit in a more limited capacity. My first
project in this vein is Composer's Sketchpad[1], which aims to explore
"freehand composition" by letting users draw notes in strokes directly with
their fingers or stylus, bending the pitch and adjusting the length as they go
along. The second is MusicMessages![2], in which every note is a button in a
giant scroll view, allowing the user to enter and adjust quick melodies with
just a few taps.

While these apps will never be remotely as powerful as a fully featured DAW,
they allow the user to explore certain kinds of musical ideas far more
efficiently than with FL Studio or Logic. In my opinion, one of the biggest
barriers in creative thinking is the amount of cruft and micro decision-making
between the artist and their output, and musical composition is particularly
bad at this — there's no "lightweight Markdown editor" equivalent for
composition quite yet. Helio is very exciting because it has some of those
same benefits while sitting far closer to a professional DAW. I'm very
interested to see where it goes!

[1]: [http://composerssketchpad.com](http://composerssketchpad.com)

[2]: [http://musicmessages.io](http://musicmessages.io) (currently working on
a full iOS version as a separate app... will fold the Messages extension into
that one)

~~~
wtf_is_up
I really like the concept of Composer's Sketchpad. I like to play around with
FL Studio piano rolls, but it is a little overwhelming. Too bad I don't have
any iOS devices because I'd love to mess with your app.

------
baldajan
As a DAW created by a single person, I must say great job. But one thing that
stuck out for me most was the merging of instruments into a single visual
track. As a person that designs simple DAW interfaces for a living [1], I
highly recommend against that, and instead move to a more traditional
instrument/track separated model.

Some back story: when we released the first version of Medly, we actually had
notes on top of each other, merging the tracks into one. This turns out to be
bad for both visuals (as it overcomplicates things) and for interactions. We
ditched it for a more traditional format, but added a feature that let you
view notes from other tracks when editing. Never regretted that decision
since.

[1] [http://medlylabs.com](http://medlylabs.com)

~~~
psyc
This is far and away the best thing in this thread.

------
ssharp
"Most of the DAW interfaces often seem overcomplicated, and they only tend to
get more and more bloated over time."

How much can you simplify the interface and still make it do everything
producers want to do? Garageband simplified the interface quite a bit compared
to Logic, but even that can get complicated and ultimately isn't as flexible
as other DAWs.

I've been a fairly loyal user of Sonar and FL Studio for over a decade,
largely out of habit because that's what I used when I first started and don't
care to learn anything different. Especially with FL Studio, early versions of
that were extremely simple. At it's core, it's still fairly simple, but allows
you a lot of flexibility to do crazy things through automation.

Especially in EDM, the DAW has essentially become another instrument for
creativity, so limiting that will limit the audience to those with lesser
needs. I do think there is a big hole for a cross-platform DAW that's at least
halfway decent, so this is exciting to see!

~~~
tomxor
It is possible to simplify the interface by reducing the number of tools
without necessarily removing functionality.

The idea is to identify large sets of tools that can be replaced with a
handful of powerful combinable tools to perform the same tasks - this is not
always easy but if done well can end up not only simplifying UI but providing
more powerful, intuitive tools and reducing unnecessary learning.

I think Modo has done this fairly well in this regard for 3D modelling and
animation (programs which tend to be notoriously full of thousands of discrete
tools).

This is not limited to DAWs. 3D animation packages, photo editing and video
editing packages all historically have this problem... They grow these
discrete tools to a large number, it increases the UI complexity, inevitably
resulting in tons of stuff hidden under context menus and usually heavily
resorting to mode based interfaces.

I had hoped this concept would become popular so that things like Photoshop
and Illustrator could be simplified.

~~~
Applejinx
The trick is how much state you have to keep in your head. Something like
Blender requires enormous state about even things like what key combinations
mean in different contexts: it's a poster child for impossibly demanding state
requirements.

Something like the Flash pen tool is much simpler, but still absolutely
requires you to maintain some state: clicking versus click-dragging,
remembering not to close a shape by simply clicking on a control point without
also dragging out Bezier points. There are expectations before you can begin
to flow with the thing.

I've been working hard on this concept using a Minecraft mod (Snowball
Madness: [http://www.airwindows.com/snowball-
madness/](http://www.airwindows.com/snowball-madness/) ) that suffered the
same problem. I'd made countless 'effects' so it was nearly impossible to
remember what did what.

After a drastic functionality-culling process, I began rebuilding things in
line with a concept: generalizing. If you can place a block above a snowball
and it places the block where the snowball hits, that's what it does, no
exceptions. TNT used to spawn explosions just for silly fun, but it became
'place TNT block' altering the type of silliness. Pickaxes used to dig large
holes in rock (in some cases, leaving ores hanging) so all the other tools got
similar treatments: axes vanishing wood logs, shovels vanishing dirt, hoes
turning grass/dirt into tilled farmland. Always trying to incorporate 'cheaty'
ways of doing things but predictably so.

It's like the old Apple UI guidelines. The default expectation is that you can
grope blindly towards a result and things do what you think they would do,
allowing you to not think about the process.

~~~
BaronSamedi
How about coding a song instead? With the right language or DSL it should be
possible. Substitute a Music IDE for the DAW, maybe keep some visualizations
(synced to the code of course).

I suppose musicians are more comfortable with a visual metaphor. Still the
over-the-top skeuomorphism doesn't seem that efficient to me compared to just
coding it.

~~~
kennywinker
There are numerous examples of music programming languages. I imagine some
people have some success with them, but I think they are not widely adopted
because it lacks the immediacy and tight feedback loops available in DAW.

In a DAW, as you're playing the track, you crank the reverb knob until you hit
the sweet spot.

In a music programming language you fiddle with values and re-compile
repeatedly until you find the sweet spot, but even then it's hard to find
because you can't remember if it's better this time you compiled or last time.

For musical coding to work, I think it needs a Bret Victor / Swift Playgrounds
/ Lighttable style IDE, and then... it starts to look a lot like a DAW, just
with algorithms instead of a note grid or timeline.

------
acomjean
It has a product home page:

[https://helioworkstation.com](https://helioworkstation.com)

One of the features is "Incomplete - Helio is a one-man hobby project, that is
a work in progress. The author builds it for himself and shares with the
world."

I give +1 for honesty.

Honestly it has the same "piano roll" grid layout many other programs I've
dabbled with have (garage band, ableton). It has linux support which is great.

~~~
rhizome
From the video, it appears to me that the main interface is basically a
combined piano roll? I did not get the information I wanted from the page or
the video.

------
psyc
I like the idea. I'm a composer, and can never find a simple music sketch app
that I like. Everything is either too complicated, too expensive, or some
other kind of terrible. I guess Garage Band isn't too bad, but I still have
trouble with it. My preferred way of working is with the built-in touch-screen
sequencers in Korgs and Yamahas. That workflow is damned perfect. On the
desktop, there hasn't been anything usable since Impulse Tracker.

I played around with your app for a while. I found the UI frustrating overall.
I couldn't find any instructions. There are no tooltips. It needs tooltips at
least. Copy/paste flummoxed me over and over again. I seemed to hit the "end"
of the track after 10 measures?? I could make notes longer, but not shorter.
After the first 4 toolbar commands, I couldn't figure out what any of the rest
do.

I'd really love to have a nice desktop composition sketch app, with a piano
roll just like this. Nobody can persuade me that anybody has done this right
yet, so as far as I'm concerned you have no competition. I hope you'll keep
working on this. I suggest working on the UI.

~~~
kennywinker
Have you had a look at Korg Gadget on iOS? it's not perfect, but maybe it's
model works better for you than GarageBand... I'm a fan.

------
hashkb
Finally a music tool with version control. I've been wishing for this to
happen for so long!

The first big player (Ableton etc) to integrate versioning will have a huge
advantage.

~~~
dominotw
Can't you just commit your ableton projects in git ?

~~~
virgil_disgr4ce
There's a LOT of binaries involved (in the sense of large .wav files at
least), and I doubt the Live file format particularly lends itself to text-
based version control

~~~
wheels
The Live file format is gzipped XML. It very much lends itself to text-based
version control. (I've even played around with adding such as a third party.)

~~~
virgil_disgr4ce
Whoa, cool! Good to know—thanks!

------
6stringmerc
Looks a lot like Melodyne. And FL Studio. A "re-think" would be using depth of
space to be able to go "in and out" like layers. It's a nice project and I
hope it was gratifying.

Reaper has solved the issue of "One Simple DAW to rule them all" for me (used
to be Cool Edit Pro 2.0) because it genuinely covers so much usable turf (Max
is not in the same conversation as 'simple DAW'). It is the best mousetrap for
the money on the market.

------
ryjm
Man do I miss native desktop apps. This is so well done!

Something like this could be a Guitar Pro killer if it had support for writing
a score/tablature. Imagine being able to commit changes to a score and have
your bandmates pull it down and review, add to it, etc... it could really
change the way we write music, especially in a world where you don't have to
be in the same room to record an album together.

------
zensavona
I just had a play with this. I must say, my favourite feature so far is the
chord suggestion wheel (dunno if this interface has a name). A lot of the time
I feel like when experimenting with chord progressions or in the beginning
stages of writing a song I miss out on interesting chord combinations simply
because when messing around on the piano I forget to use or try certain chords
or variations. It's really nice to have this selection there (although
including extended chords would be awesome!)

Also, I noticed you build it with JUCE. I'd be _highly_ interested in a series
or even very short writeup about how you made the ui and it's various
components with JUCE. I haven't built anything nontrivial with it yet but
audio (and as an extension, UI programming) is very interesting to me.

~~~
ryan-allen
OH this is one of my favourite things (chord explorers), Ableton doesn't have
one but Cubase does. I am surprised it isn't more of a feature elsewhere, as
they solve the problem of 'I have to learn to play these chords to effectively
compose with them'.

You don't have to be an expert player to use your ears to write harmonically
interesting things as a result. I can't wait to get home and try this!

~~~
zensavona
I had no idea cubase has this. I sometimes use a plugin called Cthulu (link
below) to achieve a similar outcome, but the workflow is nowhere near as nice.

[https://www.xferrecords.com/products/cthulhu](https://www.xferrecords.com/products/cthulhu)

------
dharness
Beautifully clean, and simple! I've had my eye out for something like this,
and I really do feel the other solutions are too big and clunky.

That said, I think the font is clutery.

The intro user flow is atypical and disruptive. I think it should start on
this
[https://puu.sh/vy4pd/776dde20a8.png](https://puu.sh/vy4pd/776dde20a8.png)
screen instead of inside a project. Then once inside maybe a little
walkthrough or some guides?

Lastly I think the weird labels (Arps, counterpoint, melodic) on the left hand
side are unintuitive for a novice. Also the addition of alt+drag to duplicate
would be really nice ;)

But all in all, would use!

~~~
mortenjorck
Agreed on the typography: "Comfortaa" is not what I would consider a UI font.

As an alternative, OSS type family, I would recommend Lato
([https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lato](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lato)).
It's the family Slack uses, and I think it would look great in the UI for
Helio.

------
ptrkrlsrd
As a musician I must say that I love the simplicity, version control and
workflow of this application! While as a developer I must say that I love
seeing a modern cross platform application developed using something else than
Electron.

------
prando
Beautiful UI. Despite what others might comment about its utility and
relevance, I see this as a very interesting project to learn audio processing
& clean UI design. Please let us know your background. Are you an audio DSP
engineer? Is there a list of features that you are planning to integrate?

Kudos!

------
archagon
After playing with it a little, a few suggestions:

1\. Make it possible to (inertial) pan and pinch zoom when using a Mac
trackpad. This would be significantly faster than using the lower navigator
for Mac users. Also, I don't think it's a good idea to make the scroll wheel
change the x-scale.

2\. Add a shortcut for deleting notes when in "feather" mode — maybe middle-
click? (I see right-click is reserved for changing layers.) This would make it
possible to work on a piece of music without having to use the keyboard or
move the mouse away from the canvas.

3\. Is there a way to change the division of beats? IMO there should be a way
to do this very quickly, so that I can switch between divisions of 4 and 3 for
example.

Great work! Out of curiosity, how long have you been working on this project?

~~~
archagon
Also, creating a new layer should be simpler — putting it in the New Project
menu is weird. Maybe just have a "+Layer" button under the lowest layer? It
should also be possible to drag layers and change their order.

------
alnitak
Looks interesting. Trying to install it on my phone gets me a "Your device is
not compatible with this version" in Android's Play store. What is it you are
doing in this app that has special compatibility requiremrents?

My phone has a modern qualcomm flagship cpu and latest android.

~~~
peterrudenko
It only runs on tablets for now (i.e. requires a screen about 12x7cm at
least). And yes, mobile versions are still quite incomplete, I put all my
effort into desktop versions.

~~~
alnitak
Aha makes sense. Where do I sign up for updates? :-)

------
tchaffee
I was recently searching for a Linux sequencer and was disappointed with
what's out there so this comes at a good time. It looks pretty nice and I'll
try it out soon. Two suggestions: take a look Seq24 which is made for
sequencing stuff in a live environment. You might find ideas to borrow from
it. Also, on your github page you say "Most of the DAW interfaces often seem
overcomplicated". But this isn't a DAW is it? I use both DAWs and sequencers
and my DAW interface is complex, but needs to be because it deals with audio
and there is a lot of tools I need to work with that audio. I think there is
much more opportunity to keep sequencer interfaces clean because they do less.

------
vincelt
Love the concept! Would be great to have more built-in instruments to try,
maybe some could be adapted from LMMS? I also wonder which tools you used to
build the UI. Good luck with the project!

------
smrtinsert
I love the circle of fifths based chord entry system. Very novel.

------
cJ0th
It's beautiful and the version control feature is something I've been wishing
for for a while. In the best case it'll probably still take a while till it is
- no pun intended - production ready (in the sense that I would feel
comfortable giving up my current sequencer), though.

For the moment I am rather happy with Presonus' Studio One (even though the
current version is a bit bug ridden) Compared to Cubase it already has a
drastically simplified (and enhanced) workflow.

------
billconan
The ui is really beautiful. It seems that you implemented a complete ui
library for this app?

Do you use opengl for rendering? or a 2d graphics library?

the ui itself can be an awesome project by itself!

------
dominotw
I would really like the equivalent of Unity in the DAW world. Let me script
modulators/sound design while doing arrangement/mixing and stuff in UI.

~~~
RickS
max/msp might be of interest, then:
[https://cycling74.com/products/max/](https://cycling74.com/products/max/)

~~~
blacksmith_tb
And/or PD (pure data)[1] which is its FOSS cousin.

1: [http://puredata.info/](http://puredata.info/)

------
j_s
The last DAW discussion I have bookmarked was nearly 3 years ago, a Show HN
for Wavepot, a JavaScript programmer's "DAW":

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7905910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7905910)
| [http://wavepot.com/](http://wavepot.com/)

------
bluetwo
I would really urge the developer to identify the target audience for this and
to define what needs they have that may not be met by the current crop of
similar tools.

I would also recommend finding some of those people, talking to them directly,
and watch as they learn to use this application.

For this to survive in a crowded marketplace it is going to have to find and
serve a niche very well.

------
adamnemecek
Lol I've been working full time on something like this and wanted to go
commercial with it. But it still seems different enough. But the UI is too
similar.

Btw is that really a Wintersun song loaded in the screenshot? It does look
like it could be a Wintersun song. I'm actually kinda inspired by Jari's
workflow so I'm guessing I'm not the only one lol.

~~~
sleazebreeze
The developer has a song named "Winter Sun". As a fellow Wintersun fan, I was
excited too, but then realized it was not the same.

------
lightedman
Take this, combine with the capabilities and tab/score display of TuxGuitar,
I'd be one happy person.

------
seertaak
This looks really nice! Shameless plug: I've created a looper/DAW also
([https://zenaud.io](https://zenaud.io))

~~~
tchaffee
Please save us a click and some reading and put the supported platforms in
your plug? Looks pretty cool, but I only use Linux.

------
bmer
Looks really cool to me! I love the beautiful UI -- what tools did you use to
build it in C++? I am very interested in learning more about UI design in C++.

~~~
peterrudenko
It's built with JUCE, all-encompassing C++ framework like QT, but smaller (and
with lots of audio processing classes).

------
thepaulstella
Very cool. I'm looking forward to giving it a spin!

------
webscalist
How do I build on linux? Don't have debian.

~~~
peterrudenko
You may check travis.yml (a bit hacky script but it's all I have for now).

------
fxj
I installed it on a nvidia shield tablet with latest android 7.0 but it is
stuck in the "starting the engines" screen.

------
anigbrowl
Intriguing, I'll give it a whirl for a few weeks to see if it can tempt me
back from hardware sequencers.

------
jefurii
I dream that someone will come out with a sequencer that's basically a Cirklon
with an ncurses UI.

------
fxj
It would be great to have this sequencer in caustic. Is it possible to couple
them via internal MIDI?

------
IshKebab
Looks very nice, well done!

------
uranian
I was interested, until I saw the way too minimalistic demo on the homepage.
If you call it a DAW with VST support and so, than just a demo of a piano
piece with a huge piano roll doesn't really impress.

I don't want to be too negative as I really like the idea. But at first sight
this is by far no match at all with the great DAW's out there. You can say
they are bloated, but no one says you need to use all the features that are
available. With most DAW's you can make a similar demo with ease.

~~~
rhizome
I think they use the term "DAW" too much for something that doesn't
necessarily satisfy on that level. Maybe they don't think "sequencer" is
impressive enough?

