nbn - Midi Sequencer

nbn : a fully featured Midi Sequencer for the Novation LaunchPad that runs on Raspberry Pi and MacOS

Features

nbn has tons of features that allow you to compete with external Midi Controllers at a much higher price range. These features include, but are not limited to:

  • 32 Midi Tracks : nbn can connect up to 2 Midi Playback devices, so this gives you a total control of 32 Midi tracks. Daisy chain them using Midi Thru or use a Midi splitter to spread the signal. Each track also has it's own properties, like repeat count, speed, length, shuffle, etc.
  • Fully Featured Polyphonic Step Sequencer : this one is the Beauty of this Beast. It supports per-note adjustments for velocity, length and nudge, and per-step options for trigger conditions (first, previous, neighbouring, fill, transition, random, modulo, and of the inversed variants of them) and CC value settings for 4 assignable CC channels. This, and of course much more...
  • On-Screen Keyboard : for live recording (and touch sensitive if your LaunchPad supports it). With or withou quantization.
  • 16 Patterns per Track : each track has 16 patterns to work with.
  • Track/Pattern Matrix : tracks and patterns are not tied directly to each other: they are independent. That means that (as an example) track #1 can play pattern #1, while track #2 can play pattern #3. And all of this can be nicely queued of course (with transition triggers).
  • Song Editor : you can save the state of the Track/Pattern Matrix as an "arrangement", and put multiple of these arrangements after each other to form a song.
  • Multiple Scenes : You can have 64 different scenes in nbn. A scene is the overall collection of all your tracks and patterns, but it also contains your Midi Program Changes, so all of your devices switch to the proper program as soon as a load the scene.
  • Multiplayer : Save the best for last! nbn is the first Multiplayer Midi Sequencer. Do you want to jam with your friends, while working on the same project? Just plug in multiple LaunchPads in the computer and you can play in the same project!

New features and improvements will be added over time, and when you buy nbn you'll get these updates for free. If you're missing something or got a great idea you'd like to see, feel free to contact the seller, I'll be looking at every request!

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What's nbn's origin story?

nbn is created by me: Giel Berkers (a.k.a. kanduvisla), a software developer, but I also make music as a hobby. This music is made in a DAW-less manner: multiple synthesizers and grooveboxes, all connected to a Midi Clock, and all with their own sequencers with their own flaws and benefits, but more important: all with a different manual. And that was the biggest frustration: multiple devices with multiple sequencers that all work a bit different.

Now, there are hardware Midi sequencers out there that solve this problem, but these are quite expensive and well, and the last time I checked, money still doesn't grow on trees (unfortunately). Luckily - being a software developer - I asked myself the question:

"How hard can it be to create my own sequencer?"

So after a few failed attempts and some 2-3 years I finaly managed to write my own sequencer that works just the way I want it. And the more I played with it and the more I showed and shared it with friends, the more feedback I got that this could really be something that other people are willing to pay for. And yeah, like I said before: money doesn't grow on trees, so if I can earn something over my hard working as well it'd be more than welcome!

Oh, and the name? nbn stands for "nine-by-nine": the number of buttons of the grid of the LaunchPad.