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Modern Koushion alternative?
Hi all,
I’ve recently been rediscovering my love of the seemingly abandonware grid sequencer Koushion, by Ian Wagner, aka Ian the techie, which I have on my iPad but has disappeared from the store. (I’ve emailed the dev directly on the email included with the apps comprehensive manual, to no effect, btw).
Here’s a quick vid to show it in action, driving my favourite piano sound, LoFi Piano https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/lo-fi-piano/id1505681294:
(Apologies for the audio clipping by the way, it seems something YouTube somehow emphasised in a bad way in the much nicer soft clipping on the original Lo Fi Piano sound.)
It’s a deceptively simple affair, a launchpad style grid of 256 cells (16x16), by 8 layers deep, arrangable into 8 scenes. On each page you can set the sequence running forwards, backwards, randomly and so on, at a variety of selectable tempo resolutions from 1/2 to 1/24, control gate and velocity per step, send cc control information, and lock individual or all layers to scales.
It is really easy to enforce a scale, and then set something running, turning notes on and off, building up layer by layer, and saving whole song structures. It is Core MIDI so as long as I have it on this IPad I can record it’s MIDI output somewhat clunkily in Atom inside AUM and of course use it to drive things, so capture the audio, so it sort-of works.
What I would really love though would be something which replicates the immediacy and playful ease of it’s grid metaphor inside AUM directly. Most sequencing options I am aware of eg. Xequence lack this grid based fun of experimentation. Anyone know of a contemporary equivalent?
Comments
Interested in this too. I used to use the CC sequencing feature all the time.
A quick browse in miRack shows they've got a grid sequencer too. Not a 1 to 1 replacement, but there are some overlapping features. The CV (and this week midi) control over it certainly gives it a powerful edge though. Too bad it doesn't have note display.
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/tnr-i/id406297563 perhaps
Koushion used to be featured in lots of videos by the venerable Chris Stack of the ExperimentalSynth channel. Watching his demonstrations is actually what first led me to buying Koushion. Learned a lot about signal routing from his channel - incredible music too. Criminal how overlooked his content is!
Still one of the few IAA devices on my iPad, even if I rarely use it these days.
Xynthesizr comes to mind. You can create presets and change them in tempo. It doesn’t have gate but has velocity curves.
CVquencer is not grid based but it has immediacy.
Octatrach - not aim at melodic instruments but doable and StepPolyArp (with its arbitrary choice of notes)
@aleyas , thanks for the video link - really interesting use of it. Also, for pointing me at the Mirack option. I have MiRack and will check that out, but it looks waaaaaay more complicated(!) It’s the ‘just boot it up and try it’ aspect of Koushion I find so compelling, but good call, anyway.
@BiancaNeve : yes, the (real, expensive) Tenori-On seems very much like the same idea, but this app version, besides being pretty pricey at £20, looks from the app store comments to be potentially buggier than Koushion (which is pretty solid actually), and, worse still, just as much abandonware as Koushion itself.
@despego : yup, that’s a good call. Xynthesizer doesn’t have the deep and simple layering that Koushion offers, which makes it such fun to build up multitrack mono lines, but in other respects, it has some strong similarities.
For half a heartbeat I did wonder if I could build some sort of mega sequencer patch in Drambo to replicate it? But then I remembered I am a numpty when it comes to programming anything, and I certainly wouldn’t know how to build in all the cool lock to scale and play mode functionality Koushion has...
I do still sort of hope that some clever dev out there (@brambos, @Kymátika ?) might see the vids here and think... ‘hmmm... I could do something with that...’
Who knows? Maybe even the original dev might see this and think: “You know what? Koushion should live again!”
As someone who keeps hoping @Brambos will break out his sequencing chops as glimpsed in Rozeta into a full on AU MIDI looping sequencer masterpiece, I can but dream, I guess...
As someone who keeps hoping @Brambos will break out his sequencing chops as glimpsed in Rozeta into a full on AU MIDI looping sequencer masterpiece, I can but dream, I guess...
Yes, I also have wished for this.
this might be worth a look https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cykle/id1187680637
as an aside, the TNRs arent strictly speaking abandoned, they've had an update 12/2020...and I find them ultra stable sequencing Gadget for example. Some stuff doesn't get fixed because it doesn't need fixing
Also try PolyPhase. It’s only 4 channels but is a beautiful app:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/polyphase/id1440617668
And never forget about FugueMachine:
And Poly2 (shameless plug):
But as of late Drambo has been filling in nicely for all of this for me...
Hi @Littlewoodg : yup, I’ve got Cykle, use it on almost every track, in fact, I’ve got a lot of sequencers, Aphelian, MIDIToy, etc, but it’s that grid aspect that seems to chime so readily with me. I don’t like/use Gadget I’m not totally averse to the Tenari On, it’s just that it doesn’t sound like it’s got great reviews or gets used much, which make me wary of the high price tag.
I get it. I’m not big on Gadget either actually, but I mention sequencing several instruments in that sandbox because it’s a pretty good stress test for a sequencer outside the AUv3 paradigm. Another stable grid based olds but goody is Genome.
I’ll mess with the TNRs a bit and get back to you (I tend to preference reports here on the forum over reviews on the AppStore)
It’s a kick ass thing, the TNR, its kind of Four Tet in a box. When I first tried it I thought it was The Dawn Of A New Age and the end of any other way of sequencing music
Hi, @echoopera, thanks, yup, got it, I agree, great app, but it’s not the same.
But no, how’s this for Sod’s law? Good news, I found that there someone made a ‘better than Tenori-on’ that someone being a big IOS dev who is still with us, namely @4Pockets, who made the Aurora Sound Studio HD, which looks absolutely brilliant:
Aaaaaand... Bad news: it’s no longer available in the UK. Because of course it isn’t
Yeah...there’s definitely something special about these grid based performance tools...really hope Xynthesizr goes auv3 some day...
Have you looked at this cool Digitakt port for Drambo:
https://patchstorage.com/digitakful/
Load up your own samples per track and zoooooom off you go
It’s not that I’m recommending any of these, more reminding myself they exist
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/sequencism/id1240952241
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/mobile-music-sequencer/id567375837
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/modstep/id966990643
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/atom-piano-roll/id1455200044
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/xequence-2/id1464669442
Digikeys
I mentioned Genome up thread
Here are some images
Ones the sequencer, the other is the launcher for clips....
Recently I got ModStep, which I do really like as a midi-clip arranger and launcher. (If you relegate it to midi, overall stability is not much of an issue.)
This makes me wonder how Genome compares to that - is it less or more featured? Where does it have an edge, and where not?
For me Genome is much more fluid and direct for the basic sequencing functions. I’m a big fan of Modstep but it’s a little menu-divey to get to the midi sequencing itself: adding notes, taking away notes, multi-selection etc. Modstep has the edge in many other areas (x/y cc automation, preloaded cc scripts for tons of apps, a step sequencer in addition to piano roll option for note and parameter sequencing, a cool onboard additive synth, the list really goes on) but for a clip launching midi sequencer with cc curves, song mode and Audiobus control panel support, Genomes simplicity is often my preferred tool. Understand, I’m a buy both type dude...
Many years back, I enjoyed using Koushion too - until I found Genome MIDI.
It's no AUv3 and it doesn't have the pattern selector and grid on one page but that's about it for the "disadvantages".
Genome is very fast and straightforward to use, it has a beat-syncable MIDI clip launcher not unlike Ableton, including MIDI remote controlled clip launching, it supports MIDI CC automation and it has a great piano roll that supports freely definable custom scales that can be switched with existing patterns in transparent or modifying ways, it supports keyboard-entry step sequencing in a unique way, it has built-in sound generators and it also has a song mode plus a few live tweaking options.
And it supports setting start and end point of a pattern loop on the fly so you can experiment with arbitrary pattern loops, polyrhythmic freakery and note stutter effects.
IMHO the most advanced alternative to Koushion in the same style.
Oh, and it supports MIDI clock synchronization, something very useful when working with hardware or other apps.
If it absolutely has to be AUv3 then Riffer (monophonic with very limited scale support) or Fugue Machine (again, very limited scale support but at least polyphonic and easy to use) might be useful options.
Hi,
@echoopera , yes I have Drambo, I will check that out, thank you.
@u0421793, to my shame, I do have all those (and quite a few more besides.) Atom is an indispensable daily tool for me, but like Photon AU which I partner with it, it could be so much more. Sequence 2 I really should spend more time with, I know a lot of people love it, but something about the way it operates defeats me, I just find it very frustrating and fiddly to set something up, I just don’t relate well to it’s GUI, I think.
@hacked_to_pieces , yep, I am indeed a complete app tart, so I do have DigiKeys, I do enjoy it, but it isn’t on a layered grid in the way the Koushion is, it’s more the build out a pattern at a time thing I’ve been grappling with since I got my MC202 (which I still have!) back in the day.
it’s difficult to explain why but there’s just something so, er, improvisational about Koushion that more linear or pattern based sequencers just don’t capture for me.
Just that thing about seed a few cells, set it running, drop a layer on the fly,, add some more, which will sound great because they are locked to the same scale, drop another layer, try a different octave, or play head direction, or tempo resolution, or cc automation, rinse and repeat... Yes, Fugue Machine scratches some of the same itch but at the moment, as I have discussed elsewhere on this forum (https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/38857/do-you-know-what-would-take-fugue-machine-to-the-next-level-no-seriously-do-you#latest) lacks some important automisable features to make the best of that for me.
@Tim6502, I got Modstep ages ago, it never clicked with me. Perhaps because I am a bear of little brain, but yeah, ‘menu divey’ seems right.
@rs2000 , @Littlewoodg, now Genome. I don’t have. No AUV3 doesn’t bother me as long as it runs ok with AUM, and the idea of Ableton style clips and a scale enforcing piano roll are both attractive, so I might well check that one out. Thank you
I present to you... Koushmbo. The Koushion matrix sequencer for Drambo! (purely a midi sequencer)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7b4afnfs9gz97l2/Koushion 3.drproject?dl=0
Thought it wasn't gonna be possible, but you can totally hack the grid!
15 notes available vertically. Diatonically equal to 2 octaves (example A2-A4). Global column mute. Global transpose. Note tie.
For a longer sequence, just go into the pattern setting and increase 'beats in pattern'.
If you use the project, take note: first thing after opening the project, in each track, press the key you want that row to represent. Drambo will remember each track's last key press. We'll use that to program in the grid like a matrix.
For more 'layers' just open a new instance. I know it's not the same as Koushion, but the unique capabilities of Drambo also offer exciting possibilities in this matrix format.
Definitely gonna add more features. If you have any ideas, let me know and I'll try to implement them.
An annotated description of the ‘initializing procedure’
@aleyas This is really cool. Definitely will check this out. Be sure to put this on Patch Storage.
Really nice work!!
@aleyas : wow, that’s brilliant! Definitely going to try this out. Ideas? Um - a way to enforce scales? Randomisation of the playback? Different tempo quantisations on multiple layers? I don’t know the capability of Drambo well enough to know what it can and can’t’ do.
Thanks @echoopera !
It's kind of a hack - but it honestly exceeded my expectations. Another Drambo tool in the box!
And yeah, I need to get around to opening an account on patch storage.
that is some sexy Drambo, comrade
Randomization will be difficult because the main sequence lane isn't open to automation/modification beyond step components. I'll have to think on that one though, there could be a workaround.
At the moment scale is set manually. But I have an idea to switch between major/minor with some transpose modules placed on the 3rd, 6th and 7th scale degrees.
Tempo could be modified, but would require an external clock dividing app. I don't know of any myself.
Time signature can definitely be changed though, with different combinations of 3, 4, and 5 steps per beat in pattern settings.
My brain's gonna get a good exercise patching this!
Quick update. Got scale select working! (using the morph scenes)
We can have up to 16 custom scales. I guess I'll start first by programming in the modal scales. Then maybe some exotic stuff like Japanese or blues.
I'll post it up tomorrow on patch storage. It's late here and I just wanted to post my excitement
Cool.
This might help:
https://patchstorage.com/scale-compendium-use-this-one/