NEON

What it does

A step sequencer that sends MIDI only, no sound of its own. An eight stage base sequence sets root note, scale, octave, division, swing and one of a long list of order modes, from linear and ping pong to brownian, hopscotch, converge and pedal point. Up to eight modifiers then run over it, each with its own division, order and probability, targeting octave, transpose, velocity, CC, pulse count, pulse pattern, gate mode, gate length, ratcheting or order.

In the demo

Jade opens with four instances driving a piano, bass, drums and synth in AUM, then clears it and builds a pattern from scratch, since the app ships with no presets. She walks through pulses, gate modes, swing, reset count and probability before stacking modifiers until the line stops repeating, then covers states, copies and colours them, and chains them in the meta sequencer to build a song.

Worth knowing

It generates no audio, so it needs an instrument downstream, and it will not load in GarageBand, which blocks MIDI plugins. Everything is built by hand from an empty pattern. Output goes to a single MIDI channel, so driving several instruments means several instances.