1 Towards the P3 {anchor:Towards the P3} {image:img=p3.jpg|align=float-right} I recently had a chance to play with {link:Paul Nagle|http://www.paulnagle.co.uk/}'s {link:P3 sequencer|http://www.p3sequencer.com}(*) ... after having spent the best part of a week rewriting my {link:MaxMSP|http://www.cycling74.com/products/maxmsp.html}-based Pulse Sequencer in Java/MXJ. An obvious question - and one that I've seen asked - is: is there any software package with the same functionality as the P3? One answer is ~~"yes"~~: clearly one can knock up MaxMSP code to do arbitrary sequencing, and the Pulse Sequencer is easily as powerful as the P3, albeit in completely different ways. But a better answer is ~~"no"~~: the P3 is a sequencing box, with knobs, buttons, and embedded firmware, and there's no way that a software package can come close to the ergonomics of dedicated hardware: it's true of synthesis, and it's true of sequencing. It should be said, also, that a hardware sequencer is going to have tighter timing than something like MaxMSP which is doing a lot of work per scheduler pulse, and which can't prepare output ahead of time. (*) Described as an "analogue sequencer", which is, IMHO, misleading: there's nothing analogue about it other than the design of the controls. ~~(The picture, by the way, is a close-up of Phil Smillie's custom-build P3.)~~ 2005-10-09 19:21:41.395 2005-07-29 22:09:29.636 Fri Jul 29 22:09:54 UTC 2005