Types of Sequencers

[Inventor]

Hi, I'm new to music and I've been programming and using logic-based sequencers for a few months. I'm just realizing that the term sequencer is used to describe some different types of software and hardware.

There seems to be synthesizer sequencers which operate on binary counts and the like, MIDI sequencers that arrange MIDI notes (I think?), and song playback software that sequences whole songs one after another, if I got those three right. Are there more?

Most of the posts I'm reading are assuming a familiarity that I don't have yet, so i'm hoping to get a little education on synthesizers.

[EdisonRex]

Sequencing is simply the ordering of events. What events we are ordering are left to the problem to be solved.

In the electronic music world, this has generally manifested itself in relatively simple counter/indexers, which count through a time base and index that time base to an output (event)

Without telling you how to suck eggs, the events themselves have a wide range of ideas. They could be control voltages, which is what most people here are interested in. They could have sequenced control signals in the form of distribution of voltages to control mechanisms, which most atomic bomb testing in the 50s used.

In more modern times, sequencing of events can manifest itself into more integrated events, such as MIDI events, or even samples integrated with MIDI events.

The time base of the sequencing is to be considered. There are simple and complex time bases. Some are musical, or can be interpreted as such, and some are more temporal, meaning they happen because of tempral events. A traffic light is a sequencer.