peeq

A keyboard-driven live step sequencer for Pure Data, written in 2003.

Built for live laptop performance — the kind where you are on stage at a breakdancing club with no mouse and no margin for fumbling through menus. Every feature exists to answer the question: how fast can a performer get a musical idea into the sequencer without stopping the music?

peeq was written during the early livepa.org era, when laptop performance was just becoming a thing and the available hardware was genuinely slow. The direct inspirations were NI Reaktor (for synthesis) and FruityLoops 1.0 (for one specific idea: switching patterns with the numpad while keeping the playhead in place). That playhead-preserving switch is what Ableton would later call legato mode. FruityLoops had it first. peeq had it in Pure Data.

• Pure Data (vanilla PD, no externals required)
• A MIDI output device or software synth

peeq.pd        main patch — open this one
row.pd         sequencer row abstraction (16 steps, note, channel, mute)
rowlogic.pd    MIDI note output and pattern array read/write
changelog.txt  version history from v0.01a (Aug 2003) to v0.172b (Dec 2003)
PLAN.md        design notes and forward-looking ideas

peeq is an 8-row × 16-step MIDI step sequencer with 8 pattern banks and an 8-bar playlist.

• Each row sends MIDI notes on a configurable channel with a configurable note number
• The clock is driven by a metro object at 15000 / BPM milliseconds per tick
• All 8 rows share the same clock; each row reads independently from its pattern data
• Pattern data is stored as Pure Data float arrays: $1-seqdata holds 8 patterns × 16 steps per row
• Rows are modular — adding a 9th row is as simple as adding another row instance

The QWERTY and home-row keys are interleaved by column: each keyboard column maps two consecutive steps, Q-row first, A-row second.

Q  W  E  R  T  Y  U  I    →  steps  1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15
A  S  D  F  G  H  J  K    →  steps  2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16

Column pairs: Q+A=1&2, W+S=3&4, E+D=5&6, R+F=7&8, T+G=9&10, Y+H=11&12, U+J=13&14, I+K=15&16.

Each key toggles the corresponding step on or off. The sequencer keeps running while you edit.

The most important behavior: pressing Numpad + or Numpad - changes the active pattern without resetting the clock. If the sequencer is on step 9, it stays on step 9 in the new pattern. This means pattern changes feel like musical transitions rather than hard cuts.

You can also edit a different pattern than the one currently playing. The curr_edit_patt state tracks what you are editing; pattern tracks what is playing. Enable chase mode to force the editor to follow the playback position.

The 8-bar playlist assigns one pattern to each bar position. When L (playlist) is active, the sequencer advances through bars automatically. Each bar position can be set by clicking directly in the radio button. Playlist length is configurable.

peeq.pd
├── transport (metro, BPM, run toggle)
├── pattern bank (8 patterns, numpad switching)
├── playlist (8 bars, L toggle)
├── keycommands subpatch (all keyboard bindings)
└── row 1..8  ← instances of row.pd
      └── rowlogic.pd
            ├── playread  (tabread from $1-seqdata at clock tick)
            ├── writedata (tabwrite on step toggle)
            └── noteout   (makenote → noteout → MIDI)

Pattern data layout in $1-seqdata:

offset = pattern_number * 16 + step_index

8 patterns × 16 steps = 128 floats per row. Each row has its own named array.

Full history in changelog.txt.

• No load/save — patterns are lost when PD closes
• No MIDI clock sync (send or receive)
• No pattern cut/copy/paste or shift left/right
• No panic / all-notes-off
• No concurrent pattern playback (across rows of different patterns)

See PLAN.md for a detailed discussion of:

• Option A: Web port — rewrite as a self-contained browser app (Web MIDI, canvas grid, same key bindings)
• Option B: WebPD — compile the existing patches to Web Audio API via WebPd
• Option C: Live keyboard layer for tidal-arranger — bring peeq's keyboard philosophy to a Tidal pattern vocabulary, with bar-quantized slot triggering
• Option D: AI-inferred performance templates — analyze live MIDI input in real time to extract rhythmic motifs, harmonic structure, and multi-bar themes; build a template library automatically; let the performer switch to "conductor mode" and arrange the inferred templates with keyboard shortcuts

The core philosophy behind all of these is the same one peeq was built on: the performer should be able to make musical decisions in real time without ever leaving the keyboard.