Dino is a MIDI sequencer for GNU/Linux. It uses the JACK system to send MIDI to other software and to synchronise with JACK transport. You need a version of JACK that is patched to handle MIDI as well as audio to use Dino. A patch can be found here: http://www.custard.org/~deviant/jack-midi/ Dino requires that jackd is running in order to sequence anything (although you can still edit songs without it) and that lashd is running in order to be able to save anything you do. If you set the environment variables JACK_START_SERVER and LASH_START_SERVER to 1 they will both be started automatically when you start Dino (this is true for all programs that use JACK or LASH). The arrangement editor ====================== The GUI is divided into three tabs. The first tab, "Arrangement" is where you add new tracks, arrange patterns, and edit the tempo map. When you first start Dino there will be no tracks and all you will see is the "BPM" track. Here you can add new tempo changes with the left button, remove them with the right button (except the first one - if you removed it the BPM for the whole song would be undefined, so Dino will not let you remove it) and change their BPM by middle-clicking and dragging up and down. This mousing pattern is used in most places in Dino - left adds, middle modifies, right removes. If you click the '+' button in the arrangement tab you will add a track. When you add a track you can choose a name for it, which MIDI port it should connect to, and the MIDI channel it should send events to. You can edit all these properties later too by clicking the 'Properties' button (the one with the tool). The selected track (the one that has a dark blue background for its name) can be removed by clicking the trashcan button. Each track is shown as a strip of blocks, where each block represents a beat. When you have created patterns for your track (see the text about the "Patterns" tab below) you can use the left mouse button to click on a track and bring up a popup menu listing all patterns for that track. The one you select will be added to the track at the beat you clicked. You can modify its length with the middle mouse button and delete it with the right (this does not affect the actual pattern at all, just how this instance of it is played). The pattern editor ================== In the pattern editor you can add, edit, and remove patterns for the different tracks. Look at the tooltips for the buttons in the upper row and it should be fairly obvious how to add and delete patterns. When you have added a pattern you can also add and delete controllers in it. Controllers are e.g. pitchbend and MIDI CC controllers. The active controller can be edited in the box at the bottom of this tab. The main box here is the note editor, where you edit the notes in the active pattern. You add new notes with Ctrl-left button, change their length with the middle button, change their velocity with Ctrl-middle button and delete them with Ctrl-right button. You can also use the left mouse button to select, unselect, and drag notes around - clicking a note will select it, shift-clicking will unselect or select it depending on whether it was selected or not, clicking and dragging notes will move the selected notes around on the grid. There are also basic clipboard commands, you can cut, copy, paste and delete the current selection. When you paste you will have to click where you want the clipboard content to appear. You can also middle-click outside all notes to insert a copy of the current selection there without affecting the clipboard content. The info editor =============== The third tab simply has entry fields for the songs title, author, and info. It should be obvious how to use them. Saving ====== Dino does not have any save or load commands. Instead, you should use your favourite LASH controller program to save and load entire sessions. Send bug reports and suggestions to Lars Luthman <larsl@users.sourceforge.net>