Patroneo

Program version 2.4.0

Patroneo (which is Esperanto for "Pattern") is an easy to use, pattern based midi sequencer, a program that sends digital "notes" to software instruments such as synthesizers and samplers.

This program is feature-complete with version 2.4.0 in 2022. Further releases will be limited to maintenance and fixing problems.

Patroneo was initially designed for educational purposes, where the main goal is to teach the importance of patterns and repetitions in any kind of music. However, Patroneo is a full sequencer you can use to create real music. The constraints it presents will more likely boost your creativity than suppressing it.

You have tracks with one pattern each. Turn on steps in the pattern to play musical notes. Switch the patterns on and off in a sequence to create a song structure. Connect external synthesizers and samplers to create sounds.

This README is just a short introduction. Consult the manual (see below) for more information.

Contact and Information

• Website https://www.laborejo.org
• Bugs and Issues: https://www.laborejo.org/bugs
• Git Repositories for all programs: https://git.laborejo.org
• Documentation and Manual https://www.laborejo.org/documentation/patroneo

Installation and Starting

Download

Release Version

If the latest release is not available through your package manger you can build it yourself: Download the latest code release on https://www.laborejo.org/downloads and extract it.

Git Version

It is possible to clone a git repository.

git clone https://git.laborejo.org/lss/patroneo.git

Dependencies

• Python 3.6 (maybe earlier)
• PyQt5 for Python 3
• PyQt OpenGL and SVG modules, if they are separated in your distribution
• DejaVu Sans Sarif TTF (Font) (recommended, but not technically necessary)
• libcalfbox-lss https://git.laborejo.org/lss/libcalfbox-lss

Environment:

• Jack Audio Connection Kit must be running
• Optional: Agordejo / New Session Manager ("NSM")

Build

./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
sudo make install

Starting

There are multiple ways to run Patroneo which should give you the flexibility to configure your system as you want.

We make no distinction if you installed Patroneo yourself or through the distributions package-manager.

The differences are: With or without Agordejo, with or without sound, installed or from the source dir.

Installed , running through Agordejo (New Session Manager) (recommended)

Starting Patroneo through Agordejo after you installed patroneo system-wide is the recommended and only supported way. Start agordejo and load or create a new session. Then use the program launcher to add patroneo. It should appear with an icon in the list and open its GUI.

Installed without Agordejo

If you start patroneo directly it will present you with a dialog to choose your session directory.

You can also start patroneo from a terminal (or create a starter script).

patroneo --save DIRECTORY

Uses the given directory to save. The dir will be created or loaded from if already present. Use the applications file menu to save (Ctrl+s).

You can use this to load and save the files from an existing NSM session. If you create a new directory you can copy it manually to an NSM session directory, but that requires renaming the directory to append the unique ID provided by NSM.

Sending SIGUSR1 to the program in this mode will trigger a save.

Closing through your window manager in this mode will actually quit the application without a prompt to save changes.

From source directory

You can run Patroneo after extracting the release archive or cloning from git, without installation.

From source directory with NSM

The developer uses this way to develop and use the software, so it will always be as stable as the compiled version. But it is a bit less performant than building and installing it.

After extracting the release archive create a symlink from patroneo into your PATH. e.g. /usr/bin or ~/bin, if that exists on your system.

If you compiled without installing you can also symlink to ./patroneo.bin

From source dir without NSM

Use ./patroneo --save (see above). If you compiled without installing you can also run ./patroneo.bin

No NSM, no Make, No Sound

Combining the above options you can start the program directly after unpacking or cloning from git:

./patroneo --save /tmp --mute

Or even shorter:

./patroneo -s /tmp -m

This is the minimal run mode which is only useful for testing and development. But if you only want to look at the GUI and are not in the mood to install anything -including dependencies-, go ahead.