aseqview(1)

aseqview(1) — ALSA sequencer event viewer and filter 👑

okay so bestie, this is the manual page for aseqview(1), a little icon from the General Commands Manual, and honestly? it's giving "I make your boring command line sequencer look expensive" ✨ let's get into it

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

aseqview [-options]

that's it. that's the whole vibe. [-options] and we're off 🫶

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

aseqview is an ALSA sequencer user-client that works as an event viewer — and yes she visualizes the events she receives, like note-on/off, controls, and pitch wheels, using bar graphs, the way you see in basically every sequencer program ever. the way this works is that even a plain little command line sequencer like pmidi(1) or playmidi1(1) suddenly becomes a cool one with a graphical interface :-) no cap, that's the whole point.

and there's a second main character feature: redirection of events. aseqview can output the events it received to subscription (or any given) ports, with some modification on top — like channel mute or pitch change. because it works as a real-time filter client, those modifications get applied in real time too. obsessed. 🔥

---

🎀 CONNECTION OF SEQUENCER PORTS 🎀

✨ CONNECTION VIA CONNECTION MANAGER ✨

just run aseqview with no options at all:

% aseqview

then you connect this client to any MIDI port (e.g. 65:0) through a connection manager like aconnect(1):

% aconnect 128:0 65:0

where 128:0 is the port of aseqview. that's it, she's connected 💅

✨ DIRECT CONNECTION ✨

use the -d option with the output MIDI port:

% aseqview -d 65:0

then run a sequencer application (e.g. pmidi) and connect it to aseqview:

% pmidi -p128:0 foo.mid

where 128:0 is the port of aseqview. yup, same deal, different order 🦋

---

🌸 BUTTONS 🌸

the slider bars down at the bottom are pitch and velocity scale adjustment. you can change the current pitch +/-12 tones and the velocity scale from 0 to 200%, in real time, live, no restart, nothing. and the channel buttons from 0 to 15 are there to mute or unmute the channel — one per channel, so cute 🎀

okay now the latency part, listen up: if you need lower latency, become root and run with the -r option (or chown setuid root this program). this changes the schedule to FIFO with maximum priority. you'll get sub-msec latency in most cases. 🔥 but like, root. be normal about it.

---

💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -o, --nooutput — suppresses output to the subscription port. with this on, aseqview works only as an event viewer. viewer mode, no forwarding, periodt ✨
• -r, --realtime — sets real-time priority (see the buttons section above, the FIFO thing). this option is enabled only for root. sorry bestie, rules are rules 🙈
• -p, --ports # — sets the number of ports to be opened. default is 1. each port opens a window to visualize the events received on it, and only port 0 has the control buttons like pitch change etc. so port 0 is the main character 👑
• -s, --source addr — sets the input connection client and port. the specified port gets subscribed for input when the program starts. accepted format is client:port, client.port, or 's'. that last one means use the (default) subscription port 🫶
• -d, --dest addr — sets the output connection client and port. accepted format is the same as in the -s option. by default aseqview sends events to the subscription port, which then gets redirected to the attached ports by a connection manager like the aconnect utility. if this option is given, the events are sent only to the specified port. only. just that one. no extras 💀
• -t, --thread — run with multi-threading. this mode is used as default, so she's already doing it, but now you can say it out loud ✨
• -m, --nothread — run without multi-threading. the single-threaded option for when you feel like it 🌈
• -P, --nopiano — don't show piano bars. piano bars? gone. not invited. 🎹✖️

---

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

aconnect(1), pmidi(1) — go read those too, iykyk 💜

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>. thank you for this icon, fr fr 🫶

---

okay that's the whole page bestie, and the little line at the bottom of the original said it was from the General Commands Manual dated January 1, 2000 — so yeah, year 2000 called, and it ate 💖✨🎀 good luck with your sequencer, go make something iconic 🌸