TK-707 Home Page

An "7x7" type midi drum sequencer for Linux,

based on functionality of Roland's TR-707

Current Version is 0.8 (March, 2005).

We are keen for people to try it and send comments & suggestions to:

Chris Willing
and
Pierre Saramito

Screen shots

Showing alternate 727 sound map.
Notice the flam and the accent on the grid (new feature).

Full size (101 kb)
Half size (54 kb)

Installation requires

Tcl/Tk (version 8.0 or higher).
Alsa sound driver/lib installed.
Both the old 0.5.x and the new 0.9.x and 1.x version branches are supported.
Any sound card supported by Alsa

Browse also the Alsa-supported soundcard matrix. Notice that all sound card supported by linux are supported by Alsa.

In order to hear the music, you should also have a MIDI output working on your host computers, either

An Alsa-supported sound card with internal MIDI sequencer.
Or any external MIDI sound module.
If you have neither internal nor external MIDI output on our computer, any cheap audio card supported by Alsa
together with the timidity software MIDI render will be sufficient. See the TK-707 intallation manual for more.

You should also consult the Sound and MIDI home page for more informations about MIDI.

Demonstration

Download and hear a son montuno (Cuban 6/8 traditional) sample:

MIDI format son-montuno.mid (2 kb).
MP3 compressed audio format son-montuno.mp3 (485 kb)
WAV audio format son-montuno.wav (3862 kb)

This sample uses accents, flams and polyrythms features of TK-707 together with the latin percussion sound map distributed with TR-707.

Here are two complete pieces designed with TK-707:

a samba orchestra samba-carioca.mp3 (3444 kb).
a conga solo guaguanco.mp3 (1992 kb).

The high quality MP3 audio bases on true instrument samples.

Current functionalities

Create tracks & patterns, including "tap" write and polyrhythmic patterns
Play tracks & patterns directly to external MIDI devices
Save/Load pattern & track state
Export Midi File Format files of single tracks
(for playmidi, pmidi, melplay and other MIDI players)
Import or create alternate instrument maps.
Default map is suitable for Roland TR-707 & D-110.
The distribution contains a map for the latin percussion TR-727 and two original demonstrations maps a Cuban traditional one (7c7), and samba batucada one (7b7).
Play along live while track plays
Volume control panel for instruments
Adding Accent and/or Flam is possible on each note of each pattern

Download TK-707

Browse the TK-707 documentation, also in compressed dvi (32 kb) and postscript (68 kb), and in pdf (244 kb) formats.

Download the complete distribution tk707-0.8.tar.gz (352 kb).

CVS access

The source code is now available via CVS access at Savannah:

    setenv CVS_RSH ssh
    cvs -z3 -d:ext:anoncvs@savannah.gnu.org:/cvsroot/tk707 co tk707
    cd tk707
    ./bootstrap
    ./configure
    make
    make install

Binary distributions

Binary distributions are available in two formats for various architectures:

Debian packages for the stable, testing and unstable distributions.
RPM packages (redhat, fedora, suze, ...): run rpmfinder.

How to help tk707 ?

Send comments and bug reports to the authors.
Help us to Fight For a Software Patent Free Europe:

Please, sign the petition !
Read also "Saving Europe from Software Patents" by Richard Stallman.

NEW in Version 0.8 (march 30, 2005)

Support for alsa-0.9.x and 1.x development library version.
The stable (old) alsa-0.5.x stable branch is still supported.
Minor bug fixes (font sizes, etc).

NEW in Version 0.7.21 (march 19, 2001)

Browsable user's manual from Help menu in main window.
support for flams and accents: two levels of accents and four possible flam intervals.
add two original demonstration sound maps: a Cuban traditional one (7c7.map) and samba batucada one (7b7.map).
window and font chharacter sizing problems related to screen resolution fixed. Code try to be dot-per-inch (screen resolution) independent. Add a screen size option for small screens.
many minor bug fixes and portage problems.

NEW in Version 0.6 (september 2, 2000)

Enable ternary, 6/8 and polyrythms patterns by using a change of scale on a pattern.
Installation easier with the configure script (thanks to autoconf and automake).
Documentation available in various formats, including html, postscript and pdf. texinfo.
Add a score in the window layout, associated to the control of scales.
Add instruments abbreviated labels for the volume widgets.
Change the felling of the tempo dial: use an angular dependence, associated to the circular mouvement of the mousse.

NEW in Version 0.5 (march 5, 2000)

Pattern creation/editing directly in matrix display
Copy/Paste creation of new patterns
Ouput port selection via gui at startup
Ability to modify number of steps in pattern (enables simulation of time signatures other than 4/4)
Sound map editing gui
Latin sound map (a la TR-727) as loadable file

Glitzier TK-707 home page later.

Last update: november 3, 2004.