Step Seq

A step sequencer for the Flipper Zero's piezo speaker, with a melody grid and a drum row.

What it does

• Melody: one note per step across 15 pitch rows. Rows follow the chosen scale, so everything stays in key.
• Note length: a note can be short, one step, or held for 2, 3, 4, 6 or 8 steps. A held note stops early if another note starts.
• Accents: an accented note or drum plays one volume level louder, and an accented note starts with a quick blip an octave up so it still stands out at full volume.
• Chords: the speaker has one voice, so a chord is played chiptune-style by cycling quickly through its notes. A note can add its octave, its fifth, or a three-note chord built from the scale.
• Drums: kick, snare, hi-hat, open hat, clap and tom on the bottom row, made from square-wave sweeps and noise.
• One voice: a drum takes the first few milliseconds of its step and the note gets the rest.
• Patterns: eight slots, each 16 or 32 steps, with its own tempo, swing, scale, root and octave.
• Song: up to 16 places, each playing one of the patterns, looped in order.
• Scales: minor and major pentatonic, minor, major, blues and chromatic, in any root.
• Editing tools: transpose, shift left or right, random melody, and one level of undo.
• Export: writes the melody as a Flipper music file that the built-in Music Player can play.
• Saving: all patterns and the song are saved to the SD card when you quit.

Controls

Button	Action
D-pad	Move the cursor; up/down also previews the pitch
Down on the drum row	Pick the next drum sound (shown in the top bar)
OK	Place or remove a note; on the drum row, place or remove the chosen drum
Back	Play / stop
Hold OK	Open settings
Hold Back	Save and quit

What OK does

The first setting, OK sets, chooses what OK changes on the grid. The top bar shows the tool when it is not Note.

Tool	OK on a step
Note	Places or removes a note or drum
Accent	Turns the accent on or off for the step's note, or for its drum on the drum row
Length	Steps through one step, short, then 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 steps
Chord	Steps through none, octave, fifth and triad

Accent, Length and Chord act on the note already on that step, whichever row the cursor is on.

Reading the grid

• A note is a block. A short note is a narrow block, a long note has a tail, and an accented note fills its whole cell.
• One, two or three holes in a block mean an octave, fifth or triad chord.
• Drums: a filled block is a kick, a hollow block is a snare, a dash is a hi-hat, two dashes are an open hat, a cross is a clap and a round blob is a tom. A bar above a drum is an accent.
• In a 32-step pattern the screen shows 16 steps at a time and follows the cursor; the two blocks in the top bar show which half you are on.

Settings

Setting	Values
OK sets	Note, Accent, Length or Chord
Pattern	1 to 8
Play	Pattern (loop this one) or Song
Edit song	Opens the song editor
Tempo	60 to 240 bpm
Swing	Off, or 54% to 70%
Length	16 or 32 steps
Scale, Root, Octave	The key the pitch rows follow
Volume	1 to 5, shared by all patterns
Transpose	Moves every note down (Left) or up (Right) a row
Shift steps	Rotates the pattern a step left or right
Random melody	Replaces the melody with a random one in the scale; drums are kept
Undo	Takes back the last edit; again to redo it
Copy to next	Copies this pattern into the next slot and switches to it
Clear pattern	Empties the current pattern
Export .fmf	Writes a music file for the Music Player

Use Left/Right to change a value. Actions marked "press >" run when you press Right.

Song

In the song editor, Left/Right pick one of 16 places and Up/Down choose the pattern that plays there (a dash is an empty place and is skipped). Set Play to Song and press Back: the patterns play in order and loop, each at its own tempo, and the grid follows along.

Export

Export .fmf writes music_player/StepSeq_P1.fmf (for pattern 1, and so on) or, when Play is set to Song, music_player/StepSeq_Song.fmf. Open it in Apps, Media, Music Player.

The music format holds a single melody, so drums, chords, accents and swing are left out, a song uses its first pattern's tempo, and a held note whose length the format cannot write is rounded down with a rest.

Build and install

You need ufbt, the Flipper app build tool:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade ufbt

With the Flipper connected over USB (and qFlipper closed), build, install and start the app:

ufbt launch

It installs to Apps → Media → Step Seq. To build without a device, run ufbt and copy dist/step_seq.fap to apps/Media on the SD card.

License

MIT