tek

a music making program for 24-bit unicode terminals.

written in rust with ratatui on crossterm for jack and pipewire.

tek is available as source, statically linked binaries, and on the aur.

hmu on mastodon @unspeaker@mastodon.social or matrix @unspeaker:matrix.org

usage

Usage: tek [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>

Commands:
  clock      A standalone transport clock
  sequencer  A MIDI sequencer
  sampler    A MIDI-controlled audio sampler
  groovebox  Sequencer and sampler together
  arranger   Multi-track MIDI sequencer
  mixer      TODO: A MIDI-controlled audio mixer
  track      TODO: A customizable channel strip
  plugin     TODO: An audio plugin host
  help       Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -n, --name <NAME>                  Name of JACK client
  -S, --sync-lead                    Whether to attempt to become transport master
  -s, --sync-follow                  Whether to sync to external transport master
  -b, --bpm <BPM>                    Initial tempo in beats per minute
  -t, --show-clock                   Whether to include a transport toolbar (default: true)
  -I, --midi-from <MIDI_FROM>        MIDI outs to connect to (multiple instances accepted)
  -i, --midi-from-re <MIDI_FROM_RE>  MIDI outs to connect to (multiple instances accepted)
  -O, --midi-to <MIDI_TO>            MIDI ins to connect to (multiple instances accepted)
  -o, --midi-to-re <MIDI_TO_RE>      MIDI ins to connect to (multiple instances accepted)
  -l, --left-from <LEFT_FROM>        Audio outs to connect to left input
  -r, --right-from <RIGHT_FROM>      Audio outs to connect to right input
  -L, --left-to <LEFT_TO>            Audio ins to connect from left output
  -R, --right-to <RIGHT_TO>          Audio ins to connect from right output
  -h, --help                         Print help
  -V, --version                      Print version

keymaps

• arrows/wasd: navigate
• tab: toggle editor
• enter: write note
• z: unlock zoom
• - / =: zoom midi editor
• space: play/pause
• esc: options
• f1: help/command list
• f2: rename
• f6: save
• f9: load

installation

• requirements: linux; jack or pipewire; 24-bit terminal (i use kitty)
• recommended: midi controller; samples in wav format; lv2 plugins.

arch linux

tek is available as a package in the AUR. you can install it using an AUR helper (e.g. paru):

paru -S tek

downloads

see the releases page.

building from source

you'll need a Rust toolchain and various system libraries.

you can obtain the former using rustup and the latter using nix-shell. there's a shell.nix provided with the project.

from there, use the commands in the Justfile, e.g.:

just arranger

note that tek > 0.2.0-rc.7 will require rust nightly for the unstable features type_alias_impl_trait and impl_trait_in_assoc_type. make some noise for lucky rust rfc2515 if you want to see this buildable with stable/beta.

design goals

• inspired by trackers and hardware sequencers, but with the critical feature that 90s samplers lack: able to resample, i.e. record while playing!

• pop-up scratchpad for musical ideas. low resource consumption, can stay open in background. but flexible enough to allow expanding on compositions

• human- and machine- readable project format simple representation for project data enable scripting and remapping.