Helio is an open-source and free music sequencer for Windows. It sports a very lightweight user interface that allows the users to focus on the music composing work rather than the confusing interface. The minimalist user interface is really intuitive for the music students who want to learn how to compose the music sequences. It supports VST and AudioUnit plugins for adding extra effects to the music. It also supports many audio output plugins such as ALSA, ASIO, CoreAudio, OpenSLES, Jack and more. The created music sequences can be saved to MIDI, WAV and FLAC audio file formats.
Helio is available as a single portable application. We can download 32-bit portable executable, 64-bit portable executable or an installer package. The installer package has both the 32-bit and 64-bit applications. If you are planning to use 64-bit plugins then you have to use 64-bit application. There is no other difference between the two in any other way.
The user interface of Helio might look a bit confusing in the beginning, but once you get started with Helio you will find that it is a gold mine of audio sequence editing. It actually helps you locate the problem zones in the sequence editor. It shows vertical red lines if two parts are over-saturated or clipped. It shows yellow vertical lines if the parts of the music sequence are not so loud compared to the rest of the neighboring regions.
For the most part, we can create music by drawing on the user interface in the fashion of piano curves. We can click on any part and choose one of the keys for the sequence. We can also attach devices to the hardware and record directly from some of the audio devices. It is a really awesome tool for learning about recording music from many difference types of audio device and edit it on the PC.
You can download Helio from https://helio.fm/.