What's the difference between a sequencer and a controller?

Saw a street musician w/a keyboard that had recorded different background tracks of different instruments that he sang along with, essentially a one man band. He also had a playlist on a disk of a variety of songs. What type of keyboard does this require? Thanks.What's the difference between a sequencer and a controller?
A sequencer records and plays back MIDI data. This may be as simple as recording a song that can be replayed at the touch of a button (just like a piano roll does for a player piano), or may be as complex as recording a complicated arrangement made up of multiple parts, complete with all of the subtle changes throughout, and saving it for playback later. Most sequencers also allow editing of the sequence, giving the user word processor-like editing capabilities for their music.





A controller is a device with piano, organ, or synth-style keys, and usually a selection of knobs, buttons, and sliders. All of these transmit MIDI data to external sound modules (synthesizers), computer software synthesizers, or a hardware or software sequencer. Most keyboard controllers themselves have no internal sound-generating capability, but almost any keyboard synthesizer/workstation can act to control the sounds and parameters of other devices.

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