The piano roll
The piano roll shows the notes of one channel in one pattern: time from left to right, pitch from bottom to top, with a piano keyboard down the left side. Each note is a bar as long as the note lasts. It is where melodies, chords and bass lines are written and changed, note by note, and where the app tells you what the notes make.
Opening it
- Press F7, or click Piano roll in the toolbar: it opens on the selected pattern and the selected channel.
- Double-click a clip of melody or chords in the playlist, or a channel’s name in the channel rack.
- Right-click a channel’s name in the rack and pick Piano roll.
The window’s title names the pattern and the channel, as in Piano roll · Chords · Lineup Osc. When the channel plays nothing in that pattern, the piano roll says so and offers a button for each pattern where it does play; for drums it offers the channel rack, where drums are written.
Reading the grid
- The rows of the notes of the key are lighter than the others, and the rows of the key note are brown. On the keyboard, a blue dot marks each note of the key and an orange one the key note. Click a key to hear it.
- Bar lines are stronger than beat lines.
- A note wide enough on screen carries its name. A note of the chord heard where it starts is spelled as that chord spells it: in C major, the fifth of C diminished reads G♭, not F♯. Other notes are spelled as the key spells them.
- Over the grid, two rows name the chords: the first the chord this channel plays, the second, All, the chord all the channels make together.
- Above them, a line says what is under the pointer: the chord at that step, its name and its number in the key (“Am: A minor, chord vi of C major”). Another names the set of the notes, for the set theory of Beyond keys: sets, rows and micromodes.
- While the music plays, the step that sounds is shaded, and the line above the grid names the chord that sounds there.
Writing notes
| Do this | And |
|---|---|
| Click an empty place | a note goes there (hold the button down and drag to move it straight away) |
| Drag a note | it moves, in time and in pitch |
| Drag a note’s right end | it gets longer or shorter |
| Right-click a note, or right-drag over notes | they are deleted |
| Click a note | it is selected |
| Ctrl+click a note | it is added to the selection, or taken out |
| Ctrl+drag on an empty place | the notes in the box are selected |
| Drag a selected note | all the selected notes move together |
Draw, in the toolbar, says what a click puts down:
- Single note;
- Chord in key (triad) or Chord in key (seventh): the chord of the key on the note you click, with the notes the key gives it, so in C major a click on D draws Dm and on G draws G (or Dm7 and G7);
- one kind of chord, the same on any note: Major, Minor, Dominant seventh, Major seventh, Half-diminished seventh, Six-nine and the others, thirty in all;
- A set from the set browser….
For a chord, the list next to it chooses its inversion: which of its notes is lowest (see Chords and their names). The note you click stays the root. Length is how long a new note is: 1 step, 2 steps, 1 beat, 2 beats or 1 bar.
Snap to scale makes the notes you draw or move land on the notes of the key. Right-click it for Snap notes you play too, which turns the keys played on a MIDI or computer keyboard into the nearest note of the key, both when you hear them and when you record them.
The chords of the key
Under the toolbar, a button for each chord of the key, as in Chords in C major: I · C, ii · Dm, iii · Em…. Click one to hear it. Point at a chord in the grid, or hold one on a keyboard, and the chords that often come next light up, with a line that says so: “After Am (vi), try: Dm (ii), F (IV), G (V).” What chords do explains why those.
Tools
The Tools menu changes the selected notes, or every note when none is selected:
| Tool | Key |
|---|---|
| Up a semitone, Down a semitone | ↑, ↓ |
| Up an octave, Down an octave | Shift+↑, Shift+↓ |
| Up a note in the key, Down a note in the key | Alt+↑, Alt+↓ |
| A step earlier, A step later | ←, → |
| A beat earlier, A beat later | Shift+←, Shift+→ |
| Quantize to the steps: notes played a little off the grid move onto it | |
| Snap to the key: notes outside the key move to the nearest note of the key | |
| Invert chords up, Invert chords down: the lowest note of each chord goes up an octave, or the highest down | |
| Arpeggiate chords: each chord played one note after another, up, down or up and down, at the speed chosen under Each note | |
| Select all | Ctrl+A |
| Copy, Cut, Paste, Duplicate | Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+D |
| Delete selected notes | Delete |
Up a note in the key is the musician’s way to move a tune: C E G in C major becomes D F A, a minor chord, not D F♯ A, because it stays in the key. Up a semitone moves every note by the same distance, out of the key.
Pasted or duplicated notes make the pattern longer when they need the room. Notes copied in the song can be pasted in the style editor, and the other way round.
Velocity
Under the grid, the Velocity lane shows how hard each note is played, as a bar from soft to loud. Click or drag in it to set the velocity of the notes on that step, or of the selected ones there.
Seeing the other parts
- Ghost notes shows the notes of the other channels faintly behind this one’s, so you can write a bass line that fits the chords, and names the chords they all make together.
- Voice leading draws how each voice moves from one chord to the next (see Voice leading and how parts move).
The key and the windows of sets
The Key menus at the top left are the song’s key: picking another moves the song, as described in Keys and modes. Next to them, the notes of the key are spelled out. Row…, Sets… and Micromodes… open the windows of twelve-tone rows, pitch-class sets and Kröpfl’s micromodes (see Beyond keys: sets, rows and micromodes).
Zoom
Over the piano roll, Ctrl with the mouse wheel, + or − makes the steps wider or narrower, and Alt makes the rows taller or shorter, around the pointer. Ctrl+0 takes it back to 100%.