Top-down piano rolls?

[himalaya]

It is much easier to go 'oh, that is a c chord' and 'hear' what is onscreen. It would be just way more musical. Not instead of, but in addition to what is standard now.

Exactly! (even though it is easy to spot a c chord in the vertical view but less easy to read abstract block chords I'd play at night after a few glasses of wine ).

[Jace-BeOS]

Why would controller lanes have to be lost on such a view? Rotate them too.

Really, as said before me, with all the ways in which we are able to slide and move screen elements around, this is a logical feature to have. The static quality of many current GUI components isn't exactly the best way, as many other GUI components show. We're seeing animation added where it assists in eye tracking and cognitive flow, so why not in a piano roll?

(The first DAW I expect to find this will not be Sonar, I can tell you that - Sonar has prettied the buttons and window dressing a bit but the views are still clunky and jerky)

[No_Use]

There's an older article with some thoughts on this.

http://www.bikexprt.com/cakewalk/pianorol1.htm

[Hink]

I'm talking about an option, an alternate view, not something you would use all the time. But for arranging some things it could be helpful. I am just wondering 'why not'. And sure, I used Master Tracks back in the 80's and that was all left>right. Just with technology we can do things and present things in so many ways, and this seems like a useful way to me.

It's hard to think of the proposal as "alternative", since I don't know anyone who plays keyboard instruments by sitting with keys perpendicular to them. Even I, known to play the piano from above by laying lengthwise on the piano case, have never tried that. Standing with right up against the "low A" end, I can lean over and just barely reach to the high C. And this is exactly how I perceive the vertical orientation of the keyboard in piano roll sequencers...

I would not want such a piano roll because I am use to what is the norm now, but I'm not getting the perpendicular reference. Like you said, a keyboard laid out in front of you has the keys going from left to right but on my piano rolls the keys from down to up while the timeline goes from left to right...

[jancivil]

well, for a Chinese reader chronology goes from top to bottom so, no problem I suppose.

I think no one said you'd lose the controller lanes, but the chronology is now from top to bottom. that isn't intuitive to me, YMMV I guess. I think of music in terms of sonority, in intervals, high = high, low = low, and left to right is the way I weigh intervals in chronology.

Has anyone here ever written automation/controller lanes top to bottom? left = less, right = more?

[drjohnny79]

I used this... It's pattern based. Seems it's available for win now:
http://www.ronimusic.com/s16_win.htm



/Johnny

Just in case someone didnt see my post.



/Johnny

[jancivil]

90's stylee!

[Hink]

90's stylee!

does it scare you half as much as it scares me that 90s is now retro?

[VitaminD]

Yeah we basically had this with MOD trackers in the 80s and 90s. Man I hated it. It is also the way Synthesia (http://synthesiagame.com/) works too. My eyes would still try to track up and down for awhile even after the music had stopped.

[kippertoffee]

Aodix (I seem to remember)

http://www.aodix.com/pageaodixv4.html

[james0tucson]

well, for a Chinese reader chronology goes from top to bottom so, no problem I suppose.

I think no one said you'd lose the controller lanes, but the chronology is now from top to bottom. that isn't intuitive to me, YMMV I guess. I think of music in terms of sonority, in intervals, high = high, low = low, and left to right is the way I weigh intervals in chronology.

Has anyone here ever written automation/controller lanes top to bottom? left = less, right = more?

It's because it's a "piano roll" idiom that the orientation shift bothers me. If it represented a transverse flute fingering, I'd be bothered if it wasn't vertical. On the other hand, I don't know many people who work with standard notation who would be very willing to tolerate the staff being rotated 90 degrees. I understand your point with respect to chronology and intervals, but as a piano player (old enough to have worked with piano rolls when they were 'merely antique' and not quite the historical artifact that they are today , it bothers me a lot to see a piano keyboard represented as if I'm sitting to the left of it looking across the keys. I want it to be from the point of view of the performer, and anything else feels completely wrong and contrived. It would bother me a lot less if it didn't try to look like a piano keyboard. Maybe it's not the orientation that bothers me, as much as it's a piano keyboard in the wrong orientation.