The best pianoroll/midi editing sequencer on the market?

[Sascha Franck]

I still think Logic can't be beaten for its MIDI editing capabilities.
The piano roll basically is what you make out of it and it's the *only* sequencer which will show your quantize settings when selecting a part. Which is already taking away most of the burdens when working with MIDI. Other sequencers will just leave you in the dark, hopelessly staring at somen probably misplaced notes in whatever piano roll.

[BONES]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Care to clarify?

EW! yuck. yeah. double-click sucks. But you also must know that it is much better to hold down the alt key for note entry. Regular clicking is best for selection of multiple note and such. Alt is the real way to go. Ill check out that motu thing.

You're yankin' my chain, right? That's even more stupid and less intuitive.

[Sascha Franck]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Care to clarify?

Me?

[Caleb]

EW! yuck. yeah. double-click sucks. But you also must know that it is much better to hold down the alt key for note entry. Regular clicking is best for selection of multiple note and such. Alt is the real way to go. Ill check out that motu thing.

You're yankin' my chain, right? That's even more stupid and less intuitive.

It is less intuitive - I agree.
But once you start using it this way it doesn't really occur to you that it's unintuitive.

At first I was a bit put off by it, but I barely notice it now.

Also, you can enter the note, the length you want and adjust the velocity - yes with a modifier but that ain't too bad.

I was also referring to the enhancements eXT has made to keyboard entry of notes. I don't use them myself, but those strike me as another advance in note entry - possibly appeals more to the tracker/ex-tracker crowd.

Regards
Caleb

[BONES]

Me?

Yes you! What do you mean by "it's the *only* sequencer which will show your quantize settings when selecting a part". Does that mean the quantising is non-destructive? i.e. Can you change or remove it?

It is less intuitive - I agree.
But once you start using it this way it doesn't really occur to you that it's unintuitive.

Still, I think that the most common tasks should be the easiest so left-click to enter notes seems more appropriate.

Also, you can enter the note, the length you want and adjust the velocity - yes with a modifier but that ain't too bad.

I think you can do that in ORION now, too.

I was also referring to the enhancements eXT has made to keyboard entry of notes. I don't use them myself, but those strike me as another advance in note entry - possibly appeals more to the tracker/ex-tracker crowd.

You mean using the PC keyboard as an ersatz piano keyboard? I've done that once or twice in ORION but its not something I'd really use.

[TVD]

The pianoroll within FLS is the best that I use.

[Sascha Franck]

Me?

Yes you! What do you mean by "it's the *only* sequencer which will show your quantize settings when selecting a part". Does that mean the quantising is non-destructive? i.e. Can you change or remove it?

A) There's a socalled "part parameter" box which is always available.
In that box you can set various parameters (such as velocity, dynamics, delay, transpositions, whatever), quantization being one of them. This box is available straight in your arrange. So, when you select whatever part, you instantly know how it is quantized (or delayed, or dynamically tweaked or whatever). Makes it easy to compare parts and their quantize settings. And of course all this is completely non-destructive. And as said: Logic is the only sequencer offering such a thing for quantization.

B) From what I know, quantization is non-destructive in all sequencers (well, at least it should be), but I'm really only familiar with Logic and Cubase. But then, in Cubase for example, you can only go back to the original material you recorded (or edited/painted in) whereas in Logic it's a piece of cake to, say, change a 60% swing setting to some 58% one - you just drag your mouse over the appropriate value entry field in said parameter box. Now, you can change the swing value in Cubase as well, but you never know what you did before.

The benefits of this are quite clear. It's very easy to fool around with various q-settings and you have direct visual control over them, all without ever opening any piano roll.
In Cubase, to find out what was quantized how, you gotta look at the part in the piano roll, probably set to a 16th note grid and then try to find out how much something was quantized by staring at the small offsets from whatever note compared to the grid.

Really, this is one of *the* key features why I just shelled out the money for a Macbook, to stay with an up to date Logic version.
I admit: Other people may not need these things, but for what I'm doing I wouldn't want to live without it anymore.

[BONES]

Once you apply quantising in ORION, its applied AFAIK, or you can quantise on the way in. I don't see any advantage in being able to see the settings at a later time, unless you want to see how clever you were by being almost in time. Mind you, I don't see any advantage in playing stuff in at all, using a mouse is far more efficient.

[Sascha Franck]

Once you apply quantising in ORION, its applied AFAIK, or you can quantise on the way in. I don't see any advantage in being able to see the settings at a later time, unless you want to see how clever you were by being almost in time. Mind you, I don't see any advantage in playing stuff in at all, using a mouse is far more efficient.

Horses for courses. As usual. For my way of treating music, I see a *lot* of advantages. But then, you may not like the same things I do. No problem with that at all.

[BONES]

Or maybe you know something I don't. So what do you see as the advantages?

[Sascha Franck]

Or maybe you know something I don't. So what do you see as the advantages?

I'm re-quantizing stuff all the time. And I'm also using different quantize values for different parts. That's when Logic's part parameter box comes in extremely handy.
Oh, whatever groove templates (probably generated out of an audio file) show up in there as well. Something else I'm using quite sometimes, especially since you can easily adjust how much, say, a naturally recorded shaker's groove template would apply to whatever other part.

Seriously, for stuff such as most dance music you wouldn't need any of these. And very often I'm getting away with straight quantization as well. But whenever you really need to "finetune" your quantizations, Logic is really doing an excellent job.

[TeeLangSun]

Best piano roll to me is Cubase's. One of it's cooler features is the "iterative quantize" command where after you've performed a part and that part is somewhat out of time, you can use this command and it will gradually move towards the grid each time you do the command. If I'm going for a feel which is out of time, I can play it the way I like, then adjust it to get it closer to what I want it to sound like. Very cool.

Another cool feature is that you can you can preview not just single notes, but chords. This is great for when you're editing notes in the piano roll and want to hear a chord without pressing play or moving the position marker around. Just hold Control and click one of the notes in the chord and it will preview the chord, not just that note.

Other cool things, one tool does everything I need to do without ever changing tools by using various key modifiers. Multiple midi parts from different tracks/instruments can be edited in a single piano roll without having to switch anything.

Editing is pretty smooth.

Another cool thing in general about Cubase (also supported to varying degrees in other applications) is that you can access a "pan" tool which is exactly like the pan tool in photoshop by pressing down the mousewheel. It's awesome. You can zoom in really close on anything in Cubase including the piano roll or a piece of audio. Cut, resize, move, delete, or whatever you need to do, then quickly pan over a little and continue editing. It doesn't get any faster than this for editing and I can't think of any program where this is supported better. Any window in Cubase can be moved around this way. The pan can move a window in any direction. Not on the Mac though. LOL. Logic has some very weird support for this but it's very hard to control and the movement is unpredictable much like when you press down on the mousewheel in a web browser. The movement is not a simple 1:1 ratio with the mouse. I'm probably a little off topic here, but as applied to the piano roll, this is an amazingly good way of moving around and editing notes.

[annode]

I can see that there is no real consensus on a best seqr. host.
Doesn't suprise me.No one seqr. is that bad...they are all pretty good for most ppl.

I believe the biggest problem writing and editing within a grid is the tool you do it with "THE MOUSE".
Except for some common kwerty moves,the mouse is your finest tool for articulations in the grid,and that's just not exceptable!

There are video pen touch screens available if you wish to study the technology in order to understand how to choose a type that has the resolution neccessary for writing/editing...and one you can afford.
There are kits availible,but the 3 wire kit screens don't have the best touch rez.
The 4 wire screens are not home installed,unless your electronically inclined.The company will ask you to send your monitor to them for install...or you can buy the monitor with touch screen from them.

In any case.Why these screens haven't been aimed at we DAW users is beyond my understanding.I'll bet the graphic artists are targeted,but I don't know for sure.

The person that produces an affordable pen touch screen aimed at the DAW user can possibly become a wealthy man.

[mn]

touch screen

I want one of - (YouTube link; Jeff Han talking at TED)

[annode]

Hi mn !

That was pretty cool.
He's right,I believe.We need to add a better human interface technique/device to the mouse and keyboard.
For us...DAW users,the technology is commercially available.
Why doesn't anyone of us own one???????