How important is the piano roll to you?

[pdxindy]

When making music, how important is the piano roll for you? Or maybe you don't use it.

The piano roll is the most important feature if you want a fast and good workflow!

For you maybe - for me it's much slower than recording what I play

Yeah... I just record what I play. Faster and more organic sounding that painting notes for me.

Any DAW piano roll is sufficient for my minimal editing needs.

[dellboy]

Reading through the thread it seems that the majority use the piano roll. What does this mean? You click in notes with a mouse? Push, or what?

I feel sort of guilty that I play everything in from a 61 note midi controller, or synth, or guitar, and sometimes, very occasionally, on a violin. Pre-Quantize is useful for midi to get things dead on time if that's desired. And yes, I do prefer to just keep playing it over until I get it right. That's what delete is for. Never use comping. I often print straight to audio from my hardware analogue synths which are not multi-timbral,and sometimes quantize audio using Cubase audio quantize.

[legendCNCD]

Its where the most of the magic happens. I come from (Amiga) trackers so I was for a long time against piano roll, it just was weird to have it go horizontal instead of vertical, but now it is, like tracking was a second nature.

For us it is usually used for finetuning the inputted MIDI notes and data. We dont quantize 100% if it is not really needed. Better to have somekind of played feeling I guess.

[trewq]

How important it is for me depends on the extra input and transformation features.

[antic604]

I feel sort of guilty that I play everything in from a 61 note midi controller, or synth, or guitar, and sometimes, very occasionally, on a violin.

Guilty? Believe me, most - if not all - of us mouse clickers envy you! Even if I'd come up with some good riff or chord progression while fooling around on a MIDI controller, I'll loose half of it trying to click that in into the piano roll

That's why retrospective MIDI recording is a blessing, but neither Bitwig nor Reason have it and Studio One's implementation is just very unintelligent.

[xbitz]

^^^ I've bought the sheet from her and it has been my daily rage game till I was able to play it fully took 3 or 4 weeks

it was my first piece where I have had to move my hands in fully async mode still remember it at least the left is playing in loop mode

(I've learned from Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course https://www.amazon.com/Alfreds-Basic-Ad ... 882846167/ it was borning as hell but at least went step by step and all the songs can be found on youtube)

[dellboy]

I feel sort of guilty that I play everything in from a 61 note midi controller, or synth, or guitar, and sometimes, very occasionally, on a violin.

Guilty? Believe me, most - if not all - of us mouse clickers envy you! Even if I'd come up with some good riff or chord progression while fooling around on a MIDI controller, I'll loose half of it trying to click that in into the piano roll

That's why retrospective MIDI recording is a blessing, but neither Bitwig nor Reason have it and Studio One's implementation is just very unintelligent.

I would not like to give the impression that I am a good musician at any of the instruments I play. I am self taught, and it shows, just adequate enough to get by. I learnt basic guitar in my teenage years, all the basic chords. Strangely, the hardest instrument to learn to play was the violin, but it has somehow improved my playing on other instruments.

You are clearly a very bright person, and I am quite certain that if you chose to put your mind to learning to play an instrument you would soon eclipse my very modest abilities.

[dellboy]

^^^ I've bought the sheet from her and it has been my daily rage game till I was able to play it fully took 3 or 4 weeks

it was my first piece where I have had to move my hands in fully async mode still remember it at least the left is playing in loop mode

(I've learned from Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course https://www.amazon.com/Alfreds-Basic-Ad ... 882846167/ it was borning as hell but at least went step by step and all the songs can be found on youtube)

I just had a little go at playing that song, and keeping that left bass hand playing in sync is going to take some practice. I am not sure if its needed though, as it seems to just repeat many times and could be assigned to its own track leaving just the melody to play on another one. Of course, if you were performing it live, that would be another thing.

[antic604]

...I am quite certain that if you chose to put your mind to learning to play an instrument you would soon eclipse my very modest abilities.

Between full time job, 3 kids and other stuff I barely have any time for music. But indeed, I should try to set my priorities differently and finally learn to play some instrument... Perhaps I should cut my time here & on other forums - all would benefit from that

[xbitz]

^^^if there's just one piece of advice I can give you check the 'drop-roll' motions of the wrist before anything else


if you'd like to learn the piano playing without a teacher, dunno why but books skip this part, so just more brain than brawn

ps. btw. has a great channel about the different digital pianos if somebody would like to buy one

[dellboy]

...I am quite certain that if you chose to put your mind to learning to play an instrument you would soon eclipse my very modest abilities.

Between full time job, 3 kids and other stuff I barely have any time for music. But indeed, I should try to set my priorities differently and finally learn to play some instrument... Perhaps I should cut my time here & on other forums - all would benefit from that

Sounds like you already have your priorities in the right order. Family should always comes first. Anyways, I expect your children will soon be bringing home instruments from school and will need help. The dreaded recorder and screechy violin.

[MrJubbly]

Tracker‘s view is just a different method of doing more or less the same as PRV though.

As someone who started out in music using trackers, I can confirm that music trackers' note editing view and modern DAWs' piano roll views are direct equivalents. Imagine trying to use a tracker without a decent note editing view. Frustrating!

The only type of modern musical workflow I can think of where the Piano roll wouldn't necessarily be one of, if not 'the' most important aspects of a DAW, would perhaps be for musicians who primarily, or only ever record real instruments into the DAW as audio.

For anyone who records using MIDI controllers, etc. Then the Piano roll is as every bit as essential to a MIDI recording workflow, as audio-editing tools are to recorded audio.

[antic604]

Tracker‘s view is just a different method of doing more or less the same as PRV though.

As someone who started out in music using trackers, I can confirm that music trackers' note editing view and modern DAWs' piano roll views are direct equivalents. Imagine trying to use a tracker without a decent note editing view. Frustrating!

I beg to differ

Tracker's editors were built with PC keyboard input in mind, so things like note's pitch, volume, length and effects - simple, or pretty complex like in Reoise - are available without ever lifting your hands from the keyboard. I could basically input the riff or melody as fast as I could hum it.

Piano roll is built for mouse editing, so regardless whether you'd paint the notes in or record them live from MIDI controller, any editing requires using a mouse to change the operation mode. Even Ableton's step-edit mode, which is the best of any DAW I'm aware of, is still a far cry from the speed and convenience of average tracker editor.

Frankly, I'd kill for a VST with tracker-inspired MIDI pattern editor. Like Redux, but with MIDI output.

[MrJubbly]

Tracker‘s view is just a different method of doing more or less the same as PRV though.

As someone who started out in music using trackers, I can confirm that music trackers' note editing view and modern DAWs' piano roll views are direct equivalents. Imagine trying to use a tracker without a decent note editing view. Frustrating!

I beg to differ

Tracker's editors were built with PC keyboard input in mind, so things like note's pitch, volume, length and effects - simple, or pretty complex like in Reoise - are available without ever lifting your hands from the keyboard. I could basically input the riff or melody as fast as I could hum it.

Piano roll is built for mouse editing, so regardless whether you'd paint the notes in or record them live from MIDI controller, any editing requires using a mouse to change the operation mode. Even Ableton's step-edit mode, which is the best of any DAW I'm aware of, is still a far cry from the speed and convenience of average tracker editor.

Frankly, I'd kill for a VST with tracker-inspired MIDI pattern editor. Like Redux, but with MIDI output.

How does any of that, counter what I originally stated?

So, because the particular method of note/event input in piano rolls tends to favour a more mouse-centric approach than the typing-keyboard-centric workflow of trackers ... that somehow means that Piano rolls are not the modern DAW equivalent to the note editor views of music trackers?

90% of the same note/event editing tasks that you would do in trackers when building your patterns is likewise achieved in the piano roll. If you used a DAW like FL Studio, you could even follow a similar pattern-based workflow as trackers.

Comparing the two note editing views to one another, has nothing to do with the mode of input used in either. Even though, both the typing-keyboard (along with step-editing modes) and external MIDI controllers can both be used in each view for certain trackers and many DAWs.

Neither is it to suggest that one is better than the other. Merely that they are 'equivalent' to one another (in terms of the tasks they are used for) within their separate mediums.

Edit: Also, Mr Antic, your first name wouldn't happen to be 'Ped' would it by any chance?

[antic604]

How does any of that, counter what I originally stated?

Because they aren't "equivalent" to me - tracker editor is faster and covers many more features.

For me piano roll is a a worse alternative, not equal replacement