Best DAW for piano roll edit

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I have been using ableton and only ableton to produce music. However, I recently noticed 2 things
First, is that 90% of my work includes editing recorded paino roll MIDI from my digital piano and secondly is that ableton's piano roll uhm not so good.

So which DAW actually has the most intuitive piano rolls in terms of (easy to use, more options) without being overly complicated.

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Back in the days I used FL Studio because of it's piano roll. It's pretty, it's intuitive. But then I switched to Reaper (better performance, stability and audio recording/editing) and never looked back since. It takes a while to set up to suite your workflow, but to me it wasn't an issue as at the moment I already knew exactly what I want from piano roll.

I've heard Studio One has awesome midi-editing capabilities too. It less cpu-effective compared to Reaper, but looks prettier and is more intuitive to start with.

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I always thought FL Studio's Piano Roll 'Special Tricks' were only valid if it were used with a image-line VSTi, Maybe that's changed so probably wrong on that.
The best environment for powerful MIDI-Pattern editing is the tracker & is also the most precise. Something like Renoise or OpenMPT with the ability of as many keys as needed for a track plus many FX lanes that cover so much PER NOTE plus being able to see exactly what is going on with precision hands down beats most all piano rolls & we are not even yet talking track automation with curves live or drawn in.
Visualize it this way, say in Protrekkr I wish to select a specific range of notes across 6 tracks out of 12 to copy/paste or save as a pattern template I can do this in seconds try that in a piano roll even one that allows other 'rolls' to be seen in transparent 'blobs' then figure out how to pick 6 of the 12 of a PORTION of the events.

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FL Studio. The "special tricks" aren't why. There are a few features (slide notes for example) that only native plugins have, but that's a completely different kettle of fish. The interface is still the same, whatever the plugin format.

What makes FL Studio's piano work so well is the fact that gol designed the piano roll to be like a paint program. You are simply painting in notes on a piano roll canvas. It's really intuitive and really quick with a few important keyboard modifiers. You essentially only need 1 tool (brush). A lot of other DAWs really overcomplicate this with toolbars and the need to switch between various tools. That's much less of an issue if you record MIDI from a keyboard and just need to make a few choice edits. But if you're programming from scratch, it's a real time killer. The trade-off is that FL Studio really doesn't have good hardware support (there's not even proper MIDI support) and audio recording is convoluted. But if you spend most or a significant proporiton of your time working on a project in the piano roll, it saves a lot of time in the long run.

Trackers are definitely the fastest to get a skeleton up and running for certain genres. Nothing can beat them for sketching out a quick idea. However, it takes much longer to edit and polish everything. I'd love a tracker input in FL Studio, and have pitched it to the devs. A bit like how the step sequencer is great for certain types of things, you could mix and match - sketch out a quick idea using the computer keyboard (the quickest input method by far), and then do the more complicated editing in the piano roll, which is a much better visual representation and quicker for the tuning individual notes here and there. Maybe one day it'll be added...

The only other piano rolls I've used recently are Reaper (not so great but customisable if you are willing to spend time on it rather than on actually making music) and Reason (absolutely horrific). Things may have changed in other DAWs since I last used them, but in the past they all really overcomplicate the piano roll for some reason.


So my vote is FL Studio. The piano roll is about 90% of the reason I use it. There are other DAWs that would be better suited to my needs for working with external gear and recording audio. But the 5 seconds I lose per audio take because of the convoluted setup required is more than made up by the time I save in the piano roll.
Last edited by sjm on Fri Jun 23, 2023 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Thanks for the added extra SJM...Yeah, Most that I had a grasp from using FL years ago. Yeah would be nice if FL had a combo tracker with similar power set to it...

You could try Chris Nash's ReVisit which acts standalone & as plugin...Quite powerful any mode including IT2 with all it's trimmings with polyphonic MIDI controlled playback & up to 4 layers of pattern depth. With also MIDI file import you can export from the FL piano roll & drop right into ReVisit... Think about it...

https://revisit.nash.audio/default.asp

For me I guess I am mostly tracker type, I have gotten used to the spreadsheet & all info right there but some like Aodix quite cool combo piano roll & tracker. Aodix very nice 'tickless' pattern edit you can even slide notes right under each other. I have an intro where I laid down tracks on QWERTY THEN went back & applied pitch bend to bass harmonics with joystick-

https://soundcloud.com/waxing-and-wanin ... mood-intro

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I love how the piano roll works in Logic. Haven't really used others though :?

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eLawnMust wrote: Fri Feb 24, 2023 1:29 am With also MIDI file import you can export from the FL piano roll & drop right into ReVisit... Think about it...
I've tried ReVisiT a few times, albeit many, many years ago. I'd actually want to do this the other way around (which may also be possible). Sketch out the idea using the keyboard (great for arps etc.) and then switch to the piano roll to do the fine tuning where the piano roll excels.

I'd really just like it to be integrated directly in FL, like the step sequencer is. The SS is also great for quickly sketching out an idea for drums, and then I switch to the PR later on when I want to make velocity edits, move things off grid etc. etc. You'd have to be a special type of masochist to actually do your velocity edits or pitching of notes in the step sequencer :D

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1) FL Studio
2) Reaper (has its issues)
3) Ableton (with Live Enhancement Suite)

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I actually like how snappy Ableton's piano roll editor is. I love the piano roll in Studio One as well. They are both much better than the one in Reason.

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Dormant wrote: Sat Feb 11, 2023 10:07 am Back in the days I used FL Studio because of it's piano roll. It's pretty, it's intuitive. But then I switched to Reaper (better performance, stability and audio recording/editing) and never looked back since. It takes a while to set up to suite your workflow, but to me it wasn't an issue as at the moment I already knew exactly what I want from piano roll.

I've heard Studio One has awesome midi-editing capabilities too. It less cpu-effective compared to Reaper, but looks prettier and is more intuitive to start with.
What steps did you take on Reaper to make the piano roll more friendly as Fl Studio?

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Frankie.T wrote: Tue Mar 14, 2023 6:17 pm
Dormant wrote: Sat Feb 11, 2023 10:07 am Back in the days I used FL Studio because of it's piano roll. It's pretty, it's intuitive. But then I switched to Reaper (better performance, stability and audio recording/editing) and never looked back since. It takes a while to set up to suite your workflow, but to me it wasn't an issue as at the moment I already knew exactly what I want from piano roll.

I've heard Studio One has awesome midi-editing capabilities too. It less cpu-effective compared to Reaper, but looks prettier and is more intuitive to start with.
What steps did you take on Reaper to make the piano roll more friendly as Fl Studio?
I changed theme to make it pretty enough, set up keyboard and mouse shortcuts to suite my workflow, customized few toolbars and installed (and wrote) some scripts to make it piano roll I dreamed about.

It's time consuming but rewarding as hell.

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I've trialed most DAWs through their free versions and FL studio has the most accessible piano rolls. It just makes sense. Someone else already mentioned that it's like painting notes instead of inserting notes.

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FL Studio of course...but this is where the FL ends

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FL nailed the Piano Roll.

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Hi

Mixcraft has just released V10 and as a DAW it is pretty intuitive - the midi editing is likewise pretty straightforward.
I would give the demo a go:

https://acoustica.com/products/mixcraft

I am on V9, but will be upgrading very soon - I will not bother to demo it...

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