Piano-roll replacement plugin?

[havran]

Is there such a thing as a piano-roll replacement plugin for when you like almost everything about a DAW except its piano roll?

Elsewhere I saw that someone uses Maschine in LUNA, so that's one possibility to explore, but I wonder what other people might do in such a case.

(I only mean to pose this as a general question, so please don't ask me for any specifics about what I'm using or what I'm looking for.)

[jamcat]

Not sure you're really grasping the concept of a plugin.

[audiouser720]

Loomer Architect

[swilow11]

There's a piano roll in some of the Toybox Reaktor modules but that using that alone would be insane. Particularly as you still need your daw piano roll too.

[whyterabbyt]

Not sure you're really grasping the concept of a plugin.

So are you claiming a plugin cant provide any kind of piano roll? Or that MIDI-generating plugins dont exist?
Do feel free to explain 'the concept of a plugin', particularly in terms of the MIDI handling capabilities of the various plugin APIs out there.

[sjm]

FL Studio comes as both host and plugin. Great piano roll, though I've not used it as a plugin.

[whyterabbyt]

FL Studio comes as both host and plugin.

As does MuLab.

I guess that's at least two host/plugin developers who just dont understand the concept of a plugin.

Here's another example of someone getting it all wrong, back in the 2000s. Clearly the only reason it never went 64-bit is because they realised that whole 'concept' thing.



https://www.kvraudio.com/product/phrazor_by_sonicbytes

[wintoid]

FL Studio comes as both host and plugin. Great piano roll, though I've not used it as a plugin.

Wow! Thanks for that, will investigate, and thanks to the OP for the question!

[yoursoul]

you could use a midi keyboard to play notes, directly record as audio or resample and completely exclude the piano roll from your production process. you could move these audio clips around, transpose l, cut etc. in arrangement view instead.

always found this kind of workflow interesting when seeing it somewhere else, but somehow couldnt adapt it myself. but i will come back to it, im sure.

[billinder33]

Is there such a thing as a piano-roll replacement plugin for when you like almost everything about a DAW except its piano roll?

Reaper?

[vdk-john]

reMIDI 4 piano roll isn't bad and the pads basically can be used as Live Loops (almost, you can only trigger them manually) so it allows to sketch a few different ideas and then drag and drop the midi into your DAW

[mdstudio]

Is there such a thing as a piano-roll replacement plugin for when you like almost everything about a DAW except its piano roll?

Reaper?

Probably not, Reaper's piano roll can be configured to do almost anything.

[Ah_Dziz]

There are many hosts that include a piano roll and can be run as a plugin. There are many more (mostly modular) plugins that can be used to make all types of interesting sequencers and midi generators and they could stand in for a piano roll in some circumstances.

Knowing what it is you are using along with what your problem is with it would be very useful for coming up with possible workarounds.

[billinder33]

Is there such a thing as a piano-roll replacement plugin for when you like almost everything about a DAW except its piano roll?

Reaper?

Probably not, Reaper's piano roll can be configured to do almost anything.

Yeah that's the thing, Reaper's default setting choices make no sense at all. You almost have to reconfigure all the most common actions for it to be usable.

[BONES]

Is there such a thing as a piano-roll replacement plugin for when you like almost everything about a DAW except its piano roll?

I find it interesting that people put so much store in their PR. I've found them all to be much of a muchness over the years. I loved the PR in Orion and it took me a long time to get used to every other PR but, ultimately, once you learn them, they all do what you need them to do.

Elsewhere I saw that someone uses Maschine in LUNA, so that's one possibility to explore, but I wonder what other people might do in such a case.

I was quite keen to get to grips with Maschine, as a replacement for Orion, but I found its sequencer absolutely horrible. I just could not get my head into the workflow it demanded. As I recall, the PR was OK, like any of them, but trying to build an arrangement did my f**king head in. I should give it another go as I'd probably be more comfortable with it now that I've dabbled in several other host applications.

FL Studio comes as both host and plugin.

As does NI's Maschine. I don't see any value in using a full-featured DAW like FL as a plugin, whereas something a little more stripped down, like Maschine, at least makes some sense.

Anyway, the thing is that surely the hassle of nesting your plugins within something that gives you piano roll functionality will result in far worse workflow than just learning to get everything you can out of your DAW's piano roll? You'll end up adding five extra steps to save two.