Which DAW has the most advanced Piano Roll editor?

[funky lime]

Pros don‘t make music by drawing notes. Pros play them in. Go and get to become a pro!

many pros use whatever method is appropriate to the task at hand. that also includes writing music notation and hiring musicians to perform it (sometimes they even have a specific musician in mind whose strengths they are writing to). if you limit your musical ideas to only that which you can currently play by your own hands, you are imposing a needless artificial barrier on your output, which can drastically limit your professional prospects and inhibit your musical growth. i.e. you are limited by your motor skills (and your current inventory of gear) rather than by your imagination.

playing is the most fun though. which in a way, ironically, makes it more "amateur" in one rather specific sense of the word (amateur musician as "a lover of music")

i'm a hack though, and you probably weren't serious anyway, so don't listen to me

[BBFG#]

I play almost all of my parts (formally trained musician with a music degree), but I still make use of all the editing tools, including the draw tools for editing, adding, subtracting, and moving notes, fixing mistakes, etc.

So you are a pro? I'm not, I can't play at all, I'm a n00b/amateur....well, that's not far from the truth actually

// The Eternal N00b

There's nothing wrong with that. A lot of people who can't play an instrument or read a note make music. That's one of the great things about DAWs - they've made it easy for anyone with a computer, an idea, and the motivation to make music. You can take it as far as you want.

They don't really make it, they just produce it. And if some rely on those tools and others to do the job, then they're really just contractors more than musicians.

And we always know who they are. They're the ones arguing that their lack of ability to play should be the norm.
I can't stand sample loops. And if I hear one I like, I use it only to listen to and learn to play myself. And from that it takes on a life of it's own within me. The Bach Etudes are studies to learn and practice, and loops can be equal only to that from my experience.

We used to have a button in the corps circuit for anyone that understood this and remind those that didn't.
"Go home and practice."
And if your not getting better at your instrument and deeper in knowing, why even bother?

[twal]

Disagree, if you make great records no matter how you do it (besides layering construction kits) then it gets a checkmark in my book. You don't have to do anything but merely be the guy or gal in the room pointing for others to do the work for it to be great to me; and I will for sure not get into why that is so on here because you can't teach with words. There are great producers who do this and to me that is still a special thing if a hit record gets produced. A lot of self righteous people on here who somehow believe that because they can play the piano they are somehow amazing musicians. Go ahead and disect the terms producer and musician. To me, you don't have to be able to play or do ANYTHING at all in order to be a significant factor in the making of a great record as long as you are a major factor of it coming so (No not spending the money to make it happen or some other obscure reason someone may come up with). Does that just make you a producer? Or perhaps less? Does that make you NOT a musician? I don't care for the word musician, if you are a big reason for a record being produced because of your influence you are a "great person with music". Take someone like P. Diddy, you may think he is not a "musician" or even a "producer" for that matter, but heck he made hit music; and you may not like it, or thing anything of that matter, and that is fine; but, most people on here couldn't get a dog to roll over and credit should be given where it is do. AND NO not all great producers PLAY their keys. There are so many great "music makers" that do not. They deserve a lot more respect than a fantastic keyboard player in here who wants to define musicianship. I am not some person who is fighting for the position I am presenting here because I can't read music, or cannot play instruments. I can do so, and was part of elementary, middle school, and high school concert, symphonic, marching band, before school, after school, summer band camp and all of that. I don't need to get into that, but some people need to get a clue about real life and what music is about...

[BBFG#]

There's the rationale. And of course you do. Thank you for proving my point.

[starflakeprj]

Pros don‘t make music by drawing notes. Pros play them in. Go and get to become a pro!

So, makes me wonder, do you draw, or do you play?

I am a drawer, who wants to be a player

I'm definitely not a player, hardly a drawer either. You should see my stick figures, and then you can imagine how my drawing in the DAW looks like (or sound like, in this case)

[Yorrrrrr]

I don't know much about others (beside Fruity Loops), but Ableton Live is right now in a very advanced state.

[EnGee]

I play almost all of my parts (formally trained musician with a music degree), but I still make use of all the editing tools, including the draw tools for editing, adding, subtracting, and moving notes, fixing mistakes, etc.

The same here except that I’m self taught and have no degree.
I like to work with S1, Live, Cubase and Logic’s piano roll. I don’t like Reaper or FL Studio piano roll for they have strange workflow/shortcuts. I rarely use samples or audio loops but I use sample based synths and midi loops/audio samples for drums. I play most of my music and edit after that if I feel the need for it.

[funky lime]

They don't really make it, they just produce it. And if some rely on those tools and others to do the job, then they're really just contractors more than musicians.

And we always know who they are. They're the ones arguing that their lack of ability to play should be the norm.
I can't stand sample loops. And if I hear one I like, I use it only to listen to and learn to play myself. And from that it takes on a life of it's own within me. The Bach Etudes are studies to learn and practice, and loops can be equal only to that from my experience.

We used to have a button in the corps circuit for anyone that understood this and remind those that didn't.
"Go home and practice."
And if your not getting better at your instrument and deeper in knowing, why even bother?

Debussy and Ravel didn't play strings; they were pianists, but still managed to compose some bitchin' string quartets and symphonies. John Williams never played french horn, or flute, or english horn, but uses them all very effectively in his compositions. I guess these guys really shouldn't have even bothered, right? They should have stayed in their lane and wrote nothing but solo piano works?

Instruments are great, and everybody should play them, yeah. But being a good instrumentalist and a good composer are two totally different (but complementary) disciplines. I've never touched a cello in my life (i hope to learn someday), but I still listen to lots of cello and try to write idiomatically for it when needed. I also use DAW automation instead of live fader-riding when doing mixes; does this mean I'm not really mixing?

There's really no need to gatekeep; music is a journey with many paths. Good music is good music, whether it was written with a pencil, clicked in a piano roll, chopped up from samples, or played live in one take.

[BBFG#]

Without being an instrumentalist, your just an AI meatbag. And the non-meatbag will surpass them.
You don't have to be a virtuoso on every instrument, but it helps. Of you've at least played a few to understand them. And you do need to be intimate with at least one if you want to transcend.
But again, thank you for proving my point. Keep arguing that you're as good as any instrumentalist without actually being an instrumentalist.
BTW, those composers you mentioned all knew of the other term used in their field and what they did partly was strive to not be one of those. It's still used today and can be seen often. Even though they're trying to now own it as a positive, it never will be.

[funky lime]

Without being an instrumentalist, your just an AI meatbag. And the non-meatbag will surpass them.
You don't have to be a virtuoso on every instrument, but it helps. Of you've at least played a few to understand them. And you do need to be intimate with at least one if you want to transcend.
But again, thank you for proving my point. Keep arguing that you're as good as any instrumentalist without actually being an instrumentalist.

I play several instruments and have been in bands and/or performing solo all my life. And never once did I claim that I'm good. But hey, enjoy whatever strawman that makes you feel superior and helps you "transcend"

[BBFG#]

Not trying to feel superior to anyone except myself. And that's why I practice to be a better musician. As is pointed out throughout this thread, anyone can produce. Hell, it doesn't even take that much imagination when everyone else supplies the tools, skills and talents.

[TheHansen01]

They don't really make it, they just produce it. And if some rely on those tools and others to do the job, then they're really just contractors more than musicians.

And we always know who they are. They're the ones arguing that their lack of ability to play should be the norm.
I can't stand sample loops. And if I hear one I like, I use it only to listen to and learn to play myself. And from that it takes on a life of it's own within me. The Bach Etudes are studies to learn and practice, and loops can be equal only to that from my experience.

We used to have a button in the corps circuit for anyone that understood this and remind those that didn't.
"Go home and practice."
And if your not getting better at your instrument and deeper in knowing, why even bother?

John Williams never played french horn...

[fwsuperhero]

Fl Studio / Cubase

[jlgrimes11]

I've been writing a jazz keyboard solo and trying to make it sound realistic. Most DAWs just have a pencil and an eraser tool for writing on the piano roll. Whilst this most basic toolset is all that's needed to write music, it would be nice to have other tools as well that help us get the job done faster without head scratching.

Look at Photoshop that has all kinds of different brushes and erasers. The different brushes in Photoshop pretty much act like presets and draw lines with customized shapes. You can draw the same lines with just the basic brush but it will take you much longer.

How about pen tool that only draws notes with the tiny timing variations, pitch and loudness inflections that give jazz music its feel? How about a tool for writing notes that have certain probabilities and conditions?

Probably for what you want there really isn't a best piano roll.

For minor imperfections, you might be better just turning off the grid and painting them by hand (or playing them by hand).

Almost every sequencer has a Groove Quantize feature as well (or some alternative form of this).


Piano Rolls are personal things. Many people love FL Studio (a few hate it), same with Cubase, Logic (or insert your favorite or shittiest DAW). Some piano rolls that are known for being notorious, you always have the few people who love those workflows and claim it to be the best thing since sliced bread.

Problem is that everybody use Piano Rolls for slightly different reasons, so try to get opinions from people who are doing what you are doing.

Me, I use them less for melodies and general basic editing/note correction or for writing drums, so I love Ableton's simplistic piano roll (but that is just me as many people hate Ableton here).

[Yorrrrrr]

I no longer see the charm in FL Studio's piano roll, other than aesthetic reasons (but this is subjective). Maybe it's the ability to left click/right click to draw and delete notes? Stamp chords? Whatever. Ableton's to me it's far more functional.