Choose a part
Pick the instrument you want to write for on the shelf (Lead, Harmony or Bass), or with the tabs above the piano roll: PULSE 1 is the Lead, PULSE 2 the Harmony and TRIANGLE the Bass. Everything you draw goes to that part in the pattern you have open.
The other parts show faintly behind your notes, so you can see what the bass is doing while you write the lead. The GHOST checkboxes turn that on or off for each part.
Placing and editing notes
- Place
- Click an empty cell. Drag across the grid to paint several notes in a row.
- Remove
- Click a note and let go without moving it, or right-click it. Right-drag erases a run.
- Move
- Drag the body of a note to a new pitch or time.
- Lengthen
- Drag the right edge of a note.
- Louder or softer
- Shift+click a note to cycle it from soft to normal to loud and then off.
- Select and copy
- Ctrl or Cmd and drag to select notes; then Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V copy and paste, Delete removes them and Ctrl+D duplicates them ahead.
TipThe grid snaps notes to its steps. Tick FREE to drag and resize notes finely, off the grid.
The row above the piano roll
- BARS
- How long the pattern is: 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 bars.
- LEN
- The length of each new note, from 1/64 of a bar up to a whole bar. 1/16 is the default.
- ACC
- Accent: new notes play harder.
- STAC
- Staccato: new notes play short and detached.
- GRID
- How fine the grid is: 1/8, 1/16 (the default), 1/32 or 1/64. Ctrl and the mouse wheel zoom it.
- OCT- and OCT+
- Move every note in the part down or up an octave.
- CLR CH and CLR ALL
- Clear this part, or every note and drum hit in the pattern (it asks first).
Velocity
Press VEL to show the velocity lane under the piano roll: one bar per note, as tall as the note is loud. Drag a bar down to soften a note. A melody where the first note of each beat is a little louder than the rest sounds far more natural than one where every note is the same.
Staying in key with SCALE
Choose a SCALE and a ROOT and the piano roll dims every row outside that scale and marks the root note. It is a guide rather than a lock: you can still place a note on a dimmed row, which is sometimes exactly the surprise a tune needs.
If you are not sure where to start, choose PENTA-MIN (minor pentatonic) on C. It has five notes and almost any order of them sounds good.
Writing a tune that works
- Write short phrases, two to four beats long, and repeat them. Repetition is what makes a tune stick.
- Pair phrases: one that rises or stops somewhere unsettled, then one that answers and comes home.
- End on the root note (the one SCALE marks) when you want a phrase to feel finished.
- Leave gaps. Silence between phrases gives the listener a moment to catch up.
- Vary the note lengths. A few long notes among short ones are what make a melody sing.
Hearing a sound before you write it
The keyboard at the bottom of the Sounds tool plays the selected part’s sound without writing anything, so you can find a note by ear first. Chapter 5 covers it.