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The piano roll

Draw, move and listen to notes on a grid, and see the text change as you work.

The piano roll is the place to write a melody with the mouse. Select a midi-clip block and press AMPLE Jam: a window opens with a grid.

The piano roll of the clip "lead". Time runs from left to right, in bars; the pitch goes up the keys on the left. The bars at the bottom show how hard each note is played.

Reading the grid#

Left to right is time, with the bar numbers on top. A note is a coloured bar: its left edge is where it starts and its length is how long it lasts.
Bottom to top is pitch, like the keys of a piano on the left. C3 and C4 are marked so you can find your way.
The small bars at the bottom, the velocity lane, show how hard each note is played. Taller is harder.

Drawing and changing notes#

Draw a note: press on an empty spot and drag to the right for its length.
Move it by dragging it, resize it by dragging its end, delete a selected note with Delete.
Select several with a rectangle, or all with Ctrl+A. Copy, cut and paste work as always (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V), and Ctrl+D makes a copy next to the selection.
Snap (the drop-down at the top) decides to what the notes jump: 1/16 of a bar, 1/8 and so on. Turn it finer for loose timing.

A new note has been drawn: it is yellow because it is selected, and the counter says 11 notes.

Listening#

▶ plays from the playhead, initially the start of the clip (also the space bar). Click the ruler to set it; selecting or drawing a note does not move it. ▶ sel plays only the selected notes. Stop returns to the clip start.
Notes you draw or move are auditioned through the connected instrument preview.
Play the built song from here (in the ☰ menu) plays the built song starting from the left edge of the view.
loop repeats the complete clip, and Fit shows all the notes. Drag a note's right edge across bar lines to make a longer sustain; its saved segments remain one visible note.

Recording and typing#

MIDI in records from a MIDI keyboard when your browser allows it.
The typing keyboard (the ⌨ button or Ctrl+T) lets you play notes on your computer keyboard: [ and ] change the octave.

The ☰ menu of the window folds its tools into groups that open one at a time:

On the selected notes: reverse in time, double or halve the speed, flip pitch, legato, staccato, remove overlaps, strum, a hi-hat roll chopper and humanize.
Create: arpeggiate a chord, the riff machine, stamp a chord (with inversion, spread, drop 2 and a bass note) and hum a melody.
Scale: choose a root and a scale (out-of-scale rows are dimmed), snap new notes to it, fit the selected notes to it or guess the key.
Colour groups and properties: colour tabs on notes, show one group, set the MIDI channel of a group, and exact bar, beat, length, pitch, velocity, slide and portamento of the selected notes.
Lanes and clips behind: the arrangement, the sound as built and the automation under the roll, the other clips behind this one as faint outlines, and a chord lock that snaps new notes to their chords.

The strip under the notes is a lane of its own: choose velocity, pan, fine pitch, release or cutoff, drag a bar to set a note's value and double-click to reset it.

The text is always the truth#

Every change you make in the roll is one edit of the clip's notes text, and Edit as text (in the ☰ menu) takes you to it. If a clip was written with chords, the roll offers to write the chords out as notes first; Undo brings the chords back.

Next: changing the sound with effects, in Effects.