Topic: Preview 2.09: Piano roll editor updates

@thcilnnahoj wrote:

… Note move buttons, like in energy XT: for moving selected notes (or all in midi clip, if none selected) up/down by a semitone or an octave.

Argh, scratch that. Just checked the Guide and there are actually excellent keyboard shortcuts for this.
You can tell I haven’t made much use of MIDI editing in Podium yet (there’s a drum map?! :oops:) – I will, after this release, though.

you’re right swindus, I understood bad

best regards!

@Zynewave wrote:

Clicking the piano roll keyboard will keep the note playing until the mouse button is released. Dragging up or down the keyboard will retrigger the played note. The clicked horizontal position controls the attack velocity.

Works great. Thanks a lot!

@thcilnnahoj wrote:

– When dragging the size of a note then other selected notes should resize accordingly.

+1 that’s a very essential one, I just realized.

@Zynewave wrote:

@Pigini wrote:

But we don’t have that snapping to grid timing, without doing a duration quantize at the same time yet, or have we?

If you move events with the mouse or use the “quantize start” menu, then the duration is not quantized. If you add new notes or resize existing notes then the dragged size is quantized if snap is enabled. Isn’t that the preferred behaviour?

Good, there is a way of aligning without quantizing when editing, but it’s not exactly what I had in mind.

I was thinking of getting the input right with the wanted duration at the chosen place in the timeline directly when creating the note.
In most apps note input is linked with the quantization as you explained above. Of course I want to put in a note of a certain length, but I want to snap it to a value, which might be different from its duration. I find it a bit confusingly difficult to explain.

I better try an example:
If there was a defined grid (be it time signature based or a custom one), that can be snapped to (just to the timing, without quantizing durations)
AND
if there was a way of defining the note with its duration from a toolbox (one button per note value=one click, selector box is too slow)
THEN
I could simply select my notes and put them where I want them, possibly getting everything right in the first place. They had the right duration and would snap to the wanted position, just as intended.

Ideally, I want to be able to write my notes as quickly as possible, not put in a few and then fiddle with them. That’s why I’m blubbering so much about that timing snap to grid thing and the custom grids and the note input buttons. 😉

EDIT:
The afforementioned Divider, beside its other advantages, would also be good to speed up note input.
Example:
Put in some whole notes, select them, divide them by 8 and you’ve got quite a few 8th notes at the right time position already.

@Zynewave wrote:

The way it works currently, you should set the quantize value to the lowest resolution you want to work with. If you want to add quarter notes on eight note resolution, set the q value to 1/8. When you click to add notes with the mouse, the default size will be 1/8, but then simply drag right to a full 1/4 or any size before releasing the mouse.

You picked an easy example (dividable by two).
But try another one:
A dotted quarter, that you want to put in at the start of a bar (getting it right, without moving it later) – you can’t (unless it’s the first bar of the track).
Because what happens is, the picked quantize snap (dotted quarter with snap active) behaves like a hidden snap grid all the way through.
If you want to put in lots of dotted notes, triples or other tuples, you end up with moving them about all the time.
I made my first suggestions, when I was at work, without having podium in front of me. So, the way I dreamed them up, might not have been the best way to implement them. But the basic idea could be modified to fit into podium better.

I can see now, the podium grid being linked to the timing signature in the arrangement view (and not static in the sequence itself), is a clever and practical thing.
I understand, the suggested loadable custom grids could clash with it. So let’s drop them, but still try to improve note input, without adding confusion. I had a rethink. And to make myself more clear.
I’m talking of optimizing the purely mouse based note input here.

💡 So how about that?:
In addition to “snap with quantize” give the choice of “snap to grid” (to the timing of the vertical lines in the visible time signature based grid, that we have now).
Snap to grid value would change with the zoom level, just as the grid does(no resnap after zooming of course, only snapping at the input of notes).
We would not need two grids, we only need the option “snap to grid” and a “note input toolbox” (buttons for notes from whole to 64th, with dotted and triplet option. could be in the toolbar, undockable for shorter mouse movements when putting in notes).
You could place your chosen notes exactly at the right timings. The grid would even help to count rests.

Another thing:
Now, you often don’t get the note value you want immediately, but have to adjust to it, because what you get first is the last drawn value, which is desirable sometimes. But, with a note toolbox, you could overwrite that value, getting it right the first time around.
I recon note input could get 3-4 times faster.

The best bit about implementing it that way:
It does not change a thing for users, who are happy with how it is now.
It adds functionality without changing the basics.

💡 A little extra (reintroducing the custom grids through the backdoor 😉 ):
A snap option to the timings of ghost notes from another track.

@Zynewave wrote:

Not true. Adding dotted notes with the mouse is always aligned at bar start when snap is on.

Hugh? I tried it yesterday and it was all over the place. Will try it again when I’m home. Well, you’re probably right, having programmed the app..
Guess I must have done something wrong as tired as I was, or my graphics shifted or whatever. 🙄

However, trying to be witty with me over a minor detail, while ignoring a suggestion entirely (IMHO a very useful one), is very rude. If you had bothered reading, you would have realized just with how little an effort Podium could have the quickest note input, and not just the very same lame thing any average host has.

It’s not the first time you seem to be fighting off good ideas, esp. the original ones, and do some catching up on trivial matters instead, polishing buttons or whatever.
… Maybe programming functionality is just not so much fun as gui-stuff. Don’t you realize, just how much interest there is in functionality esp. with the piano roll?

You’re such a Diva sometimes. 😆

I’m not upset btw (since it’s written, it could get misinterpreted esp. when it is confrontational), it only needed to be said. 8)