I use the piano roll extensively and having tried FL Studio I have to say (giving compliments where due) that their piano roll far surpasses Ableton's. That said, I love Ableton as a DAW too, having started out first with it and I'm used to a certain workflow now. So would you please bring in much needed changes to the piano roll view namely -
1. Single left click to place notes, single right click to delete or hold and drag to delete multiple notes.
2. Currently muting is done by selecting the notes and hiting zero. How about, a CMD + right click option to mute quickly.
3. As of now, to play in scale, I need to create many octaves of notes and drag it to the extreme left to lock in the scale. How about, like FL Studio, where you can select the root key and the type of musical scales and the entire keyboard transposes to show the current scale with lighter keys and the darkened notes showing the off-keys. And this key scale colour (light and dark) runs through the entire piano roll. This alone is such a blessing!
4. Also just as in FL-S step sequencer, how about a quick drop down to above the piano roll (or below where the current velocity is shown) to show the graph to quick edit velocity changes, note changes, release velocity, X/Y mod parameter changes, fine tuning and paning chnages.
5. Also tools specific to the piano roll to quickly create flam, transpose, chop, quantise, arpeggiate, strum, flip, reverse, (which is already in Ableton too), create new interesting variations, etc
6. Increase the horizontal display of the keyboard a little more which will be more pleasing to the eyes.
7. Place the key numbers on the keys instead of to the left which is "dead space" thereby utilising this space for point (6).
8. The viewing of ghost notes is currently cumbersome and hope there is an option in the piano roll to select which track/tracks I need ghosted.
I sincerely hope this is implemented in the upcoming update, sooner than later, or else I might just drift off to FL-S.
Midi Editor/Piano Roll
Re: Midi Editor/Piano Roll
+1, especially 1,2,3, and 5.
Regarding the scale, I also like how FL Studio can auto detect the key of a midi clip and set the shading accordingly.
Some others:
1. Highlight the entire note row while hovering the cursor in the piano roll. This makes it very easy to see how a note will fit in context with others, especially when creating chords.
2. Improve note length setting when using the pencil tool. Currently the length of notes is set by the grid size. Slows down the creation process when notes are not all of the same length, which is most often the case. Default the note length to be the last inputted note’s length. And allow the pencil tool to resize a note when selecting/dragging the left/right edge of the note.
3. Have a chord stamp function. Make it even better than FL Studio’s by having a more simple “stamp in key” function. First, the key is either set or detected. Then for the stamp function the user selects whether it will be a 3-note or 4-note chord. The stamp function places the chord diatonically within the notes of the key. No need to select major/minor/diminished. Simple. We can handle inversions separately by octave-shifting individual notes in the chord. Although, having an inversion setting when stamping would be neat as well.
Regarding the scale, I also like how FL Studio can auto detect the key of a midi clip and set the shading accordingly.
Some others:
1. Highlight the entire note row while hovering the cursor in the piano roll. This makes it very easy to see how a note will fit in context with others, especially when creating chords.
2. Improve note length setting when using the pencil tool. Currently the length of notes is set by the grid size. Slows down the creation process when notes are not all of the same length, which is most often the case. Default the note length to be the last inputted note’s length. And allow the pencil tool to resize a note when selecting/dragging the left/right edge of the note.
3. Have a chord stamp function. Make it even better than FL Studio’s by having a more simple “stamp in key” function. First, the key is either set or detected. Then for the stamp function the user selects whether it will be a 3-note or 4-note chord. The stamp function places the chord diatonically within the notes of the key. No need to select major/minor/diminished. Simple. We can handle inversions separately by octave-shifting individual notes in the chord. Although, having an inversion setting when stamping would be neat as well.