Upgrade Piano Roll to match FL's for a better User Experience
Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 11:02 pm
here is (what I think) is an amazing reddit post asking people who have switched between FL and Ableton to describe their experiences with the two, what they missed, what they like etc. https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/ ... bleton_or/
It seems that a lot of people agree that the Piano Roll in Fruity Loops has a much better User Experience. I believe if Ableton put time into matching this experience, it might not just convert FL users, but keep many. The piano roll is such a vital part of a DAW and the song writing process that I see no reason for a software like Ableton to really make it the best available.
if you open that thread and cmd f search piano roll, it seems that every person to bring it up favors the FL piano roll.
this post isn't for a single feature, but a plea to look over the piano roll as a whole and make changes necessary to equal or better the top piano rolls on the market. I love ableton to death and don't see a reason why such a great company and software shouldn't also have the best piano roll.
here's a post from a user in the thread as an example:
"it's extremely ergonomical. left click adds note, right click deletes, scroll wheel moves and zooms. lengthening/shortening/slicing notes are quick processes. editing velocity or other parameters is instantaneous. when you click a note, FL remembers that note length for subsequent note entry. these seem like all very simple things but they all add up and really change the game when you aren't often relying on switching tools, selecting notes, or going through right-click context menus. changing it in Ableton would be a big revamp of how Ableton actually works
FL also offers a ton of tools specific to the piano rool beyond simple quantizing and randomization, such as: instant chord stamps, slice dividing by rhythm, and even arpeggiations. for example if i draw out a C major triad, i could turn that into a 1/16th note arpeggio with one hot key. and since it actually chopped up the MIDI notes, i can rearrange the order into any other pattern I want. I could also have each 16th note play twice, making it a 32nd note stutter per note, with just another hot key. to do something like that in ableton would take a ton of selecting, copy and pasting, and hell even resampling Ableton's Arpeggiator device to get the MIDI data out. this is just one example where FL Studio's piano roll just seems to understand the things that you'd want to do with editing MIDI and lets do you it very fast. not even Ableton's pencil tool is comparable
for the record, i'm an ableton main, but still prefer FL's piano roll"
the point of this post is not to ask for an immediate overhaul of the piano role, but mainly and more importantly, to bring attention to it as a whole and the voices and criticism of its users. If this gains enough traction, the next step would be to outline a set of features that are desired, rank their priority, and design a method of development and construction
thank you
It seems that a lot of people agree that the Piano Roll in Fruity Loops has a much better User Experience. I believe if Ableton put time into matching this experience, it might not just convert FL users, but keep many. The piano roll is such a vital part of a DAW and the song writing process that I see no reason for a software like Ableton to really make it the best available.
if you open that thread and cmd f search piano roll, it seems that every person to bring it up favors the FL piano roll.
this post isn't for a single feature, but a plea to look over the piano roll as a whole and make changes necessary to equal or better the top piano rolls on the market. I love ableton to death and don't see a reason why such a great company and software shouldn't also have the best piano roll.
here's a post from a user in the thread as an example:
"it's extremely ergonomical. left click adds note, right click deletes, scroll wheel moves and zooms. lengthening/shortening/slicing notes are quick processes. editing velocity or other parameters is instantaneous. when you click a note, FL remembers that note length for subsequent note entry. these seem like all very simple things but they all add up and really change the game when you aren't often relying on switching tools, selecting notes, or going through right-click context menus. changing it in Ableton would be a big revamp of how Ableton actually works
FL also offers a ton of tools specific to the piano rool beyond simple quantizing and randomization, such as: instant chord stamps, slice dividing by rhythm, and even arpeggiations. for example if i draw out a C major triad, i could turn that into a 1/16th note arpeggio with one hot key. and since it actually chopped up the MIDI notes, i can rearrange the order into any other pattern I want. I could also have each 16th note play twice, making it a 32nd note stutter per note, with just another hot key. to do something like that in ableton would take a ton of selecting, copy and pasting, and hell even resampling Ableton's Arpeggiator device to get the MIDI data out. this is just one example where FL Studio's piano roll just seems to understand the things that you'd want to do with editing MIDI and lets do you it very fast. not even Ableton's pencil tool is comparable
for the record, i'm an ableton main, but still prefer FL's piano roll"
the point of this post is not to ask for an immediate overhaul of the piano role, but mainly and more importantly, to bring attention to it as a whole and the voices and criticism of its users. If this gains enough traction, the next step would be to outline a set of features that are desired, rank their priority, and design a method of development and construction
thank you