Better Orientation in the Piano Roll

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Mutzu
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2025 6:59 pm

Better Orientation in the Piano Roll

Post by Mutzu » Wed Apr 30, 2025 10:45 am

Hi everyone!

I've been using Ableton Live for years now. However, when I open the piano roll of a clip I need to spend unnecesscary seconds to find the pitch and octave of the notes. (Normally, my tracks are in various octaves.)
This problem especially arises if the clips have different zoom values.

I think it would be cool, if there were horizontal lines below the C and F notes, just as it is with harp strings. There, C strings are colored red and F strings are colored blue.*

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I emphasized the middle C with a red glow to make the orientation even quicker.

This could give you a quick visual hint for the pitch and octave and you don't have to look to the left for C3, C4, C5 etc. and back to the notes if there is no label within the notes. It would be quite comfortable on a large screen.

It would also be a easier, I think, to see the intervals between the notes.

It might also make sense to write the number of octaves in the piano roll.

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Some people could be distracted by this visual information. Therefore, it should be optional.

* I read that in Paraguay these colors are interchanged. So you may need a localized version. :) On some harps C is colored black, but that wouldn't make much sense in the piano roll.

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