What am I missing here? Make MIDI window active...

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Dp is working like a champ in a longish film project. Loving CW! Here's my issue:

I often edit MIDI with the ME window expanded to as much of the screen as possible. Sometimes, when I open the editor, the data being viewed isn't the tracks that's being edited. IOW, controllers and velocities are no visible. I know I can use the track selector, and I know I can double click in the Tracks Window to make that track active for editing, but FROM THE MIDI EDITING WONDOW is there a way to make that the active track for editing? I can edit notes well enough but need to see controllers and velocity as well. Surely there is a button in the ME that will allow this, but I have yet to find it.

Any ideas?

[bayswater]

Doesn't seem to be a way that would cover all the bases. I use the version of the track selector that sits inside the edit window so it's there when I open the edit window, and click or alt click the tracks in the selector depending on whether I want to see the inactive tracks. The other thing is the track menu at the upper right corner of the ME window. It sets the track that's active for edits, and shows it's controllers, but also removes the other tracks from the display.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

That'll do it! Open the track selector in the ME window. Duh! I knew I was missing something (aside from some grey matter). Thanks a bunch.

[Shooshie]

Are you using the little pencil on the track selector list in the upper left corner (left margin) of the ME window? That sets the active track.

Shooshie

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Are you using the little pencil on the track selector list in the upper left corner (left margin) of the ME window? That sets the active track.

Shooshie

I'm simply not seeing that in the ME. Come to think of it, it would be nice of the ME stated which is the active track (at the top, perhaps?). The only way i see of selecting the track is with the track selector visible. No little pencil icon in the upper left (or anywhere else) in the ME that I can see except in the controller selection on the bottom (which doesn't change the active track for editing).

[Michael Canavan]

The Pencil icon is in the Track Selector for the ME. To the left of the Note icon.

To the far upper right is a tab stating which is the active track. Right above the quantize note selector.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Thanks. I see the pencil in the track selector (it doesn't stay at the top but is next to the active track). Again, there is no pencil icon in the ME window, no indication of which track is the active track and no way other than the track selector to make the track active for editing (although you can make it active for recording and playback). So what I'm looking for (which does not exist AFAIK) is an icon to make the current MIDI EDITOR active (clicking on a note would serve the purpose as well, perhaps better than an icon - both would be nice) --- and there no indicator as to which track is the active track for editing (that name might appear at the top of the window and change with the active track).

I don't do a lot of MIDI editing but when I do it's intense and there are tones of tracks. After some though, simply clicking on a note would be the preferred way to make the track (with that note) become the active track). Maybe there's a way to do that but I haven't sound it and it would save me a lot of clicking.

[Shooshie]

I don't do a lot of MIDI editing but when I do it's intense and there are tones of tracks. After some though, simply clicking on a note would be the preferred way to make the track (with that note) become the active track). Maybe there's a way to do that but I haven't sound it and it would save me a lot of clicking.

No, there's not a way to do that right now. If you set the ME for one track at a time, you get a list/menu underneath the name. Or something like that. I'm not looking at it, and I don't use it that way. I use it with all tracks visible, then select them with the ME's selector list on the left side. That's when you get the pencil icon to show you the active track.

I've written tomes about the need for Graphic MIDI Editor reform. I don't know if they'll ever do it. Maybe if we create a petition. Somewhere in this forum are entire lists of things that the ME needs, and all you've said are on it. I'd sure like to see that happen.

Meanwhile, we're left with that little pencil. And it does NOT work the way you or I want it to. Still, the MIDI Graphic Editor is what I want to work in. Anyone who has done as much MIDI as I've done would be crazy to try to do all that in the Sequence Editor. I started out using the Event List, because it was all we had. I learned to translate musical phrases into numbers, and it worked, but it was slow as molasses, even when I could zip through those numbers as fast as I could type. But when that graphic editor came out... I could draw phrases the way I heard them, and I could accomplish things not just on the phrase level, but in 8 bar, 12 bar, or 16 bar sections... even entire songs, in one move. The event list is not just in another ballpark. It's in another ballpark in another state, in another country across an ocean. The Sequence Editor is miles and miles away. The MIDI Graphic Edit window is not only great, but it's the best of its kind that I've seen or used. But it's flawed, and a little fixing-up would make it astoundingly great.

I just wish I could get MOTU to listen to me. To us. For ALL of us.

Shooshie

[bayswater]

I don't do a lot of MIDI editing but when I do it's intense and there are tones of tracks. After some though, simply clicking on a note would be the preferred way to make the track (with that note) become the active track). Maybe there's a way to do that but I haven't sound it and it would save me a lot of clicking.

Well, at this point pretty much all the variation of track selection have to take place in the Track Selector, and using the one embedded in the editor window is the best way to proceed. Simply clicking a note to change the active track might be helpful in some cases, but the way it works now, you can select notes not in the active track to edit Note event data. You'd have to work out a way to select Notes without changing the active track.

[Shooshie]

I don't do a lot of MIDI editing but when I do it's intense and there are tones of tracks. After some though, simply clicking on a note would be the preferred way to make the track (with that note) become the active track). Maybe there's a way to do that but I haven't sound it and it would save me a lot of clicking.

Well, at this point pretty much all the variation of track selection have to take place in the Track Selector, and using the one embedded in the editor window is the best way to proceed. Simply clicking a note to change the active track might be helpful in some cases, but the way it works now, you can select notes not in the active track to edit Note event data. You'd have to work out a way to select Notes without changing the active track.

In my suggestions for MOTU, I've always proposed that a modifier key for clicking a note and making its track the active track. Then using similar keys, drag the pencil from its original track to another track to MOVE the note to that track, or add the option key to COPY it to that track. That avoids the confusion of track selection when copying/pasting, which is one of the weakest aspects of the MIDI Graphic Editing Window. (in multi-track mode)

It would also be nice to be able to hover over a note with a modifier key to see its track name appear in a pop-up text tag or something. (kind of like the HELP tags)

There is so much potential in that window, if only they would develop it. (there's more, but I don't remember it all right now.)

Shooshie

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Great ideas, Shoosh!

[bayswater]

In my suggestions for MOTU, I've always proposed that a modifier key for clicking a note and making its track the active track.

Makes sense. In fact the use of modifiers could be consistent with those already in place. E.g. Alt Click a track in the Track Selector, or a Note in the Piano Roll, or a controller event to make it active, and remove others from the display. One concern might be making it too complicated for new or casual users. Logic has had to put in a preference in version X so you can have "basic" functions or "advanced" functions. (DP would have to have "Advanced" or "Shooshie". )