Note placement and rhythm:

[banditblack]

Newbie Question here:

I've used DP's quantization and grooves features before, but I know that as powerful as DP is there must be a way I can do the following:

I want to be able to place a note rhythm into a measure at any point I want. I want to create some type of preset for say "triplet", or "dotted 8th's" or "1 and" for a 16th note figure and be able to include the rests and durations.

I would like to be able to point to say, the first quarter note in a measure and "insert" a triplet....then be able to go back to the same measure an "paste" and insert a different pattern later in the same measure.

I've figured out how to creat a "groove" for a certain pattern for a whole measure, but I know there must be a way to do more of an "on the spot" insertion of a specific note placement that I have previously saved. The specific notes don't matter, I can go back and drag the MIDI notes where I choose. The goal would be to place into a measure any subdivision of the existing beat I choose.

Make sense?

[stubbsonic]

You can use the clippings window to put things that you'll use in this way.

First, you would have to create the little pattern you want, then COPY (in edit menu) to the clippings set of your choice. Then you would just drag it into your MIDI graphic editor or Tracks Overview window. Make sure the grid is set how you want so you can snap to the location in the measure that you like.

You can make clippings windows for an individual project, or that are used by all DP projects. You can make separate sets for different meters, etc. It's a very flexible feature, in that DP will let you put all different kinds of "things" in there.

That said, I don't end up using clippings much, but that's my loss. It IS a very powerful and well-executed tool.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Some macro program like Keyboard Maestro would probably be your best bet. Program (or record) the keystrokes to create the rhythms you want and then set a trigger key. You could actually set several and have the insert be in the key (or at least starting on the pitch you desire) and reduce your editing time - since it seems like you want to streamline your workflow in that regard.

For myself, I would find it easier to just enter of play the damn notes on a controller. I don't write stuff that is generally "copy and paste-able" but I can see how that would be a useful feature.

[stubbsonic]

This is a bit of a toughy. But it is a reasonable feature to ask. MLC is right that a macro program could make some of this work more quick, but it might be tricky to get the sequence of steps down to generate the rhythmic figure you want.

I wonder if you would get into step recording, or could bring some step recording commands into this work-flow. At any rate, you could look at the section on step-recording and learn some stuff.

I could imagine something where you would have some clippings, then be able to invoke some command that places one of the clippings at the current cursor location on the current track. Hmmmm. Is that already possible?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Paste to wiper... Paste to selection...

[banditblack]

Thanks for the info guys...yeah, I'm not using it for composing per se. I want the abilty to inset multiple stored rhythmic phrase into a measure at any point I want...

I've messed with pasting a phrase to another track, them merging the existing track with the one with the new phrase...just thought there had to be somebody who figured this out already. Any suggestions welcome...this is how I learn! Lol!

[Shooshie]

What you're asking to do is to keep a stockpile of rhythms on hand, which you would paste into place, then change the noteheads to the note you want. Let me emphasize from the very outset how tremendously wasteful of time that would be, unless you're stockpiling, say, 64th note runs that span an entire keyboard.

What you really need to be focusing on is technique. Here, you'd use the pencil tool to add notes. If you're doing MIDI, I strongly recommend that you work in the MIDI Edit Window, as opposed to the Sequence Editor or any other editor. You can do it in other editors, but they are not as adept at MIDI as the MIDI window is. I hear arguments for the Sequence Editor, but I'm very adept at that window, and I cannot do MIDI at the speed and accuracy (and relaxation of the wrists) as I do in the MIDI Edit Window.

Next, the pencil tool is your raw input device. CLICK & DRAG to establish the attack and duration of the note. The next note you click will be the same duration you made the last one, and will continue at that length until you drag again.

Beats contain 480 "tics." Those are subdivisions of the beat. You can change that number to any number of subdivisions you want, up to "sample accuracy," but it would make for a very busy timeline. The number 480 was no doubt chosen for its factors. It is eminently divisible into all the major note lengths in whole numbers.

• A Half note = 2 beats, or 960 tics
  A quarter note in 4/4 time = 480 tics long.
  8th note = 240 tics
  16th note = 120 tics
  32nd note = 60 tics
  64th note = 30 tics
  Triplet 8th = 160 tics
  Triplet 16th = 80 tics
  in 6/8 time, a dotted quarter = 720 tics
  dotted 8th = 360 tics

And so forth.
A measure, or bar, contains the appropriate number of beats for the time signature in which you are working. Triple rhythms (6/8, ¾, 12/8, etc.) require a little extra thinking in terms of durations of beats, and length of notes of various time values.

Commit those to memory. You need them.

Next, you need to know where on the timeline beats begin:
4/4 time:

• Quarter Notes: 1|1|000, 1|2|000, 1|3|000, 1|4|000
  8th notes: 1|1|000, 1|1|240; 1|2|000, 1|2|240; 1|3|000... etc.
  16th notes: 1|1|000, 1|1|120, 1|1|240, 1|1|360; 1|2|000, 1|2|120, 1|2|240, 1|2|360; 1|3|000, ... etc.
  Triplet 8th: 1|1|000, 1|1|160, 1|1|320; 1|2|000, 1|2|160, 1|2|320; 1|3|000, .. etc.
  Triplet 16th: 1|1|000, 1|1|080, 1|1|160; 1|1|240, 1|1|320, 1|1|400; 1|2|000, 1|2|080, 1|2|160; 1|2|240, 1|2|320, 1|2|400; 1|3|000... etc.
  (Note that 1|1|480 is the same thing as 1|2|000.)

Triple meters require a little adjustment to your thinking. They essentially are simple overlays on duple subdivisions, thus a dotted quarter = 720 tics, and yet a dotted quarter is a beat. A dotted 8th is still 360 tics. It's just a matter of how you draw the barlines; the time is still there underneath it all.

At first, you may stumble from time to time in trying to think of the exact spots to place notes or their durations, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. It become 2nd-nature after a while.

You also learn that there are precise spots to place notes that "swing." It depends on how much swing you want, so I'm not going to tell you how much to alter a note so that it swings, but when you play a good line, go look at the values. See where the attacks are falling in respect to a metronomic beat. It sounds like we're canning swing, but in fact you'll work a lot faster if you know the numbers. When done with a little variation for humanizing, it does not sound canned at all.

Hold down the COMMAND key to constrain notes or durations to the grid. Or if the grid is already on, the COMMAND key will toggle it off as long as it's depressed. OPTION will duplicate a selection.

The most important key when working with a graphic editor is the SHIFT command, because it constrains motion to vertical or horizontal, whichever you do first. It also toggles selections. For example, you can select a large area, then de-select the bass notes by SHIFT-DRAGGING over them. Complicated selections can be done quickly by thinking a little ahead of yourself in what to select positively (dragging and shift-dragging) or negatively (shift-dragging), and in what combination or order. I work with one hand on the mouse and the other on the Shift key (and other mod keys).

That's enough to start with. TRUST ME: penciling-in your notes is way, way faster than finding some stored notes and pasting them in. When you get a set of triplets placed as you like, you can continue a run by OPTION-DRAGGING the triplets, 3 at a time, until you have a whole row of them. Drag them to the next pitch, and you probably will only have to adjust the pitch of the occasional half-step/whole step mismatch of a scale.

Grab the pencil tool by tapping the P key twice. Or hold down the P key to temporarily invoke it. Go back to the regular cursor by tapping the A key. ("A" looks like the arrow cursor)
R gets you the Reshape Tool.
I gets you the I-Beam.
Click here for a cheat sheet for all your tool commands.

I'll stop there for this post. Trust me (I repeat and re-emphasize), you'll move a lot quicker just knowing where to place the pencil and drag.

[banditblack]

WELL! I see what I'm going to be studying the rest of this week! Lol! Thanks for taking the time to lay that out...I'm sure you have helped a ton of people with that!

[Shooshie]

WELL! I see what I'm going to be studying the rest of this week! Lol! Thanks for taking the time to lay that out...I'm sure you have helped a ton of people with that!

You can pay me back by allowing me to quote your initial post, along with my reply, in the Tips Sheet so that more people can reference it. Check it out, here. In fact, you may also want to check out page 2 of the same thread, reading the posts about selection and about editing control points. The whole Tips Sheet thread, all 11 pages of it, contains very useful information. Some of it may be advanced, but much of it is right on target for you.

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

One more thing; as someone suggested, you may want to get into step-recording for doing quick entry of notes.
Click here for a cheat sheet for Step Record commands.

Shooshie
PS: also note that I edited the long post a couple times. If you by chance copied it or printed it out before I posted THIS message, you may want to do so again to catch the mistakes I made in the initial post. I kept making dumb mistakes like writing 2|1|000 when I meant 1|2|000. I was just typing fast and not paying attention to what I was doing, having had this stuff memorized for nearly 30 years.

[jloeb]

[MIDI Life Crisis]

This is why I didn't go to college. Too damn complicated! LOL

[cleamon]

One more thing; as someone suggested, you may want to get into step-recording for doing quick entry of notes.
Click here for a cheat sheet for Step Record commands.

Shooshie
PS: also note that I edited the long post a couple times. If you by chance copied it or printed it out before I posted THIS message, you may want to do so again to catch the mistakes I made in the initial post. I kept making dumb mistakes like writing 2|1|000 when I meant 1|2|000. I was just typing fast and not paying attention to what I was doing, having had this stuff memorized for nearly 30 years.

Speaking of kbd shortcuts for step record. Maybe you know a trick for this.
When you use the (computer) kbd to set the duration, it's a mutually exclusive selection. That is, if I press 5 to set it to eighth notes, it will turn off the previous selection (unless I also hold shift). Fine, I like that. BUT, if I set up MIDI commands (i.e. unused notes on my controller or an iPad app) to set the duration (so I don't have to constantly move my hands from one kbd to another), it is NOT mutually exclusive --- it behaves like shift is held down. This means I have to press 2 keys - 1 to turn off the previous one, and 1 to turn on the new one. A real nuisance since I almost always press the wrong one for the previous duration, causing yet another press (or 2).
Any way around this?

[Tritonemusic]

I don't know if it would work, but the Drum Editor has the Rhythm Brush. I wonder if it might be useable in your situation...

[stubbsonic]

I'm coming back to this topic, in case the OP'er is still following.

As someone who does lots of edits & compositional "construction" (not of the type you describe, but other techniques), it is possible that the pencil tool is quicker for some things, but it is lacking in other ways. I wanted to add a few extra tips.

First of all, back to clippings. If you created a selection of rhythms that you want, and put them in a startup clipping window, and called it "Rhythmic Building Blocks" and then you named your clippings pretty carefully, you could have them all ready to go.

Secondly, you can do your edits either in the MIDI Graphic Editor, (what's it called now?), or the Tracks Overview. Each has its advantages. Remember that when you zoom in on the T.O. you can make it so that beats are the basic blocks on the T.O., or even 8th notes, so you would be able to drag your rhythm to any beat of any bar.

And third, remember that option-drag (drag a copy) is your friend.

I'll leave it there.