DP11 MIDI workflow advice needed! MIDI Editor icon doesn't consistently work

[andrewfez]

Hello,

I just upgraded to DP11 from DP5 and am now learning how to use this latest version.

MIDI Editor Icon only works 50% of the time

I'm having some trouble with the super basic MIDI piano roll window operations.

When I have a MIDI track piano roll open (let's pretend it's called MIDI track 1), with the Tracks Window open below it, and I want to change the view to another MIDI piano roll window (let's pretend it's called MIDI track 2), you would think all I would have to do is select a few notes on the Tracks Window of MIDI track 2, then click the MIDI Editor icon on the Shortcuts toolbar menu, and the MIDI track 2 would open, and MIDI track 1 would close. And 50% of the time, that is what happens.

However it doesn't consistently do this. Sometimes when I click the MIDI Editor icon on the Shortcuts toolbar, nothing happens; it just gets stuck and refuses to open the MIDI track I've selected on the Tracks Window.

The solutions I've found aren't that great

The two most obvious solutions to this work, but are not optimal for my workflow.

Solution 1: click the carrot in the upper right-hand corner of the MIDI track piano roll window and look in the drop down menu, for the other track I want to open.

This is not optimal as I can't customize which notes will be front-and-center on the newly opened piano roll window. It causes me to lose time hunting for those notes.

Solution 2: find the track I want in the Track Window, select some notes or an area, then double click this to bring up the track window.

I'm trying to avoid double clicking a lot, as I have carpel tunnel syndrome, and write large scale orchestral works (I've written 3 symphonies for full orchestra, for instance). That rapid, double-click motion really irritates my hand, and doing it thousands or tens of thousands of times to write a large orchestra piece is not feasible. In DP5 I didn't have to double click anything to write music.

Is there a way to replicate DP5's one-click MIDI track swapping?

In DP5, if I were working on a track, on the left-hand edge of the MIDI track window, would be a vertical list of all available MIDI tracks, such that all I had to do was click one of those, and the window would just populate that track's info, and of course close the original track's info.

This made it easy to write in instrument doublings: Copy cello notes; click the bassoon track, paste the notes; done.

Conclusion

Hopefully I'm just missing something and don't have to switch to another DAW. I've been using DP for 20 years now.

But does anyone have any suggestions on what I'm doing wrong, or other similar workflow tips to rapidly switch MIDI track windows (keyboard shortcuts, etc.)?

Thanks,
Andrew Fez

[andrewfez]

Okay, I found a workaround that works for me actually.

I just went into Commands, and reassigned the G key to open the MIDI track I wanted (had highlighted). And I deleted out whatever the G key was originally supposed to do. Now it's just one press of a button.

[Tidwells@aol.com]

If you've been using a regular mouse, you might consider switching to a trackball to use different muscles/fingers. I personally like Kensington's Orbit optical trackball. Most clicking is done with my thumb, but it also has a button for rightly-clicking which I do with my ring finger.

Doug

[andrewfez]

Thanks Doug! I'll check it out.

I use a 3M ergonomic mouse that kind of looks like a joystick with the left and right mouse buttons controlled by rolling your thumb left or right respectively.

I'm trying to update all my stuff so might have to get a wireless one of those and maybe a trackball or something, so I'm not always using the same muscles over and over.