Share your favorite DP tip!

[amplidood]

Reassign the last command in the Navigation section (View selection in Sequence Editor) to a more accesible keystroke. Now, in the Tracks Overview window, highligt a track or section of tracks you'd like to edit more closely. Hit your newly assigned key. VOILA. Much easier than resizing and turning tracks on and off all the time.

[Hiddenstory]

When you can't tell difference between kick drum and a flute;
GO TO BED

[amplidood]

But it could be used in my manor anytime!!! Sorry timeline, couldn't resist.....

[Shooshie]

The PROPORTIONAL DRAG
"CONTROL-drag"
This does a lot of things in the MIDI Graphic Editing window.

Compressing MIDI Velocities
In the lower panel in the Graphic Editing Window, select your notes by dragging over the velocities. Grab the tallest "V" icon among the ones you selected. Hold down the CONTROL key for proportional dragging. Use the SHIFT key to contrain your movement only to the vertical. Drag up or down, and the entire selection will adjust proportionately, having the effect of compression or expansion of MIDI velocities.

Why is this useful?

Because when you change patches, almost invariably the response envelope will be different. In some patches, the "meat" of their dynamic response will be from about 10 to 30. Anything higher will not produce louder sound. In others, the working range may be 20 to 90. The Yamaha Disklavier, an actual MIDI'd grand piano, functions best between 30 and 98, with the average working range at 40 to 65. So, when you change patches, you have to adjust your velocities. You can do that with the Change Velocity plugin, but sometimes I prefer the visual of dragging the velocities, so I can see their relative loudness compared to other lines. This way, there is no guesswork.

Of course, it's also useful just to expand your dynamics. But that's obvious.

Rhythmic (Time) Augmentation and Diminution

As described above, select the notes or continuous data icons you want to change, proportionately to each other. Hold down the CONTROL KEY, and use the SHIFT KEY to constrain it to horizontal motion, only. Drag the Velocity/CC icons horizontally, and the notes/events will move proportionally in time, augmenting their relative attack times, while retaining the same note-lengths. This is functionally different from "Scale Time" because note lengths are not altered.

Useful applications:
1) fill up a predefined amount of space with an existing selection of notes or music.
2) altering large amounts of Continuous Controller data that needs to fit a certain space
3) Correcting rushed or dragged performance; you can quickly bring a rushed bar in time this way.
etc.

Change arpeggio to chord, starting at same time
You have a full-keyboard arpeggio, and you changed your mind. You need all the notes to start together. Select them, hold down CONTROL, then drag the attack (left end of the notebar) of one of the notes to the left or right. Dragging to the left will extend all notes toward the beginning of the bar, making them all start together. Dragging to the right will shorten all notes, making them start together with the last of the notes selected.

Extend arpeggio so that all notes cut off simultaneously
Select the notes, hold down CONTROL, and drag the CUT-OFFS (right end of the notebars) to the right. All notes will now cut off together wherever you leave them.

This is useful for any group of notes (arpeggio or not) which need to end together. It's a quick fix for a ragged cutoff.

Betcha didn't know the Control Key was so useful in the Graphic Editor, didja?

Shooshie

<small>[ July 02, 2005, 08:16 PM: Message edited by: Shooshie ]</small>

[Shooshie]

Originally posted by amplidood:
But it could be used in my manor anytime!!! Sorry timeline, couldn't resist.....

Hehehe... I had to restrain myself from the same thing. I think most of these tips work in anyone's manor.

Shooshie

[Sylver]

Some great tips! Thanks for all the responses.

[Kind Of Loud]

quote:
Originally posted by Kind Of Loud:
Double tap "w" for a group. Tap once to un-group.
It does? I can't get this to work. Can you explain? -thanks

[ Sure thing dude.....Pull up the mixer for an example...double tap the letter "w" on your keyboard and whatever is showing in the mixer will now work as a group...ie.solo; faders; etc. When you're done tap "w" once and voila!...back to normal.

[sdfalk]

Very cool ...thanks

[blue]

Originally posted by Shooshie:
Betcha didn't know the Control Key was so useful in the Graphic Editor, didja?

Thanks Shooshie.

Just when I thought I knew everything about the control key••¦Did not know about the arpeggio to chord trick. That's awesome!

[Timeline]

UPDATE TO END FEATURE

Hey Amplidood! I have been thinking about what you said
about snapshots and I was wrong.

Yes! Snapshot WOULD be a way to start an 'update to end' command if it could be done from play mode and only extend armed/writing elements to the end.

Again, the snapshot would fire off during play but then only take live, armed & writing: [faders, mutes, pans. and/or any effects] being written at that place/moment and extend those settings to the end of a song.

I churned this around in my brain all night and finally figured out what you might have meant.

I appreciate the comment as it does help the cause.

Thanks again.

[Panopticon]

Control-click +mouse up/down in the time ruler for really fast and efficient zooming in and out.

I was pretty excited when I figured that one out...

[musicarteca]

Quick Punch-in, Punch out:

Probably the quickest way to do a punch in / punch out is manually, but if you are recording a difficult take where the musician/ singer has to go back to the same spot several times, the usual way is to set up the auto punch-in/out and the palyback start time, but this takes some time to set up, so here is an accelerated way to do it:

- Enable the link selection to memory and memory play buttons on the selection tab on the control panel. Press the pre-roll an write the amount of measures (or beats) that you want to play before the punch in; and optionaly, you can also write the post-roll amount. Make sure that the auto-record button is not depressed.

- Now when you make a selection in the time ruler, it will automatically setup this range as the punch in/out range on the record enabled track(s). When you press record, the play will start a few measures before (determined by the pre-roll amount), and automatically punch-in/out to the selected range, if the musician makes a mistake, simply press record again and it will repeat the same procedure from the same place.

- additional bonus: I programed the key number 2 to perform the command "extend selection to the end of the sequence", so lets say that I am recording a singer, and he makes a mistake, I stop recording, make a small selection at the time ruler right before the stopped and quickly press the keys 2 (extend selection to the end), and 3 (record), so it will play back some pre-roll time for the singer to prepare, and then continue recording from the selected spot. Very quick procedure.

[musicarteca]

Select a VI track and then press shift-F to open the VI from the tracks or sequence window.

If you select an audio track and press shift-F, it will open its upper-most plug-in.

[Tonio]

Originally posted by Shooshie:
The PROPORTIONAL DRAG

Betcha didn't know the Control Key was so useful in the Graphic Editor, didja?

Shooshie

No kidding! Its like learning a new program LOL. And to think I had MIDI down pretty good ha.

T

[azusa749a]

Nice tips.

I wonder is there a short cut when you add any VI it also adds an assigned MIDI track too.