MOTUnation.com

Actually, this is the tips and tricks forum. There is a Tips Sheet that you can access through this forum. It has many tips, but a lot of them are outdated by changes in DP since version 6.0, a couple of years ago. I need to update it, but just haven't done that yet.

James, you're right. It's the C key for the Scissors. I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote that, but it is and always has been the C key.

Benmrx, I apologize for my mood swing last night. Please feel free to ask for all the help you need. After Bongo's last post, I tabbed over to DP and started using the pencil tool at very high zoom levels. While it may seem odd and inconsistent, it's actually VERY consistent, and it behaves as an absolute grid unless you toggle it off with the Command Key. You will understand momentarily.

The "keys" to understanding the pencil tool are:
1) Grid - if the grid is on, the click will place the note on the nearest gridline to the left of the pencil tool. That is "absolute grid." Not relative. Absolute. Set the spacing of the gridlines by typing in the note value in the time-format you are using. Thus, 0|240 is an 8th note. 0|120 is a 16th. 1|000 is a quarter note. And so on.
2) Click-Drag - Click places the note. Drag determines the length. With grid on, both the click and the drag are constrained to the nearest gridlines. The click goes to the nearest gridline to the left. The drag goes to the nearest gridline to the left OR right, whichever is closer.
3) Command Key - toggles the grid off for the click, And/Or toggles the grid off for the drag.
4) 2nd Click on the Same Note - erases the note you just clicked into existence. The pencil has an eraser!
5) Next Insert - your first click-drag determines the length of all subsequent notes until you click-drag again. You can make the notes any length. Click-click-click… very fast.

Now, I will repeat the above in a more userly-fashion:

The behavior of the pencil tool at normal zoom levels (Shift-Command-N for the default zoom level), is quite nice, actually. With the grid on, it will peg any click of the pencil directly onto the beat or subdivision of the beat. That's an absolute grid. Once you click, you hold it down and drag until you've got the length you want. If you want odd lengths, you press the command key while holding down the mouse button, then drag to the desired length.

After the first click and drag, DP's Pencil tool will attempt to make each following note-click the very same length as the first click-drag. In other words, once you tell DP how long you want the notes, it will make them all that length until you tell it to change.

When you want a new note-length, you just click-drag again as described above. Now you've told it a new length, and it will make subsequent clicks the same length unless you add the drag to your click.

High Zoom Levels:
At high zoom levels, it's doing the very same thing, but the "envelope" of your click-drag happens to be wider than the window. So, it will either appear to be placing a giant note whose end points you can't see, or you will try to click-drag, and possibly fail, since the next gridline falls offscreen. If you can't make your drag reach the next gridline, it will either place a very short note where you clicked (on the grid), or it will extend the note to where you drag if you hold down the Command Key.

It may seem illogical at first at high zoom levels, but I promise you that if you play around with it at normal zoom levels, you'll soon see the er… logic… of the pencil tool's behavior at high zoom levels.

To zoom in: Command-Right Arrow
To zoom out: Command-Left Arrow
To Scroll to the next or previous page at any zoom level: Control-Right/Left Arrows
To Move a selected note up or down - Up or Down Arrow. READ THIS The Up and Down Arrow keys have traditionally been used to change the active record-enabled track. No matter which window you're in, hitting the up arrow will move the record-enabler to the next track upward in the Tracks Overview List. Likewise, down arrow moves it down.

This is a conflict. You must resolve this conflict if you want things to work correctly! I suggest changing the "Nudge Up" command to Control-Up Arrow, and the Nudge Down command to Control-Down Arrow. Then your unmodified up and down arrows will go back to changing the record-enabled track.

You change commands in the Commands Window. (Shift-L) You can also learn a LOT of commands by printing out this window (about 28 pages with the fonts section collapsed). This is seriously a very important part of learning DP. Let me show you what I do with them. I make little tabs out of Post-It notes that fold over and grip the pages at the section locations. (Transport, Edit, Quickscribe, Selections, etc. This will make sense when you look at the window) Here are some pictures of what my notebook looks like with the tabs:



And here is a closeup of the tabs (click for photo) (many tabs are not visible here, because they are behind others. All sections are tabbed for reference.)

To change tools:
Pencil: tap P twice, or hold down P for momentary toggle.
Regular Selection Cursor: tap A twice, or hold down A for momentary toggle
Scissors: Tap C twice, etc.
Reshape Tool: R, etc.
Scrub Tool: S
For the complete list, go to the Commands Window and type in "Tool."

Sometimes there are many continuous data points that should be selected with the note. Let's say you have Breath Control for each note, and you want to move some notes around. How do you select the BC points for each note, along with the note and any other pertinent data that goes with it? (volume, pan, etc.) Basically you need to convert an event selection into a range selection. I came up with a workflow that required setting some commands to make it convenient. It is a one-time setup that remains with DP as long as you keep your Commands from being overwritten by new versions. (DP asks you if you want to overwrite or merge commands. Choose Merge.) The upshot is that with two taps on the keyboard, I've got my BC data selected. Takes about a tenth of a second. If you want to learn about it, go to the 2nd page of the Tips Sheet and read this post. There's another one right above it that talks about creating control points and automation points. You might find that to be a good read, too.

My apologies for presuming that you should find all this information on your own. Maybe it takes a lifetime of learning DP to do this. I don't know. I've been using MOTU's music apps (they had the first engraving software: Professional Composer) since 1984, when they were first released. I had Performer soon after (it was released in 1985 or 1986, I don't remember for sure, even though I wrote the Wikipedia Entry on DP, and once knew this stuff. The Wikipedia article has been whittled down to practically nothing. I once told the whole history of DP, as it involves many histories that are pertinent to this niche of the music industry. You can access the original versions and see what it once contained.

I hope that my lengthy explanations above will enlighten you somewhat to the brilliance of DP's grid and pencil tool, as well as many other features that dovetail into these. It took some time to write this, which may explain my reluctance to do so last night, and the resultant annoyance I felt. This is a major tutorial, and yet I write it and it will be gone except by search, and the next person will come and make the same accusations and comments, and once again I'll be compelled to type up all this stuff. So, I have tried to put several things on one page here. Maybe people will find it in a search.

Good tidings. Best wishes, and happy Digital Performing.

Shooshie

I don't think there is any need to apologize, Shoosh. It appears to me that the 'escalation' in threads like these shows a particular pattern. Maybe I'm just not that observant (Sun? ) but the pattern goes like this:

OP: Why doesn't app X do this? App Z and Y do it. OK, A,B, and C don't, but c'mon, it's 20xx. Shouldn't ApplMoVid.com get with the times.

Forum Member 1: App X does do that, just not the same way. Here's how to do it. blah blah blah...

OP: But I want it to work my way! (Cue Frank Sinatra music for remainder of scene...)

Forum member 2: Have you tried this method blah blah blah...?

OP: NO! You don't get it, do you? I WANT TO DO IT MY WAY!!! (music gets louder but not any better).

OP's backup dogg: Yeah man, EVERYBODY wants that. And why is everyone jumping on my homie? Back off his face, man! Wha'd you have for breakfast? Cubase?

Moderator 1: Everyone calm down. Check out the tip sheet.

Moderator 2: [snarky comment - that wold be me as I have zero tolerance for childish behavior in an adult forum]. Hee hee... Besides, this is more fun than hunting trolls or finding returning egomaniacs. Well, more fun than hunting trolls.

(Stage direction: As a moderator I change the music from Sinatra to "Truckin..." nodding to the groove not created with any grid except a pipe screen. Dude!)

ALL: Screaming, yelling, apologizing, getting flamed, yadda YADDA, YADDA!

It's a little like a kindergarten class with 5 year olds wanting to sit in their chair and nowhere else. The teacher intervenes to no avail. The principal is called in but the screaming gets louder. The Superintendent comes in and threatens to close down the classroom but the noise just gets louder and louder until the day ends, everybody goes home, crys in their milk until the next day and hops in and starts crying for THEIR FREAKIN CHAIR.

And what happens is these kids get older, but no wiser and for the rest of their lives clamor for their freakin' chair. When they finally get it, they realize it has wobbly legs and the chair they were on was fine.

Another analogy? The dog (or "dogg") that starts barking and forgets why it started in the first place. He's started barking and he can't stop. Just like when he licks his ba... never mid. Too early in the day.

THAT is why I...

Not because I give up, but becuase I get tired of...

Now can the musicians please...

The programmers please...

The newbies please...

While the rest of us...

ps- Stay off my lawn!

Well I'm all for adding features that will make life easier and accommodate people so long as it doesn't change a behavior which by so doing would disorient the long-time user. I think a new key bit of information here is that Shooshie pointed out, once you click and command-drag a note to a specific duration, all it takes to draw new notes of the same (unquantized) duration is a single click... that seems huge! I had forgotten that! I'm assuming that this locked-in duration will still happen even if you hold command down first before placing the note if you want some variation in the attacks of the different notes.

I was also going to say to the original poster that I assume there's SOME degree of repetition in what he's drawing in with the pencil tool. So there may be times where either using Repeat or lassoing a selection and option dragging a section of notes may obviate the need to draw every single note. Even if you repeat a section and then change a chord by dragging the notes of the chord to new notes you may save some time.

This topic did actually cause me to question WHY the grid should disappear just because "snap to grid" is OFF. Would it still not be helpful to have those gridlines sometimes? Maybe selecting the grid note value or resolution from that little pop up menu should just change the resolution of the grid, but it should stay on at all times? The check box next to it would still control if the notes are quantized to that grid but the grid lines wouldn't disappear just because the quantize was off?

Shooshie wrote: High Zoom Levels:
At high zoom levels, it's doing the very same thing, but the "envelope" of your click-drag happens to be wider than the window. So, it will either appear to be placing a giant note whose end points you can't see, or you will try to click-drag, and possibly fail, since the next gridline falls offscreen. If you can't make your drag reach the next gridline, it will either place a very short note where you clicked (on the grid), or it will extend the note to where you drag if you hold down the Command Key.

It may seem illogical at first at high zoom levels, but I promise you that if you play around with it at normal zoom levels, you'll soon see the er… logic… of the pencil tool's behavior at high zoom.

I am either not understanding this still, or I have a different setting or something.

Here’s what happens when I click with the grid on. For the first note I am zoomed to where I can see bar 1 & 2, I clicked behind bar 1 and it placed the note at bar 1, as you’d expect. Then I zoomed in one level and clicked at the same spot. It placed the note right where I clicked. I’ve noticed this at higher zoom levels, but in this test you can still see bar 2. If I zoom back out one level it places the note on bar one again.

This is the way it’s always worked in DP for me. You can’t see my cursor in the screenshot, but you can see in the timeline where it was. I hope you can see the screen well enough, I didn’t want to post too huge of a picture.





On previewing I see the picture is still too big, but in the full picture you can see that bar 2, and the end of the notes, is easily visible in both pictures.

bb

Oh, I forgot to say thanks for the detailed explanation. I’m pretty sure I get all that, it’s just this one issue that seems inconsistent to me.

bb

Bongo... I don't know how you're managing it, but quoting in your messages isn't appearing correctly. I deleted and retyped the code and it worked. Try leaving out the trailing elipses.

James Steele wrote:Bongo... I don't know how you're managing it, but quoting in your messages isn't appearing correctly. I deleted and retyped the code and it worked. Try leaving out the trailing elipses.

I have special talents.

The quotes quit working a couple weeks ago. I went to my board preferences and flipped through them, not changing anything, and they worked again. Then they stopped again. I tried the trick again but it didn’t work this time.

bb

It’s back!

Must be something about the ellipses or the the editing to the post.

bb

bongo_x wrote:

Shooshie wrote: High Zoom Levels:
At high zoom levels, it's doing the very same thing, but the "envelope" of your click-drag happens to be wider than the window. So, it will either appear to be placing a giant note whose end points you can't see, or you will try to click-drag, and possibly fail, since the next gridline falls offscreen. If you can't make your drag reach the next gridline, it will either place a very short note where you clicked (on the grid), or it will extend the note to where you drag if you hold down the Command Key.

It may seem illogical at first at high zoom levels, but I promise you that if you play around with it at normal zoom levels, you'll soon see the er… logic… of the pencil tool's behavior at high zoom.

I am either not understanding this still, or I have a different setting or something.

Here’s what happens when I click with the grid on. For the first note I am zoomed to where I can see bar 1 & 2, I clicked behind bar 1 and it placed the note at bar 1, as you’d expect. Then I zoomed in one level and clicked at the same spot. It placed the note right where I clicked. I’ve noticed this at higher zoom levels, but in this test you can still see bar 2. If I zoom back out one level it places the note on bar one again.

This is the way it’s always worked in DP for me. You can’t see my cursor in the screenshot, but you can see in the timeline where it was. I hope you can see the screen well enough, I didn’t want to post too huge of a picture.





On previewing I see the picture is still too big, but in the full picture you can see that bar 2, and the end of the notes, is easily visible in both pictures.

bb

I did some testing. Let's use a starting at the Normal Zoom that you get when you type Command-Shift-N. From that point, hitting Command-RightArrow 8 times produces a very large magnification from which the grid of an 8th note still works. Hit it a 9th time, and the 8th note grid does not work, but a 16th note grid does. Keep magnifying. When the 16th note grid fails, a 32nd note grid works. Keep magnifying. When it gets to the level where the numbers in the timeline are 1 tic apart (1|1|001, 1|1|002, 1|1|003, 1|1|004, etc.) a grid of 0|008 still snaps pencil entries to itself.

Could it be a ratio of ⅛? I don't know. I haven't thought through it logically or done the math, but what is apparent is that MOTU didn't try to make the grid work at all magnifications for all grid sizes. They tried to keep it within the realm of practicality. Why would someone be zoomed in so far? To enter notes? No. More likely to do some fine adjustment WITHOUT the grid. After all, there's no need to zoom in if you're going to quantize something to 240 or 120. But if you're working on tremolo or trills at 30 or 15, then a grid needs to work at those magnifications, whereas a grid of a quarter note or 8th note is somewhat impractical.

Bottom line: it works.
Perceived problem: apparent failure of the grid when the resolution of the grid is mismatched drastically with the resolution of the timeline's zoom in the window.
How to Fix the Perceived Problem: adjust resolution of the grid to a practical level for the magnification in which you are working.

I think that does it.

Shooshie

bongo_x wrote:It’s back!

Must be something about the ellipses or the the editing to the post.

bb

I fixed one yesterday. It's curly quotes. Specifically on the closing end.

Shoosh

Shooshie wrote: I fixed one yesterday. It's curly quotes. Specifically on the closing end.

Shoosh

Curly on the end says:

"woooop woooop woooop wooooop"

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Curly on the end says:

"woooop woooop woooop wooooop"

And that's a direct quote! A Curly quote!

There once was a time when many DP users were ridiculed for requesting vertical zoom in the Tracks Overview window. Long time DP users just couldn't understand the value of this, even though, yep, other major competing DAWs provided that functionality for years!!!

Vertical zoom in the T.O. made it's DP debut in v6 which I think really adds to an efficient workflow.

Growth ($$$) involves change rather than scoffing at recommendations for new features or a more efficient implementation of features (i.e. fewer mouse clicks...). DP has evolved from Performer, once labeled the Rolls Royce of MIDI sequencers by CM in the 90s. The feature set has not remained static but has grown dynamically to meet the needs of users.

DP is an amazing DAW. But there's always room for improvement.

I think we all have our lists. Vertical zoom wasn't on mine, and I don't use it now, though I've messed with it to see if it might be useful to me. But I'm all for it's being there. Others may use the TOW differently than I, and I'd never stand in the way of anyone having what works for them.

There is a difference in "not wanting new features" vs. saying "DP isn't broken, deficient, or useless." The former is selfish, stubborn, and backward-thinking, but the latter is drawing a line in the sand and saying "your unwarranted criticism does not agree with the facts." We get a lot of trolling in here from users of other DAWs who hope to demoralize our users. Sometimes it is hard to decide who is trolling and who is legitimately asking for help, because trolls that have been chased off a few times will return a little more slick each time, gradually leaving the entire forum splattered with headlines like "DP can't record audio," or "DP fails miserably at MIDI," or something more subtle. As a moderator, you sometimes have to take a chance at offending a sincere person with a serial stream of requests for help in order to know when it's time to pull the trap door. One hopes that everyone else can see through them, too, and avoid feeding the trolls.

So, I'm all for new features, but I've been using DP productively for a long, long time, and resent being told that what I've done is impossible with my tools by someone who doesn't understand those tools. No, it's very important for new users to let go of their old ways and learn DP's ways first, then see how badly they really need their old favorites from Logic before presenting that feature's absence as a deficiency in DP. Obviously, many of us got along just fine without it, but if it really makes that much difference, get MOTU to add it. Then we old timers will prove that old dogs learn new a new trick very quickly when it leaves them more time to eat and sleep.

But to someone who says "I've studied DP for a month, and now I know what all it needs to be a great DAW," I say "son, you ain't learned nuttin' yet."

Shooshie

Shooshie wrote: We get a lot of trolling in here from users of other DAWs who hope to demoralize our users.

Seriously?!? You think there’s a vast conspiracy of Logic trying to bring you down?
That’s the kind of thinking that would never occur to me.

bb