Piano Roll¶
The piano roll is the main editor for editing MIDI regions.
It consists of the toolbar discussed in Editor Toolbar at the very top, a smaller space containing extra controls, the ruler discussed in Editor Ruler, the piano roll keys on the left, the piano roll (MIDI) arranger on the right and the velocity editor at the bottom.
Additional Controls¶
The piano roll contains the following additional controls.
Drum View¶
Enabling this will change the display of the arranger into a drum editor view, where each MIDI note is drawn as a diamond and the piano roll keys display the name of each drum.
Listen to notes¶
Enabling this will play back each note as you drag it inside the piano roll. This is useful if you want to hear what you are doing.
Piano Roll Keys¶
These are the keys corresponding to each key found on a piano.
Clicking on each key allows you to listen to it, much like pressing a key on a real piano.
A label for each key is shown on the left side of the black/white keys, in addition to any highlighting (if selected). See Highlighting for more information.
Tip
The zoom level can be changed by holding down Ctrl and Shift and scrolling.
MIDI Arranger¶
The MIDI arranger refers to the arranger section of the piano roll.
The MIDI arranger contains MIDI notes drawn as rectangles from their start position to their end position. Zrythm will send a MIDI note on signal when the start position of a note is reached, and a note off signal when the end position of a note is reached.
Editing inside the MIDI arranger is covered in Edit Tools and Common Operations.
Drum Mode¶
Todo
Explain/show how the 2 sections above look in drum mode.
Velocity Editor¶
There is another arranger at the bottom of the MIDI arranger for editing the velocity of each note.
Velocity refers to the force with which a note is played. Each instrument handles various velocities for the same note differently, but generally a higher velocity will result in a louder or stronger note. Velocities are useful for adding expression to melodies.
The velocity of each note is drawn as a bar, where higher means a larger value. Clicking and dragging the tip of each velocity bar allows you to change it.
Tip
You can also edit multiple velocities at once by selecting multiple MIDI notes before editing a velocity bar.
The Ramp Tool can also be used in the velocity editor to ramp velocities.
Event Viewer¶
The event viewer in the piano roll is similar to the timeline event viewer discussed in Event Viewer.
It displays information about each MIDI note in the MIDI arranger.