Tutotial 6: THE PIANO ROLL (Part 2)

Tutorial on how to use the Piano Roll (part 2)

In this tutorial I will teach you some basic tips to work with the Piano Roll and that are very helpful in certain situations. Let’s see some of them; take a look at Figure 1.

- How to change the size of the Piano Roll: To expand the grey working area just double click on the upper bar where the name of your sample is, or click on the button at the right upper corner (6), just at the left side of the X (which obviously closes the Piano Roll so don’t touch it). The other button below the X (7) shows a two-direction cursor when you cross over it and by holding down left click you can change the working area’s width, which sometimes is necessary to look back at what you’re doing. 

In addition to that, if you right click on this button it will display four default sizes to pick. Of course, you’ll immediately notice that you can also move up and down or horizontally like in any other software using the intended bars for such purpose (5), but in case you want to see more scales in the grey area or in the keyboard, click on the top left buttons under the color indicator to change the piano’s width (1). There are two buttons that are quite easy to find because they resemble the keyboard below.

Figure 1:

- Working with some tools: There are just too many tools and functions in the Piano Roll to explain in a single day so let us concentrate in some of the most used of them all.

Perhaps the most common tool is the Draw (2), which is used to put or draw the green individual notes. It’s a kind of a pencil and it is also good to move or increase/decrease your notes to the desired sound. Right next to this little pencil you will see a paintbrush (3). This tool works similar to the Draw, but if the pencil places particular notes, the paintbrush tool let’s you put long lines of notes in a single click (holding it down). The next tool is the Eraser; the name speaks for itself.

Now, what if I want to use the same group of notes later in my song? Am I supposed to do the whole work again? Thank God, No.

Before you ask, you can repeat a certain part of your song several times, in a chorus for example. This is very common in modern music, where a song is divided in a “block” of lyrics then chorus then a second “block” of lyrics then the chorus again and so on.  It also happens when you are creating tracks with FL Studio. You won’t have to draw the same note by note again in another part of the track if you don’t want to. There’s a trick for that too:

Suppose you have placed a number of notes in the Piano Roll that, as I said before, but you want to use them again later. The secret is simple: Copy/Paste, like in other programs. Look at this:

1- Choose the Select tool (4) and holding down left click mark the notes you want to copy.

2- Click on the Top Left corner button to open the Piano Roll menu. Then choose Edit and press Copy.

3- Move the horizontal bar above the working area to the specific segment where you want to paste your selection and do the same as step 2 but this time use Paste.

NOTE: After you paste it you will need to press Draw again (the pencil) to locate the selection correctly. To unselect it, click anywhere in the grey area. There you have it, that’s all.

- Working with the Target Control: In some cases you will need to change the volume of a note or to assign its sound to left or right, etc. The best place to this is downstairs, in the Target Control area, situated in the lower part of the Piano Roll. To open it, right click on the grey sector under the keyboard and a small window will appear.

Choose, for instance Channel Volume and work with it at the right section. Try out the other properties and check how they modify the selected note.

This characteristic of the Piano Roll is very practical when you add samples like guitars, synthesizers, effects or generators.

CONGRATULATIONS!, now you know how to work with the 30 %? of the Piano Roll, more than enough to start. The rest?, investigate and experimentation.

Author: Miguel Angel Trujillo