# DAW with the best piano roll/midi editor?



## ssb

I've been working with FL Studio for years and I'm totally fed up with it. It's awful for large scale midi compositions, and I'm trying to find my new home.

I work heavily with the mouse, though, and if there's one thing I love FL Studio for, it's the piano roll. Adding, removing, moving, editing, manipulating, whatever you want to do to your notes is very easy and quick and intuitive, and changing note velocities is exactly what I want. Editing cc data is a pain but nobody is perfect.

The issue I'm having with other DAWs as I try them out is that none of them have a piano that's as intuitive or mouse-friendly as FL Studio. Up until recently I worked ENTIRELY with mouse. Digital Performer comes close to what I want, but editing note velocities is a pain and adding/removing notes isn't as simple as FL Studio. DP requires this sort of precision surgical approach where in FL Studio I can just click and drag around where I want it.

For me the ideal behavior is clicking to place a note, holding that initial click to change the pitch, and dragging the ends to change note length, and Cubase kind of fails me there. Right click to delete notes also feels like a necessity to me. Hiding basic functions behind too many clicks feels like a real hindrance at points.

Ultimately these are all somewhat minor nitpicky things, but my workflow is what it is and I don't want to change too much unless I have to. What DAW has a piano roll the most comparable to FL Studio? Alternately, which one is the best and worth me trying to change my workflow?


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## Dr.Quest

You might want to look at Studio One Pro. I've used them all and this one is so easy and intuitive. You can trial it for 30 days which is what sold me. That being said I am using Reaper right now and I do like that as well. The piano roll is pretty intuitive but it is the most different of all the others as far as flow. But highly customizable and the most affordable.
J


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## shapeshifter00

I used FL for many years and no piano roll comes close to being as mouse friendly. It's great but the DAW has it's weak side with audio recording and mixing. I learned myself cubase in school and I love it. It's great for orchestral music and mixing. I still use FL for edm music and mix in cubase. To know both is lovely. Can't beat Lifetime free update so thats why I never give up on it, but prefer Cubase 7.5 for most of my composing. I highly recommend it


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## Farkle

I would also recommend Studio One Pro. The workflow is very fast, and the midi piano roll editing is also very fast, including editing velocity, etc.

I have also used Sonar in the past, and their piano roll is very good as well. I switched to studio one, because I feel like the engine is optimized for modern multi-core processors, which is useful for big midi scores.

Both programs have an uncrippled 30 day demo.

Mike


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## scarred bunny

I have used FL Studio very little, but there was a lot to like about its piano roll. I can't think of any other that is as mouse-centric. The best idea I can think of would be Sonar, _maybe_, with their new 'smart tools'? I tried it briefly, and I guess the idea is you click/drag on a note in different places to create different effects, so you won't have to switch between tools as often. Might be worth a look, although I couldn't get it to work for me at all. 

My "best piano roll" nomination would be Cubase, easily. Actually that's the main reason why I use Cubase in the first place. Good set of tools, good navigation, good multi-track editing, good multi-lane CC editing, etc... and it's fast, you can really fly around. But I also think that to really make it work, you need mouse + modifier keys and/or keyboard shortcuts. 

Honestly though, I don't quite understand this mouse-only thing. I find that terribly crippling. Embrace the keyboard - it's faster.


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## G.E.

Cubase and Studio One have the best midi workflow in my opinion and I've tried them all.


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## emid

I find people coming from FL piano roll get frustrated using piano rolls of any other DAW. This is because its the easiest and as others said, mouse centric which comes very handy if midi controller is not around. I also find people happily migrated to Studio One Pro because of its best resemblance as compared to other DAWs. DP8 also full of features but unstable on windows for now (at least on my machine). Cubase piano roll needs some brainstorming until you are brainwashed from the comparison of the piano rolls of FL studio and Cubase.


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## ghandizilla

It's true that when you write directly over the piano roll ("Don't quantize, don't you ever quantize"), FL Studio is a must. I've always come back to FL Studio because of that. Furthermore, you can do great un-looped things with it if you're willing to take the path of 100-bars long patterns. The main drawback is the time it takes to build a template with all instruments linked to separate MIDI Out with modwheel-editable-piano-roll tracks. (But if you take that time, and use BRSO Articulate to assigne keyswitches to different voice colors, you've got yourself a highway -> http://www.syntheticorchestra.com/articulate/ )


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## d.healey

Reaper + reaMidicontrol


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## Karma

I've used Logic, Cubase & Reaper and for me Cubase has the best workflow. It is however all down to personal preference


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## mac

I think it's generally regarded (although maybe not judging by the posts above!) that Logic has always been the midi king. It needs multi lane midi cc asap, but apart from that its pretty complete.


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## jacobthestupendous

ssb said:


> For me the ideal behavior is clicking to place a note, holding that initial click to change the pitch, and dragging the ends to change note length, and Cubase kind of fails me there. Right click to delete notes also feels like a necessity to me.



If you are on a Mac, Logic is pretty good for MIDI work. If you set up your mouse tools correctly, I think you could get pretty close to this workflow.


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## Kuusniemi

For me Sonar is the best and works just the way I want it to. I have used Reaper, Cubase and Logic and have tried out the free versions of pretty much everything you can find. I do agree with the statement above that it's all down to personal taste. There really isn't one that's best, and really no one's going to really know what DAW you use when they listen to your music.


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## Vik

jacobthestupendous said:


> If you are on a Mac, Logic is pretty good for MIDI work. If you set up your mouse tools correctly, I think you could get pretty close to this workflow.


Hmmm.... the OP mentioned "for me the ideal behavior is clicking to place a note, holding that initial click to change the pitch" ...but if you enter a note in the Logic piano roll, you can't change it's pitch without releasing the mouse first. Cubase also has note names inside each of the piano roll 'beams'. And multiple CC lanes in the piano roll and other editors, and multiple "inline" CC lanes in both the Arrange regions as well. Then there's VST Note Expression, Expression Maps, you can import MusicXML, and everything related to articulations/CCs/Kontakt/ VI automation seems better than in Logic (I'm a Logic user, btw). 
So if working with virtual instruments is important to you, SSB, remember that Cubase in general seems a lot more focused on that kind of work than Logic currently is.


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## ZeroZero

For me its Cubase 8.5, for power, not ease of use. Ease of use it has, if used in a 'standard' way, but it also has real power. AFAIK it is the only DAW with expression maps which are a huge hit in orchestral worlds - you get to choose every note's articulation. Its also got a right click mini window that pops up for each note for 'note expression' that can carve a sound for each note using MIDI control - at a whim. 
There is so much more, despite it's intuitive interface it actaully pays to spend some time on Utube, finding out about how it can be customised and what other powers lie beneath the hood. For example you can 'expand' the difference between a group of notes so as to make them x% more different from each other, giving your MIDI line more punch. You can set max and min limits on velocity, you can colorize notes for key, channel, part or more. You can grab selections of notes and nudge, shape or send to a different sound, you can stack your horn parts so that although they are four charts, you see one in the MIDI editor and they all play back appropriately with different sounds. All with the mouse. 
So, I say, get Cubase, then spent a few days (it will take a while) practicing the interface's capabilities. After that you'll be a wizard.

Z


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## nas

I use Logic's piano roll editor a lot. Between the editing you can do with the individual or group notes with your mouse and various key commands, the MIDI draw, and the Transform window... you get a very powerful combination of editing features. But it really does come down to your workflow and personal preferences.


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## Vik

nas said:


> But it really does come down to your workflow and personal preferences.


Yes, and of course - it comes down to what each of these DAWs actually can do. And there are many threads about this topic, on this and other forums, already:
http://vi-control.net/community/thr...ram-for-work-with-orchestral-libraries.43016/
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/960766-what-makes-logic-good-song-writing-midi.html
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mus...er-composing-logic-better-song-writing-3.html


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## EvilDragon

Reaper's piano roll can be made to work dangerously close to FL's by tweaking mouse modifiers...


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## ranaprathap

ZeroZero said:


> AFAIK it is the only DAW with expression maps which are a huge hit in orchestral worlds - you get to choose every note's articulation.



With BRSO articulate plugin, in Fl Studio, you can get that exact same functionality. It also makes editing CC data much more easy. 

@ssb You should check out the Blake Robinson's youtube channel the synthetic orchestra, if you haven't already. He has done some live streams of his workflow, and he works entirely on FL.


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## ghandizilla

ranaprathap said:


> With BRSO articulate plugin, in Fl Studio, you can get that exact same functionality. It also makes editing CC data much more easy.
> 
> @ssb You should check out the Blake Robinson's youtube channel the synthetic orchestra, if you haven't already. He has done some live streams of his workflow, and he works entirely on FL.



A BRSO template takes time to build (took me about 1hr to build a CineSymphony Core Template). But this time is gained in a _single _track composed afterwards, if you're a mouse-writer rather than a controller-player. (As I am accustomed to.)


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## ZeroZero

ranaprathap said:


> With BRSO articulate plugin, in Fl Studio, you can get that exact same functionality. It also makes editing CC data much more easy.
> 
> @ssb You should check out the Blake Robinson's youtube channel the synthetic orchestra, if you haven't already. He has done some live streams of his workflow, and he works entirely on FL.


 Learnt something !


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## John Busby

Logic's midi roll is fantastic!


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## C-Wave

I know I am veering from the main subject, but I love Cubase / hate the ugly GUI.. I mean c'mon Steinberg, you can afford to hire a graphic designer to redesign the GUI. I mean it took you all the way till 8.5 to make the media bay dockable.. everything else is still not! rounded corners everywhere? Light grey icons? This is 2016 for God's sake.
Ok there I said it.. I'm calm now 
Edit: I can exclude the new mixer (which they rewrote recently) from the above.


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## ghandizilla

Resurrecting this old subject, as a MIDI data "click-and-point" guy (I use the MIDI keyboard only for complicated bits, and manually draw the data 90% of the time), one month after having successfully abandoned FL Studio. I encountered with FL Studio the same problem you mention on your first post: on huge projects, MIDI data become messy and overwhelming, it's really difficult to stay organized with the pattern-workflow. Don't know about Sonar. I never managed to get fast click-and-point workflow on Cubase (but I messed around only with the "trial version").

Just agreeing with @EvilDragon that with mouse modifiers Reaper can really be matched to FL Studio (right-click delete, color mapping, same shortcuts, same velocity workflow, better CC workflow) + some other cool stuffs ("displayed CC-lanes" mapped to number shortcuts, MIDI note names, shift+mousewheel shortcut for piano roll grid, and so on). It takes 5 to 10 minutes to configure it if you have been advised how to do it (for example : via the existing thread in VI-Control).


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## LFO

What is good to me might not be to you. Cubase MIDI is natural, fast and reliable. It fits my mindset. Your milage might vary, depending on how your mind works.


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## joebaggan

After trying a number of DAWs, I find Cubase to be all around king for Midi.


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## anp27

ssb said:


> I work heavily with the mouse, though, and if there's one thing I love FL Studio for, it's the piano roll. Adding, removing, moving, editing, manipulating, whatever you want to do to your notes is very easy and quick and intuitive, and changing note velocities is exactly what I want.



I use both Logic X (10.4) and the Magic Trackpad 2 exclusively. With the "Look Up and Data Detectors" option checked in the Trackpad Preferences, I am able to:

1. Add a note by simply tapping on the Piano Roll, *switching to the Pencil Tool is not required.*

2. Holding down Command and Control whilst dragging up or down changes the MIDI note velocity, *switching to the Velocity Tool is not required.
*
3. If you have the Scissor Tool as your secondary tool in the Piano Roll, you can just hold down Command then Option to very quickly chop a long midi note into smaller sub divisions based on where you have your cursor positioned.



ssb said:


> Right click to delete notes also feels like a necessity to me.



Tapping on a MIDI note deletes the note, *switching to the Eraser Tool or hitting Delete is not required.
*
That being said, Logic isn't perfect and I took some features that I like from FL Studio and some Logical Editor presets I liked from Cubase and integrated them into Logic. I know you said that you prefer using the mouse for editing but I'm all about the key commands and I feel that you can get stuff done much quicker with key commands as opposed to using a mouse. The Logic 10.3 update gave us 30 User Transform presets which can be freely assigned to custom key commands, the ones circled are my User Transform presets that are assigned to custom key commands. I never have to open the Transform window anymore..

I also have key commands set up for Modulation, Pitch Bend, Expression and Pan. And I switch between these and other Region Automation with the 'Cycle Through Used Parameters' key command.

So with everything set up this way, editing MIDI in Logic is pretty great.


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## anp27

ghandizilla said:


> (for example : via the existing thread in VI-Control).



Which one is that?


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## ghandizilla

This one!


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## anp27

ghandizilla said:


> This one!



Thanks, checking it out now


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## Jan Anders

I am surprise that no one mentioned Ableton Live, specially Ableton Live 10 with the multitrack midi editor that was missing.
The workflow is really the best. 
Second place cubase.
Last place reaper, even with the customization.

Mouse based system in a piano roll will be never faster than a mouse+keyboard based.


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## KarlHeinz

Even if I never really could have tried out cause I just cant afford it I would think nothing could beat Ableton live in midi editing, especially in companion with all the M4L apps that are included or available in addition.

I use waveform and must admit that in wf 8/9 with the chord track and the midi pattern generator there are nice additions for quick midi song sketching but I dont do big midi compositions with orchestra etc. so I just cant judge that.


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## ghandizilla

Jan Anders said:


> I am surprise that no one mentioned Ableton Live, specially Ableton Live 10 with the multitrack midi editor that was missing.
> The workflow is really the best.
> Second place cubase.
> Last place reaper, even with the customization.
> 
> Mouse based system in a piano roll will be never faster than a mouse+keyboard based.



But with the mouse modifiers you can actually control the piano roll with keyboard+mouse in Reaper


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## EvilDragon

ghandizilla said:


> But with the mouse modifiers you can actually control the piano roll with keyboard+mouse in Reaper



Exactly. :D And it will be faster than Live, too. Also lemme know when Live supports editing multiple MIDI channels from a single MIDI item.


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## Jan Anders

EvilDragon said:


> Exactly. :D And it will be faster than Live, too. Also lemme know when Live supports editing multiple MIDI channels from a single MIDI item.


That was the only missing feature.
But not anymore on live 10.


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## EvilDragon

Live 10 supports editing multiple clips at once, but still one clip supports just one MIDI channel, AFAIK. A proper MIDI editor would support all 16 MIDI channels. And sysex. And 14-bit MIDI. This is where Live still lacks, so there are more "missing features".


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## Tyll

EvilDragon said:


> Live 10 supports editing multiple clips at once



Not even that. It only supports viewing multiple items at once.

I wouldn't spend my time arguing with anyone who says that Live's piano roll is the best. Pretty sure that's wasted effort.


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## InLight-Tone

EvilDragon said:


> Live 10 supports editing multiple clips at once, but still one clip supports just one MIDI channel, AFAIK. A proper MIDI editor would support all 16 MIDI channels. And sysex. And 14-bit MIDI. This is where Live still lacks, so there are more "missing features".


And why would one need that feature?


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## Divico

EvilDragon said:


> Reaper's piano roll can be made to work dangerously close to FL's by tweaking mouse modifiers...


Would you like to post the tweaks you did to your midi editor?


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## EvilDragon

InLight-Tone said:


> And why would one need that feature?



Try to think about it a little bit 



Divico said:


> Would you like to post the tweaks you did to your midi editor?



I'm not using a scheme similar to FL Studio though, I made my own... Here, use these.


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## InLight-Tone

EvilDragon said:


> Try to think about it a little bit


One track per instrument, everything is in the box, no external instruments. In Live can layer to my hearts content and automate all at will, plus the trump card, Max!


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## Vik

I'm seriously impressed if there are many DAW users who have a detailed overview of which MIDI/piano roll editing functions all DAWs have. I certainly don't! So, to those of you who mention that DAW X is better than the others: it would be nice if you could mention exactly which functions that makes that DAW stick out.


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## EvilDragon

InLight-Tone said:


> One track per instrument, everything is in the box, no external instruments. In Live can layer to my hearts content and automate all at will, plus the trump card, Max!



Multiple MIDI channel editing is for MPE, for example (where every note rotates MIDI channels) - so Live fails that straight up. And multitimbral instances are more RAM efficient than one track per instrument.  Not to mention, interfacing external multitimbral hardware synths...


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## tack

I use a single track (and dedicated Kontakt instance) per instrument as well, but one common use-case for editing multiple channels in the MIDI editor is divisi. I load in the necessary patches in the Kontakt instance on channel 2 (or 3, etc.) and then use different channels for different divisi parts. Being able to see and manipulate the different MIDI channels in a consolidated view is crucial for this.


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## EvilDragon

Another good example, thanks tack.


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## InLight-Tone

EvilDragon said:


> Multiple MIDI channel editing is for MPE, for example (where every note rotates MIDI channels) - so Live fails that straight up. And multitimbral instances are more RAM efficient than one track per instrument.  Not to mention, interfacing external multitimbral hardware synths...


I can run 30-50 instances on my fairly new i7, why would I need more tracks than that?


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## InLight-Tone

tack said:


> I use a single track (and dedicated Kontakt instance) per instrument as well, but one common use-case for editing multiple channels in the MIDI editor is divisi. I load in the necessary patches in the Kontakt instance on channel 2 (or 3, etc.) and then use different channels for different divisi parts. Being able to see and manipulate the different MIDI channels in a consolidated view is crucial for this.


OK point taken for your use scenario...


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## EvilDragon

InLight-Tone said:


> I can run 30-50 instances on my fairly new i7, why would I need more tracks than that?



Orchestral templates can get into hundreds of tracks. Multitimbral instances greatly help reduce overhead from empty Kontakt instances by simply reducing their count.

MIDI channels have a lot of merits. Any DAW not using them (or even making them available for editing) is severely lacking IMHO


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## tack

EvilDragon said:


> Orchestral templates can get into hundreds of tracks. Multitimbral instances greatly help reduce overhead from empty Kontakt instances by simply reducing their count.


Not to dredge up this old discussion again (but I will anyway) ...

Switching to a track per instrument template approach combined with disabling unused tracks in many cases has brought an average net _reduction_ in memory use for me (not to mention load times), just because it's so convenient to disable unneeded instruments this way.

(Of course even the track per instrument approach still benefits from multitimbral instances. You just limit the patches to those for the given instrument.)

Certainly if I enabled all tracks in my template that'd be a different story. But even for larger projects where more instruments are enabled, I think one could reasonably argue that the extra ~60MB per Kontakt instance is worth the price of admission in exchange for the simplified routing and track management, e.g. being able to combine audio processing and automation and MIDI on the same tracks.


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## merlinhimself

+1 for Cubase. Honestly my favorite is Ableton, the midi is perfect, but the rest of the program isn't wholly suited for writing for film or tv.


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## Saxer

Best Piano Roll


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## AdamAlake

Actually, you can route both MIDI and audio in ableton however you want, so you can have one track per multiple instruments and vice versa, on any channel you need.


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## merlinhimself

Saxer said:


> Best Piano Roll


 Worst piano roll


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## InLight-Tone

EvilDragon said:


> Orchestral templates can get into hundreds of tracks. Multitimbral instances greatly help reduce overhead from empty Kontakt instances by simply reducing their count.
> 
> MIDI channels have a lot of merits. Any DAW not using them (or even making them available for editing) is severely lacking IMHO


I understand that, my Cubase template has over 1000+ tracks but they're all disabled and I activate as I go. I'm talking about my average track count per cue which is usually in the range of about 30-50 after layering and such...


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## Vik

merlinhimself said:


> Worst piano roll


No.


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## R. Soul

I've used Cubase for so long, that I don't see a point changing, but whenever I've seen people work in FL studio's piano roll I've become rather jealous.

Adding notes, changing their length, deleting them, changing velocity etc. is just such a breeze, and could speed up my workflow tremendously if Cubase had that.

As it is now, I feel it's a drag experimenting by drawing in notes in the piano roll, cause a basic thing like clicking on a note doesn't actually do anything. So to delete the note, you either have to press 'Delete' or right-click and select rubber tool, only to then select drawing tool to enter a note again. It's really not very productive.


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## AllanH

tack said:


> Not to dredge up this old discussion again (but I will anyway) ...
> 
> Switching to a track per instrument template approach combined with disabling unused tracks in many cases has brought an average net _reduction_ in memory use for me (not to mention load times), just because it's so convenient to disable unneeded instruments this way. []



I'm with tack on this. With my switch to Cubase, and only showing tracks with data, this approach has worked very well for me both from a memory and workflow perspective. Cubase, at least, seems to do a very good job of unloading disabled tracks.


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## AllanH

Re the PRV, i.e. Key Editor, in Cubase: It's certainly better than Sonar's but at the expense of additional mouse-clicks. 

In Cubase, there are so many elegant keyboard shortcuts. By example, the cursor keys in PRV are very helpful. I find that faster than the mouse at times.


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## Divico

EvilDragon said:


> Try to think about it a little bit
> I'm not using a scheme similar to FL Studio though, I made my own... Here, use these.



Thanks . How do you work with CC controls?. Im quite unsatisfied although I already use the automation approach with the CCenv plugin that I found here. 

To bring in something constructive. I´m using Reaper quite happily. Midi editing works quite good but editing CC lanes is a bitch. You have to customize it to get somewhere close to for example Cubases CC editing.


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## EvilDragon

I just work with CCs in the MIDI editor. Is fine for me. These help: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=176878

Also notice my mouse modifiers I posted above. Makes working with CCs much smoother and faster when you change the default action in one or two contexts.


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