# Anyone composing with the piano roll, only?



## Nate Johnson (Jun 17, 2021)

I mean, in the same way you’d use standard notation. No keyboard performing, just placing notes in with a mouse or trackpad or key command.

Sounds like an excellent experiment.


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## doctoremmet (Jun 17, 2021)

A friend of mine who has had several successful progressive house records released since the 1990s only ever used Cubase, a bunch of softsynths, a sampler and a mouse. Draws everything in. Beats. Chords. Melodies. And fast! So yeah, I’d argue this is a pretty common workflow in the “EDM” or “beats” domain.


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## SchnookyPants (Jun 17, 2021)

Nate Johnson said:


> I mean, in the same way you’d use standard notation. No keyboard performing, just placing notes in with a mouse or trackpad or key command.
> 
> Sounds like an excellent experiment.


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## lychee (Jun 17, 2021)

Having started music with Soundtrack type programs, I got used to composing with a keyboard and mouse.
By switching to more conventional DAWs, I haven't lost the habit and never found the strength to learn the piano.
It is obviously much longer to put an idea into practice, and of course we can forget the possibility of playing live, but that doesn't bother me more than that.
And no, I don't do EDM but all types of music (Orchestral, Funk, Soul, Rock ...).


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## mybadmemory (Jun 17, 2021)

Anne Dern has a number of videos on her YouTube channel making lord of the rings mock ups solely by programming everything in. ☺️


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## Oakran (Jun 19, 2021)

I do use the piano roll almost exclusively rather than playing each part with a midi keyboard.
I like to use my mind as a guide to what I want to write and not my hands/technical knowledge. One note leads to another and so on.

For me it feels like second nature to just input each note and design the dynamics with the mouse. Also being able to quickly switch between different vsts, sketching the harmony, etc.
It's insanely fast once you get used to it and it gives you a lot of control over what you're doing.

I'm a poor piano player anyway so I had to find a solution early on ^^


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## Trash Panda (Jun 19, 2021)

Yup.


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## Arbee (Jun 19, 2021)

Oakran said:


> For me it feels like second nature to just input each note and design the dynamics with the mouse. Also being able to quickly switch between different vsts, sketching the harmony, etc.
> It's insanely fast once you get used to it and it gives you a lot of control over what you're doing.


I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that being an accomplished pianist might be more of a curse than a blessing in the current market (i.e. re what sounds "current"). I might suggest those who use just the piano roll and computer tools are free of the stylistic nuances that playing the piano brings to the composing process (perhaps not so much with other instruments?). Listening to the work of those like you who do exactly this at a very pro level reinforces that concept to me anyway.

BTW, I notice you're in Lyon Oakran. How are things in Lyon re Covid? It's one of my most favorite places in the world and can't wait to get back. Just walking along the river market there is heaven on earth!


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## Babe (Jun 19, 2021)

Don't use a keyboard at all.


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## Oakran (Jun 20, 2021)

Arbee said:


> I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that being an accomplished pianist might be more of a curse than a blessing in the current market (i.e. re what sounds "current"). I might suggest those who use just the piano roll and computer tools are free of the stylistic nuances that playing the piano brings to the composing process (perhaps not so much with other instruments?). Listening to the work of those like you who do exactly this at a very pro level reinforces that concept to me anyway.
> 
> BTW, I notice you're in Lyon Oakran. How are things in Lyon re Covid? It's one of my most favorite places in the world and can't wait to get back. Just walking along the river market there is heaven on earth!



Thanks for your message Robert and glad to hear it's one of your favorite places  I wasn't born there but it's one of mine too. Great food, not too big compared to Paris and lots of things to do. We have a really good national orchestra too. I often go for a walk in the "Vieux Lyon" which looks and feels exactly like romanticized France from the 50s. So inspiring !

In Lyon things are getting better even if the lockdown impacted our economy pretty harshly and France overall is in a seriously disturbing economical and political crisis. In the Part Dieu district there's a few restaurants that closed down and overall this place is in a rough shape due to the complete renovation of the train hall which is taking forever.
I guess it could have been worse. But I think people in Lyon changed a lot during this crisis. They are a bit less easy going and you can feel it.


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## Arbee (Jun 20, 2021)

Oakran said:


> Thanks for your message Robert and glad to hear it's one of your favorite places  I wasn't born there but it's one of mine too. Great food, not too big compared to Paris and lots of things to do. We have a really good national orchestra too. I often go for a walk in the "Vieux Lyon" which looks and feels exactly like romanticized France from the 50s. So inspiring !
> 
> In Lyon things are getting better even if the lockdown impacted our economy pretty harshly and France overall is in a seriously disturbing economical and political crisis. In the Part Dieu district there's a few restaurants that closed down and overall this place is in a rough shape due to the complete renovation of the train hall which is taking forever.
> I guess it could have been worse. But I think people in Lyon changed a lot during this crisis. They are a bit less easy going and you can feel it.


Thanks for the reply Oakran, a little sad but not unexpected. Here's hoping time and vaccines can restore the heart and soul of the community. Sorry everyone else for taking this thread off topic for a moment.


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## toddkreuz (Jun 20, 2021)

It makes a HUGE difference when you play things in on a controller because
the fluctuation in timing is that of a real player. Real people don't play perfectly
to a grid.
Flowing legato lines? I don't think it matters that much. 

Where it really matters is with ostinato's and things of that nature, where there's
a succession of short notes. When you hard quantize things like that, it just sounds
wrong, or at least, not realistic. Similar to the machine gun effect you get when
there's no round robin script.

Now, if hard quantized ostinato's sound just fine to you, its because you are listening
to midi mockups and not to real orchestras. Stop doing that. Its screwing you up
and you're not even aware of it.


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## jbuhler (Jun 20, 2021)

toddkreuz said:


> It makes a HUGE difference when you play things in on a controller because
> the fluctuation in timing is that of a real player. Real people don't play perfectly
> to a grid.
> Flowing legato lines? I don't think it matters that much.
> ...


As usual with claims of this sort, there is no absolute and it depends. Some libraries are looser with the cutting of the samples that means you can lay notes on the grid and it doesn't sound mechanical or machinegunny due to the relative looseness of the round robins. There are also ways of loosening things that sound too tight just as there are ways of tightening things that sound too loose. Often a good tempo map is better way of creating an ensemble feel than is playing the parts in. If playing things in works for you, of course, that's great for you. Just don't tell people they are screwing up for not following your own particular method.


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## NekujaK (Jun 20, 2021)

Both... depending on the type of part, the instrument, and my ability, or lack thereof, to perform the part adequately.

Both methods have their place.


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## Chris Harper (Jun 20, 2021)

Also both, but I would say I write the majority on the piano roll. Nice to see I’m not the only one. I used to feel like an oddball. Even if I play parts on the controller, I have to do considerable editing to get them right. I am an ok piano player, but I am somewhat limited beyond playing chords and accompaniment. I don’t get my inspiration from playing, except working out colorful chord progressions. When I compose, I’m usually transcribing things that are in my head, and I can often do it better and faster with the mouse.

Playing sort of gets in the way of what I want to write. I don’t tend to think in terms of notes. When I hear melodies, harmonies and chords in my head, I think of them in abstract terms like what relationship they have to the key I’m currently in, or as a series of intervals relative to each other, and I’m transposing them into notes as I go. On instruments I play better, I can usually do this quickly enough to play what’s in my head at song tempo, but not piano. Also, I like to open all the instruments in a family in the piano roll at the same time and write them in parallel, as though I were skipping up and down between parts in a score. I am typically voicing all the parts simultaneously as I write the melody. It’s just the way that works for me.

I don’t necessarily lock things to the grid. You can easily draw in notes without quantizing them. It’s faster, actually. I am usually pretty meticulous about listening back and adjusting timing, moving things ahead or behind the beat where I think they should go. I can’t play with the expressiveness of a great piano player, but I know how I want the music to be expressed. If I was a better piano player, I’m sure I would use the controller a lot more.


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## Alex Niedt (Jun 20, 2021)

jbuhler said:


> As usual with claims of this sort, there is no absolute and it depends. Some libraries are looser with the cutting of the samples that means you can lay notes on the grid and it doesn't sound mechanical or machinegunny due to the relative looseness of the round robins. There are also ways of loosening things that sound too tight just as there are ways of tightening things that sound too loose. Often a good tempo map is better way of creating an ensemble feel than is playing the parts in. If playing things in works for you, of course, that's great for you. Just don't tell people they are screwing up for not following your own particular method.


To add to this, I love Rough Quantize for shaking things up after programming in, and then I'll nudge various notes around to taste. Also use Tempo Editor to keep things ebbing and flowing. There's absolutely no reason programmed stuff has to remain totally on-the-grid or static in any facet.


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## AudioLoco (Jun 21, 2021)

Even being an atrocious keyboard player (I'm home with guitar) I always play the parts in, usually left hand on the mod wheel if chords are not involved.
That gives me a performanc-y result (often too much hahah) regarding timing and velocity and mod wheeling.
I then procede to create havock and program in changes, even very drastic, in the piano roll.
For the way I work, I prefer putting in the human imperfect first, and then go more rational.

I imagine there are a million ways of doing this in order to achieve similar goals.


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## lychee (Jun 21, 2021)

toddkreuz said:


> It makes a HUGE difference when you play things in on a controller because
> the fluctuation in timing is that of a real player. Real people don't play perfectly
> to a grid.
> Flowing legato lines? I don't think it matters that much.
> ...


For my part I use midi plugins on Cakewalk, which allow to humanize my "robotic" tracks.
Or sometimes some plugins have a humanization system included in the program, like some rhythm instruments from Native.


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## ptram (Jun 21, 2021)

Oakran said:


> Great food, not too big compared to Paris and lots of things to do.


Don't tell tourists how good Lyon is, or it will soon become like Paris! 

(Just kidding: Paris is the only town where I've continually returned for long stays, and I can ride the metro without even looking at the map; but Lyon is a much more manageable town, and its surroundings are probably even more stunning than those of Paris; not to speak of the short train trip to the Mediterranean Sea or the Alps – can I trigger the old rivalry between North and South?)

Paolo


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## ptram (Jun 21, 2021)

I feel there is a difference when entering notes in the score/pianoroll, or when playing them. However, being the goofy pianist I am, in the end I spend a lot of time manually quantizing what I played out of the grid.

I'm currently working in Dorico for things that have to be precise on the score, and I like how it gives a good foundation to start humanizing things from its humanizing algorithms. Everything is transparent, so you can see what the machine did, and you can adjust it to your taste.

I think a mix of both may work. If a part is not sounding human enough, play it again live, or add a layer played live. This seems to me to offer the best of the two worlds.

Paolo


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## Chris Harper (Jun 21, 2021)

Hector Berlioz was a really bad piano player. He once wrote that not playing piano “saved [him] from the tyranny of keyboard habits, so dangerous to thought, and from the lure of conventional harmonies.” While I don’t share that sentiment, he seems to have done ok. If he were alive today, he would be all about mouse clicking the piano roll. Or maybe he would just use orchestrator…who knows.


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## PedroPH (Jun 21, 2021)

I use Renoise, which is a tracker as well as a DAW with all the common features, and I enter notes by hand with the computer keyboard (I don't record them in real time). I edit automation envelopes with the mouse, and enter velocity values manually. It's possible to humanize the performance by introducing slight tempo changes.


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## Arbee (Jun 21, 2021)

Arbee said:


> I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that being an accomplished pianist might be more of a curse than a blessing in the current market (i.e. re what sounds "current"). I might suggest those who use just the piano roll and computer tools are free of the stylistic nuances that playing the piano brings to the composing process (perhaps not so much with other instruments?).


This thread is really interesting. I note many have responded to the question of performance authenticity (live vs programmed), but I'm perhaps even more interested in what it brings to the composition. In my view, piano roll programming is really just a modern evolution of composing straight to paper, with the added benefit of hearing your work as it builds. While others may be a lot more adept at divorcing their pianistic background and muscle memory influences while composing, I still find that separation _very_ challenging.

Edit: Just read Chris Harper's response re Berlioz ^^


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## darcvision (Jun 21, 2021)

i'm mostly using piano roll for composing, like placing notes, drawing CC with my mouse, and a lot of quantize and humanize. i really like quantize and humanize from reaper and it's very easy to use. about sketching or doodling, i'm using virtual midi keyboard using my qwerty keyboard with costumized script on reaper.


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## szczaw (Jun 21, 2021)

PedroPH said:


> I use Renoise, which is a tracker as well as a DAW with all the common features, and I enter notes by hand with the computer keyboard (I don't record them in real time). I edit automation envelopes with the mouse, and enter velocity values manually. It's possible to humanize the performance by introducing slight tempo changes.


Same here. I tend to use scripting to generate some notes first.


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## mikrokosmiko (Jun 21, 2021)

Are you piano rollers familiar with Conlon Nancarrow's music?


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## PedroPH (Jun 21, 2021)

That's my view, too. My first attempts at composing were writing scores in notation programs. But that was cumbersome to me. I then discovered piano rolls, and found they were an improvement. Then someone showed me FastTracker, and that was really what I was looking for. Later I switched to ModPlug Tracker and afterwards to Renoise. I never had a MIDI keyboard.



Arbee said:


> This thread is really interesting. I note many have responded to the question of performance authenticity (live vs programmed), but I'm perhaps even more interested in what it brings to the composition. In my view, piano roll programming is really just a modern evolution of composing straight to paper, with the added benefit of hearing your work as it builds. While others may be a lot more adept at divorcing their pianistic background and muscle memory influences while composing, I still find that separation _very_ challenging.
> 
> Edit: Just read Chris Harper's response re Berlioz ^^


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## Arbee (Jun 21, 2021)

PedroPH said:


> Then someone showed me FastTracker, and that was really what I was looking for. Later I switched to ModPlug Tracker and afterwards to Renoise. I never had a MIDI keyboard.


Thanks for sharing this, I'll take a look at Renoise 

Edit: what I think I'd really like is a horizontal piano roll/midi editor that scrolls down instead of left to right.


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## PedroPH (Jun 22, 2021)

Arbee said:


> Thanks for sharing this, I'll take a look at Renoise
> 
> Edit: what I think I'd really like is a horizontal piano roll/midi editor that scrolls down instead of left to right.


You mean a piano roll where the keyboard is placed horizontally? Trackers do scroll down, but they don't use position to represent a note. They use their names (eg A-4, C-5, etc). What I find easier, with trackers, is the ability to notice the length of the notes (compared to a score).


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## Gerbil (Jun 22, 2021)

The week or so I had to spend drawing parts in because my keyboard needed repairing made my brain disintegrate like a wet cake. I felt so divorced from the process as a musician and got not an ounce of pleasure from it. Weird as I'm perfectly happy to sit away from the piano and write a score down on paper.


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## marco berco (Jul 16, 2021)

Nate Johnson said:


> I mean, in the same way you’d use standard notation. No keyboard performing, just placing notes in with a mouse or trackpad or key command.
> 
> Sounds like an excellent experiment.


It depends on what style of music you perform or write. It is far more easy to compose modern and kind of hip hop or electronic music inside your DAW than on a notation software, as it is far pire convenirnt to write symphonic music on a notation software than in a DAW in order to control all the movements and vertical for all sections. But all in all there is no rule of thumb.


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## marco berco (Jul 16, 2021)

Chris Harper said:


> Hector Berlioz was a really bad piano player. He once wrote that not playing piano “saved [him] from the tyranny of keyboard habits, so dangerous to thought, and from the lure of conventional harmonies.” While I don’t share that sentiment, he seems to have done ok. If he were alive today, he would be all about mouse clicking the piano roll. Or maybe he would just use orchestrator…who knows.


Berlioz was a classical guitar player, that’s why he was not performing good on the piano.


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## BVMusic (Aug 1, 2021)

Been composing only by entering midi notes in piano roll in the last few weeks, and coming from the '90s, where I have used my keyboards to create my singles and albums, I am finding this new way of composing very inspiring. Big thanks also to Joel Zimmermann where I have discovered his music lately and how he composes this way, inspirational. I notice that making music on the piano roll, I can come up with ideas and make changes until I like what I hear. So for me, it is very artistic entering, moving and changing notes in the piano roll until you construct a kind of a beautiful painting, and taking out sort of obligation to use a keyboard to make music, not to mention the more space on my desk! It is also a way of not rushing your work into your composition, a kind of detailed composing where you have more control on what's happening on each note!- Brian


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## SergeD (Aug 1, 2021)

As a guitarist, keyboard has never been my preferred way to input notes. But adding vocals (Realivox in my case) directly into the piano roll is not intuitive and breaks the "magic moment". 

Ta-dah! Now, when recording a vocal part, I only hit one laptop key while humming, and then adjust the pitch of each note into the piano roll. I would say that it's fast and effective.


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## ProfoundSilence (Aug 1, 2021)

If it helps I regretted my purchase of a Lenovo yoga for Staffpad after I realized I could draw music in easier in reaper with just a mouse


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## Steve_Karl (Aug 7, 2021)

Nate Johnson said:


> I mean, in the same way you’d use standard notation. No keyboard performing, just placing notes in with a mouse or trackpad or key command.
> 
> Sounds like an excellent experiment.


I have done it in the past for a few pieces, and may do it again. It's an interesting change to be totally on the grid for some things, but now, I most always play parts in with a keyboard.


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## GNP (Aug 7, 2021)

That's like asking,
"Has anybody ever tried driving with their eyes closed? Sounds like a great experiment!"


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## Chris Harper (Aug 7, 2021)

GNP said:


> That's like asking,
> "Has anybody ever tried driving with their eyes closed? Sounds like a great experiment!"


Or, perhaps it’s more like asking, “Has anybody ever driven a manual transmission?” It seems pretty clear based on this thread that there are quite a few people are capable of, or even prefer, composing on the piano roll. Composers have been drawing notes on staves for centuries. I don’t see how clicking on a piano roll is any different.


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## Steve_Karl (Aug 7, 2021)

I also stay in the piano roll view when I'm recording / playing everything in with a keyboard.


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## devonmyles (Aug 7, 2021)

Three way split. Playing, Notation and PRV. Depends what I'm doing and the tempo.
Although, I mostly play the notes in.


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## Megreen (Aug 12, 2021)

GNP said:


> That's like asking,
> "Has anybody ever tried driving with their eyes closed? Sounds like a great experiment!"


That analogy would make sense only if everyone was going blind after placing their hands on mouse and keyboard and opening piano roll.


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