As you can see,or you may already know Homestudioproject is created to help you record and get your music to the next level,or even you are just getting started ,you want some help to start recording your songs.
Today we’re going to talk about Key Editor.It’s a very powerful and useful tool and I think that no one knows the variety of the advantages and what key editor can really do.I think that you use only 5% of what key editor can do in midi editing. My goal is to help you explore your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and get the most of it,so you can discover the advantages of midi recording and help you record your songs much easier.
Key editor , with simple words, is the place where you can manage your midi recordings.In Cubase there are several ways to edit a midi part. In this series we’re talking about Key editor. For example,let’s say you have recorded a piano via vst instrument.After recording the part you want,I am sure that some notes need to be modifies.You need to move some notes , add some notes,or even erase some notes. If you want to record a piano part and you’re not a pianist or a keyboardist the key editor provides the best tools for you!
There are two ways to open key editor. The first is, on the menu bar, by selecting Midi command and Open Key editor submenu,after selecting which part we want to edit. The second way is just double click on the part you want to edit and key editor opens. In Cubase there is another faster way the Edit In Place command. With this command you turn your midi part to key editor in your work area.
Opening key editor you see the notes presenting graphically in a piano roll grid at your left of the screen. In that you way, you can tell which note is every line you see in the editor.The length of each line varies and every length represents the duration of each note.
Let’s start exploring the menu bar of the key editor. At your left there are two buttons for playback what we have recorded. The first one is the Solo button.By activating this button we can only hear this specific midi part.Next to solo button is the Acoustic feedback button,which allows us to hear every single note ,when we change it’s position or the length.
Next one is the Show info button. There is a blank space between the work area and the menu bar and when we click on a line we can have all the information we want about this note.
Next one is the tool bar.With these tools we can edit all midi parts. Let’s see what is included.
The first tool is Object selection,where we can select one or more notes in key editor. The second tool is the pencil. We can use it drawing some notes.How? Very simple! Just by clicking exactly where we want to place the new note. The length of each note depends on the quantize set up.The next tool is the rubber tool.We can erase one or more notes,if we don’t need them of course!Next one is the Trim tool,which allows you to change the lenth of the notes by cutting off the end or the beginning of notes. By default we can cut off the end of each note ,but we can cut off the beginning of the note by holding Alt/Option .next tool is the scissors,where we cut a note ,and the next tool is the Mute tool.This tool is very useful,because we can use it to mute one or more notes without deleting them, just to check if actually need them in this part or not. Glue tool does what it’s name says. We can glue two or more notes together.After that is the Magnifier. Using this tool we can zoom in to the work area and edit some notes in more detail by adjusting the horizontal and vertical bar of your DAW. Next tool is the line tool. We use this tool for creating some notes and for articulation use. The best thing you can do is to practice in the work area with that tool.You have to deactivate Snap button for using properly this tool.The last tool is Time Warp. We’re going to talk about this more extended in Audio recording.
We continue our exploration to the menu bar of the Key editor,and the next button is Autoscroll.
When it is activated (blue color) makes the window “follow” the project cursor during the playback.If you want to edit a note you can simply deactivate Autoscroll or just stop the playback. After that we have the Show borders button,where it shows us the area we’re working on!At the right there is a black space named part list.In case we select more than one midi parts,we can use this tool for selecting which part we’re going to edit.
Next we have one of the most powerful and useful tools we could ever have !The Quantize button!
We’ll talk more detailed and expanded on this chapter to another blog post and a reference video. Next it’s editing via midi.With this procedure we can define some specific properties of some notes!For example the velocity of a note! There is also in the same tool the Step input option.
Using this tool we can put notes at a time exactly where we want them to be without any difficulties.This is a very useful tool for everyone who wants to record a part and he can’t play too fast and not so easily! The next tool is Independent Track Loop.By activating this button,we can define a number of bars playin over and over a specific midi part and other midi parts will be played back as usual.
We’re going to talk about for the controller lanes to the next part of this blog post