Anyone here who composes just using Piano Roll and Mouse?

[Freiin]

I'm very curious because i don't have a keyboard or a midi controller and i use just mouse to compose my music.

youtube.com/blackdollmurder


You can check it out.

Do you use just mouse to compose music? What do you think about this kind of tool?

Thanks

[Chimpscookie]

Following.

[n997]

Originally Posted by Freiin

Do you use just mouse to compose music? What do you think about this kind of tool?

I used to compose with the mouse a lot, especially when making electronic music. I've had various MIDI keyboards and digital pianos over the years, but I usually use them for early idea development, and write precise MIDI manually afterwards.


Nowadays, instead of mouse, I prefer Wacom Cintiq displays - especially the large ones that allow displaying the full 128 MIDI pitch rows at once. That way it's possible to develop some muscle memory about where each pitch is.

REAPER's MIDI Editor works very well for that purpose. It's hard to describe in words how natural it feels to draw notes on a piano roll grid, when pencil/stylus tip movement corresponds 1:1 to resulting MIDI note position and length.

I think it's the way of the future, as tablet computers and convertibles start including pens with accurate tracking at low latency.

[fixerdave]

Hi, very nice for mouse inputed music. I especially liked - Lake of Tears
I cant play instruments so gives me some hope of creating some music too. dave

[E_H]

I used to do that in my early years, even for large compositions for extended symphony orchestra and choir. No problem at all. I believe that nobody really cares about what tools you use to create your music with, to listeners, only the actual music matters.

[edkilp]

Originally Posted by E_H

I used to do that in my early years, even for large compositions for extended symphony orchestra and choir. No problem at all. I believe that nobody really cares about what tools you use to create your music with, to listeners, only the actual music matters.

I don't think he was asking if anyone cared how the final result was achieved. I believe he was just polling to see if his method was common, or in the majority or minority. I used to do drums and bass like that and it was certainly tedious, but it's all I had at the time.

[fuzzball]

My buddy and I reproduced Gordon Lightfoot's song Beautiful. Neither of us play the bass so I stitched it together one note at a time exactly reproducing from the album. It took me 12 hours and it sounds great.

I find that the time positioning is more difficult than the specific notes. We never do anything on grid. So for some stretches I would just play a single note on the midi keyboard to get the note timing perfect and then go in and adjust them to the proper note.

[cool]

Yes. Why not. I have keyboard and controller, but 99% of my work is done with a mouse and a piano roll. It's more comfortable for me.

Examples - 100% mouse clicking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ghu5YAo29s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYrJlvzkd2E

[Phazma]

Even tough I have an 88 Key controller and some keyboard skills I mostly use the keyboard just to improvise and try out ideas or find the right notes and then I use the mouse to program the MIDI instead of recording and quantizing. While I can play even somewhat demanding melodies perfectly when brainstorming, as soon as the metronome pre-roll starts for recording and my mind say "ok now play the right notes" my hands get rigid and I can even make mistakes when playing static chords.

This is why for most of electronic or band-oriented stuff I program MIDI. When it comes to soundtrack it depends tough. I find programming a realistic piano performance very time-consuming so in that case I still favor just getting a rough performance recorded and then shift all the notes around with the mouse. Strings, Brass and Percussion I often program if they have no solo function. Woodwinds I noticed I tend to rather often record. Also when there are some fast runs which don't really work well with the grid I often just hit record, place my hands on the right notes immediately and when the right beat comes I just roll my fingers through the run.

Also when it has to fit a video and there start to be weird signature changes and partial measures to land on hit points and it isn't so crucial to fit a grid I often just switch the grid off and record by feeling and move unfitting notes around after recording or stretch MIDI items to fit hit points.

[Phazma]

And with some configuration Reaper's MIDI editor can be among the best for that kind of workflow. I have emulated almost exactly the famous FL Studio MIDI editor and made some things fit my workflow even better.

The biggest annoyance to me with Reaper's MIDI editor is that there is no option for snapping to visible grid lines. This would allow to always keep 1/64 (or even 1/128) by default for snapping precisely when zooming in and also snap to something less detailed, for example 1/16, depending on how the grid shows, when zooming out. This is not possible, one would always have to switch around snapping division but I rather just do awkward mouse movements when zoomed out. Also a way to configure the pixels between grid lines (like in arrange) is needed because IMO they currently disappear way too soon.