Tracktion Waveform has many different ways to work with MIDI.
In this tutorial, we’ll cover how to record MIDI, edit MIDI on the piano roll, and automatically
quantize MIDI events.
In the previous video, we covered how to setup the program, the layout of all the settings
and features, and how to record and edit audio.
Make sure to check those videos out first.
Also before continuing, don’t forget to subscribe to the channel and press the bell
icon to get notified whenever a new video is released.
Regardless of whether we plan on manually adding MIDI on the piano roll or recording
MIDI from a USB MIDI keyboard, the first thing we need to do is create an instrument track
in Waveform.
An instrument track takes MIDI inputs from a MIDI device or a MIDI clip, runs it through
an instrument like a synthesizer, and outputs audio to the master channel.
MIDI on its own has no sound associated with it.
It’s just the instructions that go to an instrument to tell it what to do.
First start by creating a new track.
We’ll rename this track synthesizer.
Unlike other digital audio workstations, Waveform doesn’t differentiate between audio and
MIDI tracks when you’re creating it.
It will become an instrument track by putting MIDI on the track and an instrument in the
plugins.
The top right of the screen has a little plus button icon that’s used to add plugins to
the tracks.
We’ll see this again in the next video when we go to add plugins to our program, but in
this video, it will be used to add the instrument to the track.
Click and drag it onto the right side of the track just before the volume/pan section.
It needs to be to the left of the volume and panning control.
Audio is processed in order from left to right on this track.
If we put the plugin after the volume and panning control, then it wouldn’t be able
to control the instrument.
By putting it before it, we can use the volume and panning controls.
Under Waveform, go instruments, and select 4OSC.
This is the instrument plugin that is included with Waveform.
I also have some extra instruments that were provided to me by Tracktion, and I’ve done
videos in the past on this channel on free VST instruments to use in programs like Tracktion,
so you can check those out if you need more instruments to use.
At the top of the plugin, click the asterisk to bring up all the presets and chose one
to start will.
As you get more familiar with Waveform, you can start to experiment with tweaking the
sound by adjusting all the settings on the instrument itself, but for now we’ll skip
this and just choose a preset to get started.
Close the instrument window for now, and we’ll go back to the track to create a MIDI clip.
To create a clip, select the track with the instrument on it to get the properties up
in the bottom center panel.
This panel has a button we can use to Insert a New Clip, and from there we select Insert
New MIDI Clip.
The clip will be created within the loop region that we used in the previous videos, so set
those first.
Unlike audio clips, MIDI clips can be extended easily by dragging the ends and that gives
it more length, since MIDI clips can just generate empty space that we can add events
to.
Now double click on the new clip to open the piano roll.
The piano roll is basically a grid that we can add MIDI notes to.
The keyboard on the left side represents the notes, and the top is the time.
The speed that it plays at will be determined by the length of the notes on the grid, and
the tempo we set for the project in the first video.
Before we start testing the piano roll, I recommend testing out the instrument to make
sure that the sound is playing.
If we click and drag our mouse along the piano on the left side, then we should hear the
notes generated as sound and the master channel level indicator will light up.
This is also how we can test what the sound of our preset is.
Let’s start by covering how to navigate the piano roll.
I like to start by grabbing the top edge of the piano roll and dragging it upwards to
expand it.
If we want to get rid of the piano roll, there’s an X to close it in the top left.
Then we can just bring it back up again by double clicking on the clip.
The button next to that creates a separate window for the piano roll.
To zoom in and out vertically on the piano, click and drag the arrows above and below
the piano up or down.
To move up and down vertically, use the scroll wheel the mouse.
To zoom in and out horizontally, use the mouse scroll wheel over the timeline panel at the
top of the piano roll.
To change the view, click and drag on this.
Now let’s cover the mouse tools.
There are 6 mouse tools that can be switched with the buttons along the bottom of the piano
roll.
The first one is the pointer, which is a select tool to grab notes, drag and move them and
stuff like that.
The next one is the pencil tool.
This allows us to draw in new notes by clicking and dragging.
Line it up with the note on the piano roll you want to add, then click and drag at the
time you want to add it for the length the note should be.
The eraser removes notes by clicking on them.
The line tool allows us to add a bunch of notes by clicking and dragging.
The next button can be used to turn notes on and off.
We can use this if we want to experiment with turning the note off, but not necessarily
deleting them.
Last is the button to preview the entire sound at a certain time for the notes that are at
that time.
The color panel to the right allow us to change the color of selected notes.
Vel:127 is the velocity default value.
Each note in MIDI has a velocity from 0 to 127.
That can affect the volume of a note, and actually the sound of how hard it sounds like
it was hit, depending on how the particular synthesizer manages it.
We can adjust the velocity of individual notes later, but this is the default for when we
draw the notes in.
The next is the default length if we add a note.
When we add a note, it will start at this length, but we can click and drag it to change
the length.
Setting a default to the note that we’ll use the most often will make it easier for
us.
Step allows us to add notes at the cursor position by clicking the notes on the piano.
The speaker button lets us hear notes as we add them in.
Transposing lets us change the pitch of all the notes at once.
If we have notes selected by clicking and dragging a set of notes with the select tool,
then only those notes are transposed.
If no notes are selected, then all the notes are transposed for the entire clip.
Quantize is used to snap the notes in time on the grid.
When we record with a MIDI instrument later, we’ll see that the notes aren’t always
perfectly timed, and this depends on how good we are at playing the instrument.
The quantize tool fixes this all automatically based on settings for the resolution.
We can also do this manually, but quantizing is a lot faster.
The next tool is for Groove, which is kind of a way of adjusting the timing.
Timing can be loosened a bit from a perfectly divided measure to give it a little more groove
and feel to the music.
The chords button is used to turn a single note into a chord.
We select a note that will be the root of the chord, then use this button to create
whatever type of chord we want, and it will automatically add the rest of the notes for
the correct length onto the piano roll.
So that basically covers the piano roll for now.
We’ll come back to it again in a minute, but now let’s get to recording a MIDI keyboard.
First we need to enable our MIDI device in Waveform.
Go to the Settings menu at the top of the program and then go to MIDI devices.
Make sure your MIDI device is turned on and connected to the computer over USB.
If it shows up, we can click on it to enable it.
If it doesn’t, press the button to refresh the MIDI device list after ensuring it is
properly connected, then enable it.
For my MIDI controller, I’m using and AKAI MPK249.
This is a 49-key MIDI keyboard with 16 drum pads.
It also has 8 faders, knobs, and switches to use as a control surface.
This is great MIDI controller for composing, and it’s also really useful for automation,
as well see in a few videos.
For more information or to get one for yourself, check out our links in the video description,
or the full review and tutorial of this MIDI controller on the channel.
With the MIDI controller enabled, go back to the project at the top.
Change the input on the track to MPK249.
This is done exactly the same as when we set it as an audio input.
The MIDI input will be below the audio inputs from the audio interface.
Then, arm the track for recording and press the record button to record a new MIDI clip
on that track.
Make sure to have the click track enabled so you can play in time with the project.
This is really important for MIDI, especially since we need to adjust the timing of the
notes later on.
Once the MIDI clip is record, click on it to open the piano roll.
Like we saw earlier, we can use the select tool to move notes around manually, either
by pitch or time, and adjust their length.
We can add notes that we may have missed, or erase notes that we hit by accident.
Click the velocity button to bring up the velocity controls.
We get a velocity bar for each note.
Click and drag the top of the velocity bar to increase or decrease the velocity.
Now we can look at quantization.
If we click the quantize button, we get an option to quantize by start and end times,
and the length of the note.
Choose which way you want to quantize, then click it and select a note resolution.
Select the note resolution for the fastest part of the clip.
Don’t use a shorter time than notes that you have or it’s more likely it will snap
the wrong way.
After we’ve used quantization, make sure to play it all back to be sure all the notes
snapped to the right position.
If there are a few notes that snapped wrong, use the select tool to drag them to the correct
position.
The last thing that we should cover for MIDI is the micro drum sampler.
If you don’t have any other drum plugins to use, first of all we have a video on some
of the free plugins that are available.
This new version of Tracktion Waveform comes with the Micro Drum Sampler, with two built
in kits.
We can also create new kits by dragging and dropping electronic drum sample files onto
the pads.
From here, we can input a beat on the piano roll, or we can add notes with a MIDI controller.
This is where I can use the MIDI drum pads on my keyboard to input notes, and they’re
great for creating a beat since they’re also velocity sensitive.
The default settings probably won’t line up with the MIDI inputs from the drum pad
you’re using, and it’s easy to set this up right so that it matches what we see on
the screen.
The screen shows a 4 x 4 pad, and that’s the same as my drum pad.
There’s a MIDI learn button along the bottom that we can use to set this.
Click this button, then click a pad in the plugin on the screen, followed by the pad
on the USB pad.
Match up each of the pads, then turn off MIDI learn.
Now you can drum with everything setup properly.
For the rest of the controls, the top knob is to control
the volume of all the samples.
The bottom menu lets us change the icon and color of the drum icon.
The play button plays the sample.
Then we have the name and associated MIDI note.
The next three knobs are for volume, panning, and velocity sensitivity.
Finally, the last two buttons are to solo and mute the sample.
So at this point, we’ve covered all the MIDI controls in Tracktion Waveform to create
MIDI and edit it.
Whether you’re using the piano roll or a MIDI keyboard, you should be able to do whatever
you need to in this program.
Thanks for checking out this video on recording and editing MIDI in Tracktion Waveform.
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