[MUSIC]
In this movie, we're going to have a look at doing some midi editing in the step editor.
I'm still working on the same song here.
I'm going to work with the drums.
So here, I'm going to open the Editors and I'm going to go over to the Step Editor.
So this is the step editor.
It's actually pretty familiar looking in that.
There's lots of things we've seen in other editors.
So for example, we have a horizontal and vertical zoom slider here.
We have the horizontal auto zoom button here.
There's also a vertical auto zoom button here.
So that you can go ahead and fit what you want to see in the entire screen.
There are cursor tools,
there's a main cursor tool,
and then there's a secondary or command click tool.
Notice it's a simpler list of tools
compared to some of the other places we've seen cursor tools.
For the step editor,
these are the tools that you would work with.
There's a midi out function so that if you make selections,
[NOISE] you can hear what you've selected.
There are edit menus.
Lots of familiar things, cut, copy, paste,
selecting things based on criteria, and so forth.
There's a functions menu,
similar functions to the event list editor, and so forth.
So what I'm seeing right now is
vertically I'm seeing different midi notes in what are called lanes.
So this horizontally is called a lane.
This is a lane just for a certain midi note,
which is listed right here in the inspector for the step editor.
This is the midi note B0,
this is the midi note C1, C#1.
There are some hi-hat strikes here at F#1 and so forth.
Horizontally, what we see of course is time.
These vertical lines represent notes,
and they represent the note velocity of these notes.
So this is a note for the kick,
this is two notes for the kick, and so forth.
So I'm going to play just a couple of bars here,
and we'll see all of the notes and hear them play.
[MUSIC]
We're hearing and seeing the side stick, the kick,
there's one snare strike here,
the hi-hat, and so forth.
Now, we can do some editing in this environment,
specifically editing midi note velocities.
So here, I can select different midi notes.
To select you hold down Shift and drag across,
and it selects the events you've dragged across.
If you don't hold down Shift and just drag across with the cursor,
[NOISE] you're actually changing midi note velocities.
So if I wanted to select this note here,
I'd hold down Shift and I can select it.
If I wanted to change the note velocity,
I would just swipe across with the cursor.
I can do that across many notes if I want to.
I could lower all of these hi-hat strikes just by swiping through them.
[MUSIC] Like so.
I can also make selections similar to
the piano roll editor by clicking at the head of a lane.
Then there's a deselect command in the select menu,
in the edit menu here to deselect things.
So if you have multiple things selected, deselect all,
which I have set to a key command,
is a fast way to deselect them.
[NOISE] You can also deselect what's selected simply by clicking somewhere else.
In addition, you can move events in the step editor.
To move events, you'll use a secondary tool called the Finger Tool.
So if I want to move a few events,
let's say I wanted to move maybe one of the kick strikes a little later.
To select it, I'll hold down SHIFT and select it,
and then Alt + Command click to get the finger tool,
and I can go ahead and move it a little later.
You can even move things from one track to another.
So for example, here I have a close hi-hat right after Bar 4.
Perhaps I want that to be an open hi-hat.
So I can select it,
and then with the finger tool,
go ahead and move it to be an open hi-hat. Like so.
[MUSIC]
I can also add notes with the pencil tool.
So here with the pencil tool,
maybe I want to have another kick strike somewhere in here.
I'm going to zoom in a little more horizontally,
and I'm going to put a kick strike event right here.
Now, before I do, I have to look at a couple of
parameters for these lanes and how they display note velocities.
So for any lane, when you select that lane,
you'll see over here in the inspector area,
you'll see the inspector for that particular lane.
This lane is called KICK 1,
and I can rename it if I wanted to.
It also shows me, among other things,
pen width, that is to say the width of each one of these lines.
It's defaulting to number 6,
but I could make them wider if I like that view,
or I can make them more narrow if I prefer that.
It doesn't affect anything about the midi.
I'm simply changing the display.
In addition, you can see there's a background grid here,
and that background grid is something you can choose here.
It can be set to one of many quantization templates.
So here it set the 16th notes, which works pretty well.
So if I wanted to add a kick strike somewhere in here,
let's say on an eighth note,
what I can do is with the pencil tool,
I've got the grid set the 16th notes,
and I'm going to add it right here.
So I'm just going to go ahead and drop it in.
Then just with the pointer tool,
I can change the note velocity however I like.
So now with this extra kick strike.
[MUSIC]
There it is. I can also add multiple notes by just swiping with the pencil tool.
So let's say at Bar 4,
the downbeat of Bar 4.
I wish I had a little flourish of hi-hat strikes right to the downbeat of the bar.
So to do that, I think I want for the closed hi-hat,
I want a grid that's not 16th notes,
but rather 32nd notes.
I also want a pen width that's more narrow,
so I can see what I'm doing here.
Now I could enter these one at a time.
[MUSIC]
Like so. Or if I prefer,
I can simply click and just go ahead and swipe and draw them in like that.
So now let's see what we have here.
[MUSIC]
There it is. So that's an introduction to doing some midi editing in the step editor.
[MUSIC]