Drum and Key Layout Lesson

Okay, so now that you're familiar with the drum layout, we're gonna go and have a look at the key layout.

Navigating to MIDI Track

• We have another MIDI track that we can navigate to.
• It shows us that it doesn't contain an instrument yet.

Loading a Sound

• Press Browse.
• For now, I'm going to load a piano sound, maybe the electric.

Key Layout and Octaves

• By default, the key layout is always set to C major. This is the root note.
• The blue ones are all the root notes:
  • C1, C2, C3, C4, C5.
• We can navigate octaves up and down with the octave down or octave up buttons.
• It indicates which octaves you can actually play.

Let's stick with this one. Now we can simply play.

Note Layout in C Major

• The note layout is set to C major:
  • C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.
• This is not really convenient for playing.

Playing with Both Hands

• Since everything is doubled, you can use three fingers.
• When I press a pad, others light up as well:
  • Green means that it's the currently playing note.
  • If you have it a couple of times, it indicates that they're all playing the same note.

We're currently in the in-key layout:

• The notes are doubled allowing you to play with both hands.
• White pads indicate notes that belong to the key set, but they're not the root note.

Chromatic Layout

• If you choose the chromatic layout, you'll see unlit pads indicating notes that belong to the key.

Pitch Bend

• The touch trip is not to change octaves, but it's mapped to the pitch bend.

Playing Simple Triads

I think I'm just going to show you how to play simple triads, the basic and most often used chords.

• The shape is the same for both major and minor triads in the in-key layout:
  • It's a simple triangle shape.
• Count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
  • We have the first, the third, and the fifth.

Triads in C Major

• C Major: C, E, G
• Continuing with:
  • D Minor: D, F, A
  • E Minor: E, G, B
  • F Major: F, A, C
  • G Major: G, B, D
  • A Minor: A, C, E
  • Diminished: B, D, F
  • C Major one octave up: C, E, G

Since we're in the in-key layout, we basically can't play anything wrong.

Adjusting Volume

• The easiest way would be to start with a chord that has the root note (C Major) and then play other chords.
• If the volume levels aren't that great:
  • Press Volume and turn the volume of the beats down and the others up.

Recording Setup

A simple run. Maybe I'll just record that.

• I want to have my hands free and not care about pressing record again, so I'm going to use fixed length.
• If I keep it pressed, it's set to two bars by default.
• We can set the recording length to one of the other choices as well, commonly, I prefer four bars.

Recording

• Let's get to recording. Here I can quantize as well.
• Just press to see what I've set it to and take out this swing.
• Maybe better set quantize to 18 nodes.

Changing Instruments

Maybe I'd like to change the instrument as well:

• Press Browse to go to my own presets in the user library.
• Let's take this one and adjust the volume a bit down again.

Deleting Clips

One thing worth mentioning is that when you're in the node mode (this applies to both the node layout and the drum layout):

• Simply press Delete, and the currently selected clip is deleted, this is shown in the display.
• You can undo that if you'd like to keep it.

Using Delete:

• Hold Delete pressed while playing the nodes you want to delete; they turn red.
• The display says nodes deleted, for example, C2.

If I play that now, nope, got to launch the clip first. Now it's not playing.

Creating New Scenes

While everything's still playing, you can simply press New.

• This creates a new scene (Scene 10).
• Any other tracks where clips were playing are duplicated, and playback continues seamlessly.

Final Adjustments

• In the selected track in the new scene, the clip slot is chosen, allowing you to play and rehearse for a new take, similar to duplicate, but for the selected track.

This time, I'm going to disable fixed length to demonstrate the workflow:

• You can see I didn't manage to stop the recording in time.
• This is why fixed length can be really helpful, but we can quickly correct that:
  • Press on Clip, and you can see the loop length set to nine bars.
  • Change that to eight bars long, just the way we want it!