Piano Roll. Love it? Hate it? Alternatives?

#1

I think I've come to the conclusion that I just don't like piano roll very much as a workflow, and I'm trying to figure out why.

About me: I'm a guitarist. I'm also a programmer. There is something about piano roll that grates against both sensibilities.
It has none of the tactility of guitar. It doesn't feel as expressive as just doing everything in textual notation, in a programming language, etc. I seem to be able to "think" on guitar much better than on any keyboard-like interface. Piano Roll always feels kind of clunky to me.

The Novation Circuit sequencer feels tolerable to me design-wise but there are some major limitations.

Maybe I just need to work from a midi guitar solution and edit everything rather than try to program directly into piano roll.

Other things I'm considering:
- trackers
- QY70 and similar hardware sequencer
- MPC
- Rolling my own text format / language etc

Maybe there are some piano roll hacks that make it more bearable for you; I'd be interested to hear them.

Thoughts?

#2

what is the main thing you want to do with it? compose? generate patterns for live usage? do you need a visual representation?

#3

Composing and arranging are the most important. Live would be secondary, but nice to have. It doesn't have to be visual. In fact that may be part of the problem. I look at screens all the time normally. I think that's part of the reason I like playing guitar. It's very separate from computer stuff for me.

I like the idea of "going away from the screen" in order to compose and arrange for some reason. Even if that means maybe looking at a small LCD or something on a piece of hardware.

#4

while i understand your feeling completely i think it's mostly a matter of familiarisation - if you'd do it long enough you'd probably like it. i personally live in the piano roll, it's the easiest and most comprehensible way to read and write music for me. i actually think in the piano roll haha. combined with zooming it gives me really all i ever need.

but yeah. one more idea for you to try out would be pad based inputs, both for playing and sequencing, something like the ableton push, launchpad or maschine?

i also recently saw a tracker implementation for an eurorack module which gave me a childhood flashback with goosebumps. might actually work for you coming from programming. but it still would be so slow and cumbersome to edit and move stuff compared to a proper piano roll...

edit: got to add that for me efficiency and speed is a big part in working w notes, i do that full time so can't bother with anything slowing down my process. so i can see how that might not be a criterion for others.

#5

This might be an interesting MIDI controller for a guitar player.

#7

Oh also i just remembered the Joue fretboard, at least for input:
https://www.play-joue.com/en/the-product/

#8

i have gone down this route (midi-guitar or actually midi-bass) and believe me you will never be satisfied. there is no glitch-free system out there. if you want to go fast and as accurate as possible i would recommend the axon interfaces (obsolete) or the triple play by fishman (same developer, same basic algorithm) all those systems need a hex-pickup. and all those systems will send on 6 dedicated channels in default mode and send a ton of pitchbend etc. to emulate you playing a guitar.

however, you are still playing a guitar with strings that decay and your imprecise two hands that are not going to be exactly synchronised when plucking and pressing strings on frets respectively. all this makes guitar to midi very hard to do right. there are also some fret tracking systems that avoid the pitch-to-midi conversion (frettrax for example). much better latency wise, but you either need a dedicated guitar or you have to retrofit such a system (split-fret, big electronics etc.)

but if you want to use a guitar-like interface to sequence and compose and generate reliable midi info, low-latency and precise i would suggest something like a ztar: https://www.starrlabs.com
or if you are on a budget try a "you rock guitar" gen. 2. https://prgomez.com/cheapest-midi-guitar/

or roll your own: https://sebiik.github.io/community.axoloti.com.backup/t/channel-touch-not-working-in-poly-multichannel-subpatch/2053/6?u=lokki

#9

Yeah I think that's the reason I've always been reluctant to even try. There is nothing like a guitar just plugged into a tube amp with a completely analog signal chain. It seems like every few years people hype up some new DSP attempt at a solution. I'm a little bit surprised that it seems to be so unsolveable.

#10

if you just want synth sounds from your guitar then use a gr-300 analog synth, it tracks great and plays and feels like a guitar.

but the whole concept of midi (fixed velocity at the attack, clear note beginnings etc.) does not really fit guitar well. you can emulate it very well with those systems mentioned but you are generating a lot of midi messages to get there (pitch-bend, aftertouch maybe, sending on discrete channels for each string to get bendings and legato playing on each string etc.). that data gets messy very quickly when you import it into a DAW or a sequencer/notation program.

#11

One of the approaches I am trying very hard to work on, is you have your sequence note or triggers etc, but with the guitar (for me a bass guitar) plugged into the Axo, am looking to capture different dynamics from the guitar that will lead to a trigger to change whatever is sequenced. So for example, if I measure the envelope, different levels could control volume, a change in pattern, filter adjustments etc, this way I don't need to pay so much at what is happening, but can play to the changes as they are patched. I thought about going down the midi guitar method, and may still do it, but by trying to capture the dynamics, I believe it leaves open opportunity for unexpected variation.
:grin:

#12

Maybe have a look at Tidal Cycles instead

I would also suggest Renoise, it has a decent tracker interface with many of the things you would expect from a DAW. You could also create your own interface using it's lua based API, for example someone built a vertical piano roll

#14

maybe this one is more up your lane? while still also viewable as a piano roll i think it's still a very interesting new approach to entereing and visualizing notes/music. and also funny enough 95% close to the virtual reality DAW vision i had in my head for years.

imagine this comined with a VR headset and gloves. throwing and bending notes through the air.

#15

After all of this discussion I find myself suddenly inspired doing regular old piano roll in Ardour. One thing that is helping me I think is Ardour's single page layout for multiple midi tracks, rather than having a sub pane (like Live) or a separate window per clip (like Fruity/LMMS).

What would be cool to try would be a tracker plugin that could send midi into Ardour via Jack. I found this: https://bitbucket.org/paniq/jacker/wiki/Home
but I haven't been able to get it to build (the most recent changes are from 2010). Are there any other FOSS trackers around with Jack support?

#16

Piano roll can be great when it is enhanced with color schemes to show chords and note relationships modulo 12.