(Was named: Can C6 do this? ‘Ghost notes’ in Fruity piano roll editor.)
I know you can open multiple midi files in ‘overlapping’ fashion in the regular piano roll midi editor … with the ‘to the front’ midi file showing bright note colors and those ‘behind’ showing faded pastel colors.
But I saw something in a video using Fruity Loops that looked really useful. Any midi track you open in the piano roll editor has the option of displaying all the notes on any other midi track in the project at the time line, greyed out in the background. I liked this idea because you only have to worry about manipulating notes on the midi track you want to work on without making changes in the other files … or getting lost on which midi track you are working on. This would be even cooler if you could designate which tracks were to be displayed as ‘ghost notes.’
To achieve the something similar in Cubase, you’d have to select all the desired MIDI tracks (or their MIDI Parts) first, then open the the Key Editor. Once open, as you’ve noticed, the Part that is currently active has sharper colors. You also have two very useful options (from the Editor’s extended toolbar)…
The button that looks like two flags facing one another toggles “Show Part Borders” (making it clearer which Part is active), and, 2) just to its right, (looking like a stack of waffles ) toggles “Edit Active Part Only”… which does go part-way to “locking” inactive Parts… you can still activate (maybe by accident?) a different Part simply by clicking on one of its events, but at least you cannot “lasso” an event that is in a different Part from the one where you began the lasso.
Also, the Color menu can help you easily identify different Parts.
Unfortunately, “Locking” a Part before opening the Editor, simply makes it invisible to the Editor.
I suppose there is an argument for a third button, next to the others I mentioned, to simply prevent you from activating a different Part .
I’ll get my heavy duty reading glasses out and look for those ‘doo hickey’ icons.
Also … a little help with the color menu, please. This is different from the track color menu in the project window? I did have my midi tracks different colors in the project window, but I didn’t really see anything different when I opened midi files in the midi editor. Probably RTFabulousM time.
I don’t know if you looked at the tutorial I linked, but I have to say the way Fruity does it is both simple and slick.
The color section in the Editor’s extended toolbar allows you to color the events according to the Part (as defined in the Project window), or according to MIDI channel, velocity, etc.
I don’t know if you looked at the tutorial I linked, but I have to say the way Fruity does it is both simple and slick.
Yes, that does look cool (and “safe” inasmuch as you can’t accidentally edit any of those ghost notes).
I renamed this thread to better express the subject. Hope that’s not a ‘no no.’
Anyway, Vic, with your help … after looking closer at the key editor with multiple midi files/ parts open, I can think of two improvements that I think would make this really work great.
When you select the part in the ‘Currently Edited Part’ drop down box in the key editor, the track color you are using for that part should also show by the name in that drop down box. That makes it easy to take a quick glance to verify that you are working with the part you intend if for some reason you don’t want to lock ‘Edit Active Part Only.’
There should be a little ‘tick’ box beside each part name in the drop down box to permit ‘hiding’ of any part you don’t want to see at the moment by ‘unticking’ it. This would be useful particulary if you have doubling and some notes from a particular part are covering other notes from a different part when neither is the active part.
Yes, you could return to the project window and deselect, select different groups of parts, but it would be so much more efficient to be able to change the grouping right in the Key Editor.
Do you think these ideas are worthy of ‘feature request?’
#1 would be a nice touch, certainly . #2… not sure about “hiding” a particular non-active part… could get confusing if there are other non-active parts that are still visible. Personally, I’d prefer a simple “Locking” button (which would work exclusively on the currently active Part)… but the result would amount to the same thing as you suggested .
) toggles “Edit Active Part Only”… which does go part-way to “locking” inactive Parts… you can still activate (maybe by accident?) a different Part simply by clicking on one of its events, but at least you cannot “lasso” an event that is in a different Part from the one where you began the lasso.