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Piano roll

Select a MIDI track and clip to edit its notes. Choose Select (S), Draw (B), or Erase (E). The toolbar also controls ghost notes, snap resolution, and triplets.

Preview the clip

Use Play/Pause at the bottom of the piano roll to hear the selected clip with its own local playhead. Pause silences notes already queued by that preview. Stop also returns its playhead to the beginning. Piano-roll playback stays separate from arranger and drum-grid playback, so stopping this preview does not interrupt either one.

Mouse and trackpad gestures

  • Draw places and auditions a snapped note. Dragging with Erase removes notes.
  • In Select, drag empty space for a marquee; hold Shift to add to the selection.
  • Click a note to select it, Shift-click to toggle it, drag its body to move it, or drag its right edge to resize it.
  • Option-drag on macOS or Alt-drag on Windows to change velocity. Add Shift to make the adjustment five times finer.
  • Middle-drag, drag the key lane or ruler, or Shift-drag while using Draw or Erase to pan.
  • Wheel scrolls pitch; Shift-wheel pans time; Command/Ctrl-wheel zooms time; Command/Ctrl+Shift-wheel zooms pitch.

Editing shortcuts

With notes selected, Command+D / Ctrl+D duplicates, Q quantizes, Up/Down transposes by a semitone, and Shift+Up/Down transposes by an octave. H, G, and V open Humanize, Groove, and Dynamics tools; these require a selection.

If rendering fails, PianoForge reports the problem while keeping the project intact.