If you’re working on notes in the piano roll, and want to see how they sound layered with other sounds, the typical producer will select all the notes, probably press Cmd + C (Mac) or Ctrl + C (Windows) and navigate to the next pattern, pasting the notes. This is fine, but it’s way too slow if you want to speed up your workflow. Ctrl + Up/Down Key. Let’s say that you writing a melody for your song but it sounds too low in pitch. So, somehow I turned off the notes that are displayed on the pattern in the piano roll, not on the keys of the piano to the left, but the when I'd create a pattern the letter would display on each note. Not sure how to ask the question, I tried googling but I guess I don't know the right terminology so I didn't get far. I'm using FL studio 11.

  1. Fl Studio Piano Roll Keys
  2. Fl Studio Piano Roll Notes Not Playing
  3. Change Piano Roll Fl Studio
  4. Fl Studio Piano Roll Move Notes
If you want to take your production workflow to the next level in FL Studio 12, then understanding the inter-relationship between the Step Sequencer and Piano Roll will bring you much creative joy.

With FL Studio 12 the Step Sequencer and Piano Roll have been more closely integrated making it a smoother transition when working between these windows. In this article let's take a look at the updates to these two windows and how they interrelate.

I'm recording into FL Studio 8 using an MPD18 via the FPC plugin and ASIO4ALLv2. When I record into the channel, notes play fine and the piano roll shows them being activated. Most of the time, playing the pattern will play back what was recorded.

Step Sequencer Length

First up, the Step Sequencer window's updates. It’s super easy now to extend the length of the step sequencer notes. You can just drag the bottom right corner out. You’ll see greyed out extra steps. Now click on this grey area and it’ll activate the steps to extend the sequencer length.

And another thing to point out: the Step Sequencer is now called the Channel Rack in FL Studio 12, which makes sense as it houses the different channels in your song. And on each channel you have a sequencer. So that's a bit of history on how the name has evolved. But I'll stick to calling it the Step Sequencer for the remainder of the article, as I'll be explaining the step sequence process that it can provide.

Step Sequencer and Piano Roll Interaction

Fl studio show notes in piano rollStudio

Now let’s see how the Piano Roll integrates with the Step Sequencer. Make sure both the Step Sequencer and Piano Roll windows are open. You can use the shortcuts to open them, F6 to open the Step Sequencer, and F7 to open the Piano Roll. Now let’s program in a simple pattern on the step sequencer. We'll use the default kick channel. Maybe use the default drums (Kick, Snare, Clap, Hats) as an example. As you program in the pattern notice how they appear in the Piano Roll. Draw in a kick on every fourth beat.

Notice how as your program in the kicks on the step sequencer how they appear in the piano roll now. Previously you had to first program the pattern, and then send the pattern to the piano roll. So now in FL Studio 12 this process is simplified and more streamlined. Now program in a different pattern on the kick channel on the step sequencer. Remove some of the notes, and place extra notes elsewhere on the sequence. See how on the piano roll the notes you removed are muted, and the new notes are placed on the piano roll.

This is a great for testing out different patterns, and the piano roll still retains the previous ideas, if you want to switch back to them.

Now draw in a Hat hit on every 16th note. In the Piano roll, you can switch between each channel track. Next to the tools on the Piano roll you’ll see a text saying Piano Roll, and then the name of the channel. Click on the name to switch to a different channel.

Visual Markers and Step Sequencer Length

Another way that the step sequencer and piano roll interrelate is with the new time markers and visual markers. Let me show you first how to add a visual marker and then how this affects the step sequencer.

Choose a channel in the piano roll. Then go to the Piano Roll drop-down menu option in the top left, then scroll down to Time Markers, and choose Add one, or you can use the shortcut Alt-T. This will create a Time Marker, and you can give it a name.

Now right-click on this marker and change it to a visual length marker.

Grab this Visual length marker and move it around, and take note how this changes the length of your sequencer in the Channel rack as well. So you can see another way that these two windows are linked. And this works on a global level, so no matter what channel you have chosen, this visual length marker will change the length globally of your song.

Now let’s look at some extra updates to the step sequencer.

Step Sequencer Swing

Before FL Studio 12 you had a global swing parameter that you could add to your channel tracks. But now you can set the swing value per channel track. To do this, you first need to set your global swing value for the channels. So for example let’s set the global swing to 100%.

Now double-click a channel to open up its channel settings window. And click on the Miscellaneous Functions tab.

Here the swing parameter is set by default to 100%. Drag this all the way to 0 and there will be no swing, now dial it up to the right and hear how it introduces swing for that channel track.

So you can set a global swing value and then dial in on each channel track how much you want that track to swing in comparison to the global swing setting. How cool is that?

Interactive Step Sequence / Piano Roll Overview

The last thing I want to look at is how to change the step sequencer so that it shows you an overview of the piano roll. On the Step Sequencer click on the button on the top right. This will change your step patterns to the Piano Roll Overview.

Now when you click on the overview for each channel, it'll switch to that channel in the piano roll window. So this is a simple way to jump between these when your song starts getting quite busy. It's really fast to use.

Conclusion

We've looked at the new updates to the Step Sequencer and Piano Roll and the interactions between the two windows. Getting familiar with these changes can really help your workflow. These new linked windows help you navigate between your step sequencer patterns and the different channel tracks, so really make use of them.

For further FL Studio tips and tricks, check out the following tutorials:

Related Videos

Add a great melody into your song using the FL Studio shortcuts. Without a proper melody in your song, the song won’t be able to connect well with the audience. By learning FL Studio shortcuts, use the FL Studio up to its maximum potential.

List of FL Studio Shortcuts

Table of Contents

  • 1 List of FL Studio Shortcuts

FL Studio, a full-featured music production environment. It is capable of audio recording, sequencing, and mixing the creation for a professional audio track. Buying of FL Studio will give you free updates for all the version released.

File Shortcuts

ActionShortcut Keys
Open fileCtrl + O
SaveCtrl + S
Save asCtrl + Shift + S
Save new versionCtrl + N
Export as wave fileCtrl + R
Export as Mp3 fileCtrl + Shift + R
Export as MIDI fileCtrl + Shift + M
Open recent filesAlt + 0
Smart findCtrl + F

Learn more: Download Pro Tools Shortcuts Cheatsheet

Record and Playback Shortcuts

ActionShortcut Keys
Toggle lineBackspace
Start and Stop playbackSpace
Start and PauseCtrl + Space
Song modeL
On and off of recordingR
Fast forward0
Jump 4 bars backCtrl + /
Jump 4 bars forwardCtrl + *
Toggle edit modeCtrl + E
Stop soundCtrl + H
Toggle typing to piano keypadCtrl + T
Toggle blend notesCtrl + B
Toggle metronomeCtrl + M

Pattern selector Shortcuts

ActionShortcut Keys
Next pattern+
Previous pattern
Next empty patternF4

Channel window Shortcuts

ActionShortcut Keys
Mute & Unmute0..9
Solo and Unsolo first 10 channelsCtrl + 0..9
Select previous channels
Next channel
Group selected channelsAlt + G
Zip selected channelsAlt + Z
Unzip selected channelsAlt + U
Move selcted channels upShift + ↑
Move selcted channels downShift + ↓
Next channel groupPage Up
Previous channel groupPage Down
Copy channel stepsCtrl + C
Paste channel stepsCtrl + V
Cut channel stepsCtrl + X
Delete selected channelsAlt + Delete
Clone channelsCtrl + Shift + C
RandomizeAlt + R
Send to piano rollAlt + P
Show keyboard editorK
Graph editorG
Restretch allCtrl + Alt + R

Window Shortcuts

ActionShortcut Keys
Cycle nested windowsTab
Open plugin pickerCtrl + F8
Open project pickerCtrl + Alt + F8
Plugin databaseShift + F8
Close a windowEsc
HelpF1
PlaylistF5
Step sequencerF6
Piano rollF7
Show or Hide sample browserF8
Show or Hide MixerF9
Show or Hide MIDI settingsF10
Show or Hide song info windowF11
Close all windowsF12
Close all unfocused windowsCtrl + F12
Align all channel editorsShift + F12

Piano roll action Shortcuts

ActionShortcut Keys
Paint toolB
Slice toolC
Delete toolD
Select toolE
Keyboard view modeM
PortamentoO
Pencil toolP
Mute toolT
Playback toolY
Zoom toolZ
Bypass snapAlt
ArpeggiatorAlt + A
View note helpersAlt + B
Riff machineAlt + E
FlamAlt + F
Ungroup selected notesAlt + G
Open limit toolAlt + K
Open Articulate toolAlt + L
Switch waveform helper viewAlt + N
QuantizeAlt + Q
Open Randomize toolAlt + R
Open Strum toolAlt + S
GlueAlt + G
Open chop toolAlt + U
Toggle ghost channels on or offAlt + V
Open claw machine toolAlt + W
Open scale levels toolAlt + X
Open score flipper toolAlt + Y
Copy selectionCtrl + C
Deselect selectionCtrl + D
Insert current controller valueCtrl + I
Quick legatoCtrl + L
Import MIDI fileCtrl + M
Quick quantizeCtrl + Q
Quick chopCtrl + U
Paste selectionCtrl + V
Cut selectionCtrl + X
Grid colorCtrl + Alt + G
Flip separatorShift + Enter
Toggle allow resizing from leftCtrl + Alt + Home
Delete space equal to selectionCtrl + Delete
Select time around selectionCtrl + Enter

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Fl Studio Piano Roll Keys

The list above has complied with some of the life-changing FL Studio shortcuts that will help you to maximize the use of piano roll. It is certain that you definitely wouldn’t know all of the above shortcuts. Download the FL Studio shortcuts PDF.

Fl Studio Piano Roll Notes Not Playing

Fl Studio Piano Roll Show Notes

Change Piano Roll Fl Studio

These FL Studio shortcuts will lessen your hours spent on doing tedious search and clicking. FL Studio has the best piano roll when compared with others like Ableton, Reaper, Adobe Audition. Check out for Ableton shortcuts, Reaper shortcuts, Adobe Audition shortcuts.

Fl Studio Piano Roll Move Notes

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