Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

FL Studio's piano roll feels like Photoshop: draw some notes, select a couple with shift+click, make them shorter by dragging the first one's right edge, actually they're too quantized so do it again while pressing alt to not be limited to quantization, duplicate them a bunch of times with ctrl+drag (I think? It'sbeen years), then select the entire thing and duplicate it above twice to turn it into a series of major chords, select a few of the middle notes and drag them one row down to make the notes minor, then select all and right-click-drag the velocities to create a rise towards a crescendo (try that on a drum roll, sounds great). Or, my favorite flow: record some things, then select all with Ctrl+A and shrink it to 1/2 the length so it's in the speed I planned it to be in but can't play well enough to record in.

Tracktion's feels like a grid editor: you can edit specific notes but there's not really any useful keyboard shortcuts or mouse behaviors to help you draw music with it.



Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: