User manual

108
Playback and the Transport panel
The Virtual Keyboard
• In this section of the Preferences dialog, you will also find the “Chase not limited to
Part Boundaries” option.
When you activate this option, MIDI controllers are also chased outside the part
boundaries, i.
e. the Chase will be performed on the part touched by the cursor as
well as on all the parts to the left of it. Please note that this option should be
deactivated for very large projects, as it considerably slows down operations such
as positioning and soloing. When you deactivate this option, the MIDI controllers
are only chased within the parts under the position cursor.
• Never Reset Chased Controllers
Activate this, if you work with Quick Controls, for example, and want to prevent
controllers to be reset to zero when you stop playback or move to a new position in
the project. This function is deactivated by default.
The Virtual Keyboard
The Virtual Keyboard can be displayed in the Transport panel. It allows you to play and
record MIDI notes by using your computer keyboard or mouse. This is useful if you
have no external MIDI instrument at hand and you do not want to draw in notes with
the Draw tool. The Virtual Keyboard can perform all functions that can be controlled by
external MIDI keyboards, e.
g. playing and recording MIDI notes.
• You can choose between two different keyboard display modes: computer
keyboard and piano keyboard. To switch between these two modes, click the
“Change Virtual Keyboard Display Type” button in the lower right corner of the
Virtual Keyboard section or use the [Tab] key.
The Virtual Keyboard in computer keyboard display mode
The Virtual Keyboard in piano keyboard display mode
To record MIDI using the Virtual Keyboard, proceed as follows:
1. Create or choose a MIDI or an instrument track and activate the “Record Enable”
button for it.
2. Open the Virtual Keyboard by selecting “Virtual Keyboard” on the Devices menu,
by pressing [Alt]/[Option]-[K] or by right-clicking on the Transport panel and
selecting “Virtual Keyboard” on the context menu.
The Virtual Keyboard is displayed in the Transport panel.
3. Activate the Record button and press a key on your computer keyboard to enter a
note.
You can also click on the keys of the Virtual Keyboard to enter notes.
• You can also press several keys simultaneously to enter polyphonic parts. The
maximum number of notes that can be played at one time varies between the
different operating systems and hardware configurations.
!
When the Virtual Keyboard is displayed, the usual key commands are blocked
because they are reserved for the Virtual Keyboard. The only exceptions are:
[Ctrl]/[Command]-[S] (Save), Num [*] (Start/Stop Record), [Space] (Start/Stop
Playback), Num
[1] (Jump to left locator), [Delete] or [Backspace] (Delete), Num [/]
(Cycle on/off), [F2] (Show/Hide Transport panel), and [Alt]/[Option]-[K] (Show/Hide
Virtual Keyboard).