Subsections
MusE arranges your music in tracks and parts. The following
section shall provide you an overview of how things are done with MusE.
If you are or were a Cubase or Cakewalk user, you will feel familiar with
this.
There are two general classes of tracks: MIDI tracks and audio
tracks. MIDI tracks (and drum tracks which are internally MIDI tracks)
can hold note data. The Wave track is a type of audio track which holds
wave data. There are also several other kinds of audio tracks.
MIDI and drum tracks hold MIDI event data. They don't differ much,
except that drum tracks offer a special editor which is more suitable
for drum editing.
They hold audio data which can be just played back or be piped through
effect plugin chains. They offer automation for these plugins.
These provide the path for your audio data from outside into your
project. Set up the physical audio inputs you want to connect your
audio input track with, and then route the input tracks to various
other tracks such as wave tracks.
These provide the path for your project's audio data to outside. Set
up the physical audio outputs you want to connect your audio out track
with, and then route various other tracks, such as wave tracks, to
the output tracks.
Group tracks are like busses, where you can route other tracks to
them, then route the groups to other tracks. Since group tracks have
all the features of other audio tracks, like volume and pan, they
provide a convenient common routing point where you have control of
the sound before it is passed to other tracks.
Audio aux tracks
These provide a more convenient way to mix several audio tracks
together. With each audio aux track added, other audio tracks will
gain a common send knob for adjusting the level sent to the aux
track. This can be more convenient than using several group tracks.
This type of track is a software synthesizer which MIDI and drum tracks
can be assigned to.
You can create a track by either right-clicking in the arranger's track list and then adding the desired track, or via the edit menu.
Tracks have several attributes:
- Mute:
- If you click on the Mute field (denoted with
a "M" column header), the track gets muted and stops producing sound.
- Solo:
- The solo button ("S" column
header) singles out a track for listening. It mutes
some other tracks but may phantom solo others.
For more info see the section on soloing: 2.5 and
phantom soloing: 2.5.1
- Record:
- The R column "arms" your track for recording.
When you rec-arm your song and have no tracks rec-armed, you won't be
able to record anything. See also the config option "move rec-arm with selection".
- Track name:
- Double-click to edit the track name.
- Port:
- For MIDI tracks, this lets you select the MIDI
port to which the events should be routed. This can be your physical
synthesizer or a software synthesizer. For soft synths, this is the
port the synth is associated to. For other track types, this is disabled.
- Channel:
- For MIDI tracks, this is the MIDI channel the
output is sent to. For any kind of audio tracks, this is the number of
channels (mono, stereo).
- Automation:
- For audio tracks,
this lets you set up the automation display in the arranger.
(See automation 2.7.1). Clicking this will provide you
with a popup menu with lots of submenus. Clicking on a submenu will
select or unselect it showing or hiding the automation parameter as a
graph overlaid on top of the track.
The submenus let you select the color you want to associate with the
automation parameter. There you can also assign midi controllers to
the parameters, a dialog is shown where you can manually choose the
midi controller, with a learn button to 'listen for' and
automatically recognize any midi controller operated by you.
- Clef:
- For MIDI tracks, you can specify a clef here. This
only affects the score editor.
In the arranger and the part editors, you'll have a trackinfo sidebar
on the left side. You can set up track-type specific things there.
MIDI trackinfo sidebar
The MIDI trackinfo sidebar lets you change program, volume, pan and
more. This sidebar can also be viewed at the left of the pianoroll
editor.
These are MIDI tracks as well, but with a few differences. They allow
you to map certain drum sounds with different input notes, and you
can change the output settings of a certain "drum instrument" without
having to alter each single event.
However, they have certain limitations: They only can handle 128 sounds
(even if you have more synthes), they aren't really compatible with
MIDI tracks (you can interchange parts between them, but if you touched
the drum list, you'll get unexpected results), you can't set a program
for the used channel and more.
Because of these limitations, we introduced the new-style drum tracks.
They're not fully compatible with the old drum tracks, so the old are
still retained. Under "Global Settings", "GUI settings", you can set
up whether you prefer the old or new.
They are handled exactly like plain MIDI tracks (staying compatible with
them), and offer all of the functionality, though in a different way.
They allow you to re-order the drum map efficiently, you can open parts
from multiple drum tracks in one drum editor (MusE will separate
the sounds from different tracks according to your settings, see the
"Window Config" menu), and you can set programs as with normal MIDI tracks.
- Output port:
- This drop-down list selects the midi port
to send midi output from this track.
- Output channel:
- This box selects the midi channel to be
used on the output port.
- Input and output routing:
- Selects midi ports and
channels to receive midi from, and soloing paths. (See Routes
2.4).
- Midi through:
- This button selects whether midi input is
passed through to the selected output port.
Depending on your midi devices and settings, there are cases when
this should be off such as using the same port and channel for
input and output (otherwise a double-note echo will be heard),
and cases when it must be on such as when using a synthesizer track
as output device.
- Input detect indicator:
- Blinks when midi activity is
detected on the selected midi channels on the selected midi input
ports.
- Transpose:
- This transposes midi input notes up or down
in pitch. This is very useful if your midi keyboard hasn't enough
keys or the selected output device plays an octave too low or high,
and you would like to shift the octave of the incoming notes to
compensate.
- Delay:
- Adjusts the delay of the notes.
- Length:
- Adjusts the length of the notes.
- Velocity:
- Adjusts the velocity of incoming notes.
Use it to compensate for a too-loud or too-soft keyboard.
- Compression:
- Adjusts the compression of incoming note
velocities. Use it to make soft incoming notes louder, and loud
notes not so loud.
- Instrument:
- Selects the midi instrument patch to be used
by the selected output port. This is equivalent of dialing the patch
in the bank and program boxes, except it displays a more friendly
patch name as defined by the selected output port's midi
instrument. See instruments, or port configuration
2.8.1
- H-Bank:
- Selects the high bank number of the current patch.
- L-Bank:
- Selects the low bank number of the current patch.
- Prog:
- Selects the program number of the current patch.
- Volume:
- Adjusts the midi volume controller.
- Pan:
- Adjusts the midi pan controller.
The buttons beside the Prog, Volume, and Pan boxes store the value,
at the current transport position, for midi automation. (See
automation 2.7.1).
Note that the 'Prog' button stores H-Bank and L-Bank along with
'Prog' value, so there are no H-Bank and L-Bank buttons.
The 'All' button simply stores all three Program (and banks), Volume,
and Pan values at once.
Tip: If the Song Type is GM, GS, or XG, you may need to store
desired values at transport position zero, otherwise your adjustments
may be overriden by the instrument when the transport is moved back
to position zero. If this behaviour is undesired, you can set the
Song Type to 'NO' meaning no song type.
Unlike the midi trackinfo sidebar, the audio trackinfo side bar
is nothing more than an embedded audio mixer strip, the exact same
strip as found in the mixers. (See mixer 2.2.2).
On the top of the audio trackinfo sidebar, there is an effects rack
which allows you to apply various plugins on the audio. For more
information on this, refer to 2.6.1.
Within MIDI, drum and wave tracks, you can create parts. Parts
are chunks of coherent notes or wave data which can be moved around,
copied, cloned and deleted independent from other parts.
Parts are created by selecting the pencil tool and then drawing onto
the right part area in the arranger. You can move them with the arrow
tool, delete them using the DEL key, and a right-click opens
a popup menu. This menu allows you even more stuff, such as setting
the part's color, saving the part to disk etc.. You can use
CTRL+C and CTRL+V for copying and pasting parts.
CTRL+B pastes the part as a clone. Pressing SHIFT
additionally provides you a dialog which allows you to paste the part
multiple times and set more stuff.
You can also copy parts with the mouse by moving the part with the mouse
while holding down the CTRL key.
