MIDI devices

Any MIDI instrument plays into Stab: a keyboard, a pad controller, an electronic drum kit, a MIDI guitar. Plug it in and it’s heard at once on the track you’re working in; tell Stab what kind of device it is, and it writes what you play the right way: pitches on keys, hits on a kit’s lanes, strings and frets from a guitar.

Connecting MIDI devices

Available on every platform.

Connecting a device

Plug the device in by USB, or through a MIDI interface. Stab finds it while it runs; there’s nothing to restart.

A Bluetooth MIDI device is paired in the Mac’s Audio MIDI Setup; once paired, Stab lists it like any other.

The browser asks before a page can use MIDI. In Settings (Settings… in the Settings menu), under Audio & MIDI, choose Turn On MIDI, and allow it when the browser asks; the Audio & MIDI pane has a Turn On MIDI button too. Web MIDI is in Chrome, Edge and Firefox on a computer; Safari and the browsers on the iPhone and iPad don’t have it, and the menu then says “MIDI Needs Chrome, Edge or Firefox on a Computer”.

Every device Stab has seen is remembered, with its settings, even while it’s unplugged (“Not connected”). Forget removes one that’s unplugged. Stab keeps up to 16; when they’re all taken, a new device takes the place of the one remembered last that isn’t plugged in.

Seeing your devices

Your devices are listed in two places, which change the same settings:

Settings › Audio & MIDI, under MIDI Devices (once Web MIDI is on).
The MIDI In tab of the Audio & MIDI pane. Each device is a card with its status: “Playing into this song”, “Another song takes it”, or “Not connected”.

A light beside each device flashes as it sends something, which is the quickest answer to “is it connected?”.

What a device is

Each device has a kind. A new device is a Keyboard, on, and armed for recording; change its kind once and Stab remembers it.

Keyboard: plays notes by pitch. Into a fretted track, what you record is fretted for you; into a drum track, notes play the kit by General MIDI.
Drum Kit: plays a drum track’s lanes by its module’s map: General MIDI, Roland V-Drums, Yamaha DTX or Alesis Strike and Nitro. Pads… teaches Stab a pad at a time, for a kit whose notes don’t match its map. See MIDI guitars and e-kits.
MIDI Guitar: a channel per string, so what you play is written on the string you played it on, with its bends. Set the channel of the first string, High E First or Low E First, and the bend range the guitar sends (±2, ±12, ±24 or ±48). See MIDI guitars and e-kits.
Controller: only controls Stab, through what you’ve learnt for it (MIDI control and mapping). Its notes and knobs never play or record.

In Windows’ Settings window, a drum kit is picked with its module in the same list as the kinds (Drum Kit: Roland V-Drums…); a MIDI guitar starts with its high E on channel 1 and bends of ±24, which the Audio & MIDI pane changes.

On, Armed, latency

On: off, Stab ignores the device altogether.
Armed (in the Audio & MIDI pane): an armed device is recorded when you press Record; one that isn’t still plays, but isn’t recorded. A controller has no Armed.
Latency: the time the device takes to send a note, taken off what you play so it lands where you played it. Calibrate measures it: see MIDI latency.

Which song and which track hear it

The song in front takes the devices: the window you’re working in. Another open song shows “Another song takes it”.

In that song, what you play sounds on the armed tracks: the track you’re working in (the caret’s), unless you arm others by the red dot on their header, which shows once recording is on. A drum kit plays the armed drum tracks and a keyboard the others, so an e-kit and a keyboard can play two parts at once. To give a track one device only, choose it under MIDI Input in the track’s menu (Automatic lets the kinds decide). Arming is yours alone: it isn’t saved in the song, and playing together, each person arms their own tracks. Playing and recording MIDI has the details.

MIDI out

The same settings list the MIDI destinations (outputs) a track can play to, each with its latency and Send Clock. See MIDI out and clock.