MIDI guitars and e-kits

A keyboard plays pitches, and Stab has to guess the strings or the drum pieces. A MIDI guitar and an electronic drum kit say more: which string, which pad, how far the string was bent, how open the hi-hat is. Tell Stab what the device is, and that comes into the song as you play it, live and when you record or use step input.

Set the device’s kind in the MIDI In tab of the Audio & MIDI pane or in Settings › Audio & MIDI (MIDI devices).

MIDI guitars

Available on every platform.

Setting up a MIDI guitar

A MIDI guitar (a pickup and converter such as Fishman, Roland or Boss, or a guitar such as a Jamstik) sends each string on a channel of its own, which is often called mono mode. Make its kind MIDI Guitar, then match what it sends:

Strings from: the channel of its first string (Channel 1 by default).
High E First or Low E First: which string that first channel is. Most converters send the high E first.
Bends: the bend range the guitar sends, ±2, ±12, ±24 (the default) or ±48. Set it to what the guitar is set to, or bends come out too wide or too narrow.
Legato: off by default. On, a note picked while its string is still ringing is written as a hammer-on (higher) or a pull-off (lower).

What it writes

The string you played it on, at the fret its pitch gives over that string’s open note, with the track’s tuning and capo. A note the string can’t reach (a guitar tuned differently from the track) is fretted as a keyboard’s would be.
One note at a time per string: a new note on a string ends the one ringing there.
Bends: each string’s bend under a note becomes the note’s bend, its shape kept to a few points you can edit like any other (Bends). A string barely touched isn’t a bend. A note bent before it was picked starts bent.
Live, the guitar synth bends just that string; a SoundFont sound bends its whole channel.

Slides aren’t written from a MIDI guitar: a converter’s glide and a bend look alike.

Electronic drum kits

Available on every platform.

Setting up a kit

Make the device’s kind Drum Kit and pick its module’s map: General MIDI, Roland V-Drums, Yamaha DTX or Alesis Strike and Nitro. Each pad then plays its piece of the drum track’s kit, in the lane for that piece. In Windows’ Settings window, the module is chosen with the kind (Drum Kit: Roland V-Drums…).

When a pad plays the wrong piece, teach it: in Settings › Audio & MIDI, Pads… beside the kit lists each piece with the notes that play it. Choose Learn for a piece, then hit the pad. What you teach is kept with the device and takes over from the map; Back to the Module’s Map forgets it.

What it writes

Pads, rims and edges: on a Roland kit, the snare’s rim is a rimshot, a tom’s rim its hit, a cymbal’s edge the cymbal.
The hi-hat pedal: once the kit has sent its pedal (CC 4), a hi-hat hit is written closed, half-open or open by how far the pedal is down. Before that, the module’s own open and closed notes decide.
Chokes: grab a cymbal after hitting it (the module sends aftertouch) and its hit is written as a choke. A cymbal’s hit goes into the song a second after it’s played, so its choke can still reach it.
A piece the track has no lane for gets a lane when it’s recorded.

A kit plays the armed drum tracks, and a keyboard the others, so a drummer and a keyboard player can record two parts at once (Playing and recording MIDI). Hits are struck rather than held, so a kit works with step input too.