12. MIDI

Playing and recording MIDI

A MIDI instrument plays into the track you’re working in as soon as it’s plugged in. Recording writes what you play into the song as notes: on a fretted track as strings and frets, on a drum track as hits on the kit’s lanes, on a keys track as pitches. What’s recorded is ordinary notes, one undo step a take, to edit like any others.

Recording, arming and takes

Available on every platform.

Recording is off when a song opens

A song opens with recording off, so nothing records by accident and nothing about recording is in the way. While it’s off, your instrument still plays; the Transport pane’s record button is grey, and the tracks have no red dots.

Recording comes on when you press Record, when you arm a track, or with Recording Enabled (the Transport menu or the Transport pane › Record). In the Transport pane, the grey record button’s first click turns recording on, and the next records. While it’s on, a chip at the lower right of the Editor pane says what Record will take, such as “● Record takes MIDI: Keystation → Lead”, or that nothing is ready (“nothing (the input is off, no MIDI device armed…)”).

Which tracks record

The armed tracks record: by default, the track you’re working in (the caret’s). With recording on, each track’s tag (its name, M and S, over the start of its lane) has a dot after the name: click it to arm that track too, and again to disarm it. Armed tracks have a red dot and a red stripe down their rail. You can arm up to eight tracks at once: an e-kit records the drums while a keyboard records the keys. Disarm them all and the track you’re working in is armed again.

The track’s menu has the same as Record from MIDI, and MIDI Input gives the track one device (Automatic: a drum kit plays the drum tracks, a keyboard the others).

A device records only while it’s Armed in the Audio & MIDI pane (new devices are); one that isn’t armed plays without being recorded.

Recording

1. Put the caret where recording should start.
2. Choose Record (⌥⌘R)Record (Ctrl+Alt+R)Record (Ctrl+Alt+R (⌥⌘R on a Mac)) (the Transport menu or the Transport pane › Record).
3. The song counts in and plays from the caret; play along.
4. Stop playback, or choose Record again, to finish. The take goes into the song as one undo step, “Record”.

The count-in is the song’s (Count-In). When the song has none, Stab counts in one bar, unless you turn off Count In When Recording in the Transport pane’s record menu (or Count in a bar when the song has no count-in in Settings › Audio & MIDI).

Punching in while it plays: choose Record while the song is playing, and recording starts at once, from what you hear. Record again punches out, and the song plays on.

The notes appear as you play, in red, where they’ll land. Past the end of the song, playback goes on for as long as you record.

Where the notes go

• Into the clips already on the track’s active voice, or a new clip where there’s none.
• Never through a linked copy or a repeat: if the take would land on one, it goes to another voice of the track that’s free there, or a new voice, so a riff linked eight times isn’t rewritten in all eight places.
• A keyboard into a fretted track: the take is fretted as a passage, and notes the tuning can’t reach are moved by octaves.
• A drum track: a keyboard plays the kit by General MIDI, a drum kit by its module’s map.
• A keys track: the sustain pedal lengthens the notes it holds.

Loops, passes and takes

With the loop on, recording goes round with it, and each pass goes into the song as the loop comes round, so you hear what you played in the next pass. The Transport pane’s record menu (right-click the record button) says what each pass does:

• Merge With What’s There: each pass adds its notes, drum-machine style.
• Replace What’s There: the first pass clears what it records over, then later passes add to it.
• Keep Each Loop Pass as a Take: each pass is a take of one clip over the loop. The clip’s menu lists them under Takes: choose the one that plays, take a bar from another with Use This Bar From, or Keep Only the Take Playing.

Quantizing as you play

The song keeps exactly what you play, and the Score reads it tidily (Score Setup’s Played Rhythm). To move notes onto the grid as they’re written instead, choose a value in the same record menu (Quantize to the Step Length, Quantize to 1/16…; As Played is off). Settings › Audio & MIDI › Quantize as you play sets the same, with a Strength (100 %: right on the grid; less, part of the way) and Catch notes near a beat (a note that close to a beat lands on it).

Playing together

Record while you play together, and every device records its own armed tracks from the same count-in. Two people recording into one track are merged, never cleared. See Recording together.

Capture and punch

Available on every platform.

Capture MIDI: keep what you just played

You don’t have to be recording for a good idea to count. Stab listens to what your devices play, recording or not, and Capture MIDI (⌥⇧⌘R)Capture MIDI (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R)Capture MIDI (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R (⌥⇧⌘R on a Mac)) puts the last of it into the song as if you had recorded it:

• While the loop plays: the last whole pass you played.
• While the song plays without a loop: what you played since your last pause of two seconds, where you played it.
• Stopped: the phrase you just played, at the caret, at the song’s tempo.

It goes into the armed track (the one you’re working in, unless you armed others), as one undo step, “Capture”. A device must be on for Stab to hear it. Each phrase is captured once.

Punching in at the loop markers

To re-record only part of a passage:

1. Set the loop markers round the bars to re-record, and turn the loop off.
2. Turn on Punch In and Out at the Loop Markers (the Transport menu or the Transport pane › Record).
3. Choose Record. Playback starts a bar before the first marker, and only what you play between the markers is recorded.

With Replace What’s There, what was between the markers is cleared as you record over it. Punching in works for the audio input too.