Using MIDI input in the Piano Roll editor

[Diomendius]

I have a MIDI keyboard which I can attach to an instrument successfully. This works fine; playing notes on the keyboard plays those notes through the instrument.

This only works for the instrument in question, however. If I want to play through a different instrument, I have to connect the MIDI device to that instrument, and if I don't also disconnect the device from the first instrument, both instruments play simultaneously when a note is played on the keyboard.

As far as I can tell this is working as intended, but it's cumbersome to have to do this just to use a MIDI device as input for the Piano Roll editor. I can use my computer's keyboard to play notes while the Piano Roll is open, but unless I connect the MIDI keyboard to the specific instrument I have open in the Piano Roll, I cannot play or record notes for that instrument with the MIDI keyboard.

I can't seem to find any settings to choose the MIDI device to use as input for the Piano Roll. How do I use a MIDI device with the Piano Roll like I can use the computer keyboard?

[musikbear]

How do I use a MIDI device with the Piano Roll like I can use the computer keyboard?

Good question!
I do not know a lot about using midi keyboards, but what i would do, if i had one, was to select an instrument i liked in particular. I think i would choose sound-font general-user
That one i would connect to my midi-KB, and that one i would use as std.
I could then choose patches on the general-user, and get a rather good idea about how various presets would sound.
After i captures the notes in piano-roll, i would then move the pattern to the actual preset, i planned to use in my project.
Instead of general-user, you could use a Synth1 instance, and there you would have 128 possible presets, in fact just as good as a soundfont!

Besides that, since you are new in Forum
Welcome Diomendius !
Here are all important links:
http://lmms.io/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4740
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[Diomendius]

Thanks for the warm welcome, musikbear.

That's an interesting workaround, but I'm not sure if it would save time in the long run.

Currently it takes me about five seconds to click (track gear icon)>MIDI>Input>(device name) on the track currently connected, then on the track I want to switch to recording to. It's a hassle compared to the computer keyboard bindings Just Working in the Piano Roll, but it doesn't take a huge amount of time.

If I understand your idea right, I would have a "staging track" where new musical phrases get recorded to, then I would just cut/paste the notes in the Piano Roll to the appropriate track. This is pretty quick, but I don't think it justifies the downsides. It wouldn't let me test an instrument by playing on the MIDI keyboard without doing the MIDI input checkbox juggling anyway, and it's just generally easier to work with the notes in a track if I don't need to jump back and forth between a different one to make changes (other than those I would use the mouse for anyway).

I did notice that instruments can be set to a specific MIDI channel, so depending on how easy it is to change the output channel of the MIDI keyboard in question, it might be a better solution to just connect multiple instruments at once and change the channel on the MIDI keyboard itself. You'd be able to use up to 16 instruments this way. My MIDI keyboard hides everything configuration-related behind an "advanced" key combined with the keys on the keyboard itself, so if it's possible to do this with my keyboard, it's probably not ergonomic.

So, LMMS doesn't currently have this feature? I'm a bit surprised, as I would've thought the primary use of a MIDI keyboard with a DAW would be as a substitute for drawing notes with the mouse. Hopefully adding this functionality doesn't require much refactoring of how LMMS handles MIDI under the hood. Should I post a feature request to GitHub, or am I missing something here?

[musikbear]

I did notice that instruments can be set to a specific MIDI channel, so depending on how easy it is to change the output channel of the MIDI keyboard in question, it might be a better solution

Absolute! better, so if you have that option, that is the way to go!