LMMS • Forums

I recently downloaded lmms and i dont have a midi keyboard. when i press my cpu keyboard i am able to hear the notes from whatever instrument i use but how do i record/add/save the notes i play on my keyboard without going to the piano roll. another question i have is how can i shorten the notes when using brass or other long note sounding instruments

Hey,

As far as I know, there is no way to record midi without using the piano roll. In the piano roll I don't have a keyboard either, but the piano roll works great for me. With no keyboard and no piano roll, the only other thing I can think of would be to put the sound in the beat/bassline editor, but that has the disadvantage that all the sounds are the same note, same length.

The only other thing that might work is to use another program (like Anvil Studio, for example) that focuses on just midi. But even they have a "piano-roll-like" set-up. Anvil Studio also has a sheet music mode where you can write that way, and when the project is done you could import the finished midi file into LMMS, but that seems like a lot of trouble. My best suggestion would be to give the piano roll a try. It's easier than it looks (heck, even I can use it).

record/add/save the notes i play on my keyboard
without going to the piano roll.

actually you DO go into piano-roll
Open that
In piano-roll you have recording capacity
-BUT
NOT as sound, but as events
You 'record' the note and the duration, and lmms will create a note in the piano-roll!
Then you need to follow this tut:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFy8tipBbB8
in order to 'record' other instruments over the existing ones.
In that way you can 'build' a piece of music, as if you played everything live, one instrument at a time.

another question i have is how can i shorten the notes when using brass or other long note sounding instruments

I think you mean how to get short collorative burst of sound, like a vitorious thrompet artist running fast over a register in the key of the music?
That is hard to achive in a DAV
You can try to play-it-live with the highest value of Q in the piano-roll, but you will have to work a lot to get a good result

br