Fl Studio Mac Piano Roll Keyboard Shortcuts
- Fl Studio Mac Piano Roll Keyboard Shortcuts Keyboard
- Fl Studio Mac Piano Roll Keyboard Shortcuts Shortcut
- Best Keyboard Shortcuts
Here are some things I’ve picked up in FL Studio over countless hours of music production. Everyone’s workflow is different but you’re likely to find something useful here.
In this article we’re going to discuss copying and pasting notes in FL Studio. We’ll also talk a little bit about some FL Studio keyboard shortcuts and hotkeys to make the process a lot easier when it comes to working with the Sequencer, Piano Roll, native and third-party VSTs, automation clips, and I’ll quickly touch on copying presets and effects between mixer tracks in.
- Copy and Paste in the Piano Roll. The next area we’ll talk about is in the FL Studio Piano roll. This is where you lay out all of your MIDI data for different channels in the Channel rack. To get there, just click the View piano roll button in your toolbar, or the shortcut key F7.
- When I play a note on the computer keyboard, i get visual feedback in the Channel Rack and the info-window in the toolbar says: Note on: D#4 / Velocity: 100, even the piano keys in the plugin-window are highlighted orange when i hit the key on the computer keyboard but there is no sound.
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- Some plugins may steal keyboard focus from FL Studio. You'll notice this behavior when using the 'Typing keyboard to Piano keyboard' option or using the spacebar for transport control. Solutions to this behavior include either or a combination of the following: 1. Disable 'Typing keyboard priority' (3) on the Plugin Wrapper.
- FL Studio shortcuts Mac If you know that ctrl is a command on a Mac and alt is option, then you’re all good! People often think that it’s a big difference but it’s not if get used to it and you will learn that quickly – your good to go! General Shortcuts FL Studio.
In the example – “Synth Lead C” doesn’t belong among the drum layers! Sort instruments and samples in the step sequencer and mixer. Hold the alt key in combination with the up and down arrow keys when in the step sequencer to move inserts. Hold the Alt key in combination with the left and right keys when in the mixer to move mixer tracks.
When your song projects start getting bigger and better it helps to keep everything organised. In a song you might have lead sounds, bass sounds, drum samples, sound effect samples and automation clips all thrown in. It helps to keep every layer named so you can remember what is what or it’ll quickly become a project that you open and instantly want to discard and move onto the next song (only to repeat in a vicious circle). If you spend time organising a project file you’ll end up being more invested in following through with the track. That’s a good thing! I organise them into groups e.g. lead, bass, drums, sound effects, automation.
It’s one of those things which will slow you down at the start and speed you up in the long run. Get used to using your keyboards function keys in FL Studio to improve your workflow. Here are the shortcuts you should master early on to switch back and forth between windows fast:
Fl Studio Mac Piano Roll Keyboard Shortcuts Keyboard
F5 | Toggle Playlist |
F6 | Toggle Step Sequencer |
F7 | Toggle Piano roll |
F8 | Show/hide Sample Browser |
F9 | Show/hide Mixer |
In addition to these here are two more shortcuts which are good to know. First; Use the “alt” key when manipulating notes in the Piano Roll. This bypasses the snapping grid you have set and you can also use it to stretch or shorten the end of a note. Second; When you are drawing notes in the Piano Roll the note size will be equal to the previous note drawn or selected. Sometimes this is not desirable. In that case hold shift and draw a note and it’ll automatically be snapped back to the grid ready to be resized as you need it.
This frustrating interface problem can be caused when you undock one of the detachable interface panels (click and drag). This can be quickly fixed by pushing CTRL+SHIFT+H – which reverts everything in FL Studio back to the default view.
In FL Studio, “Click and hold & Special Gesture functions” is enabled by default. It means for instance in Piano Roll if you click and hold a note for a short period of time, you’ll be drawing a slide note instead. If you click and hold the right mouse button in the Playlist, it’ll switch to the Slice tool. Whether you change this setting or not is down to personal preference. If you aren’t a fan of these gesture based functions it’s handy to know you can disable them as so from within FL Studio:
Options > General Settings > uncheck “Click & Hold & special gesture functions”
If you’re frequently using the same effects, synths and samples, set up templates for when you load FL Studio. That way, all of your favorite settings will be loaded from the beginning.
You can set these up by saving any project in:
***FL Studio Folder***DataProjectsTemplates
In the image
1 – Step sequencer. I like to use Sylenth1, Massive & FM8 so every project I begin will have these ready. Set this up for yourself and your preferred synths.
2 – Sidechain Channel set up in the mixer – the Fruity Limiter effect added and a kick drum side-chained to this track. By default I have my kick drum linked to mixer track 1. Sylenth, Massive and FM8 are linked to track 2. You can add any number of effects here. You can have a signature synth lead sound with all your reverb/compression/delay/distortion effects added and pre-loaded. Really useful.
3 – VST Plugins – configured to whichever state you need. Their settings will be retained for when you load FL Studio. I have them set to their default initialisation state. New song, new sounds.
Useful FL Studio function to know. Select any pattern or sample in the playlist and then press “select all similar clips”. It’ll highlight every instance of that pattern, or sample, or automation clip etc across the entire playlist. Good for when you want to quickly edit a drum sequence without affecting other parts of the song. e.g. use “select all similar clips” and if necessary use the “make unique” function which creates a new pattern right there – so you can edit on without affecting the original.
Some plugins can cause FL Studio to Crash. One in particular is NI Massive – crashing FL studio whenever it loaded. It was possible to resolve this by deleting the database file located in:
X:Users***your name***AppDataLocalNative InstrumentsMassive
File – NIMassiveDataBase_ul
Moral of the Story – if FL Studio is crashing each time you load up a project or load a certain VST it’s possibly defective. A quick reinstall or removing a file will usually resolve such issues.
Important. It’s possible backups won’t be active by default in FL Studio.
In FL Studio – Options > file settings > Backup autosave > select
This will generate a new (hidden) folder in your FL Studio directory. Backup files are stored inside the “Data” folder.
X:***Program Files***Image-Line***FL Studio Folder***DataBackup
Your backups will be saved here per the preferences you set within FL Studio. If you don’t take the time to sort this out now, you’ll end up setting it up after you lose a project.
When working with automation clips in FL Studio, you can right click any knob or parameter and select “copy value” – and then paste the value into your automation clip for precise automation.
Add a background to FL Studio. I use a black background with a subtle texture. The background I use is below – feel free to download. The more straight forward the background is, the more you can focus your mind and get creative.
Also, in FL Studio general options under animations try “entertain me!” and check the “ultrasmooth” setting for scrolling. It is also worth trying different skins, different view options in the piano roll/step sequencer and different font sizes in the browser. Play with these settings. I don’t use many of the default values.
- Use the reverse clip option on any sample to get interesting effects. Especially good for big cymbal crashes and impact sounds – reverse those for awesome power-up / build up effects.
- Record portions of your song and then reverse them, stretch them and change the pitch to create unique sound effects.
- Make a repeating arpeggiating sequence in the Piano Roll, like ascending triplets and then select the notes. Hold the “alt” key and drag back to make the entire sequence 2x/4x/8x faster. Copy/paste to fill the rest of the measure with those super-fast notes. Surprisingly good way to make amazing sounds.
Some quick tips to make sequences sound less artificial.
- Panning and volume for drums. However you make your drums mix up the panning and volume to make it sound a bit more natural. It’s easy to do in the step sequencer, piano roll, or a drum VST like FPC. “alt+r” will open the randomiser in FL Studio which you can use to quickly add a subtle bit of variation to each note.
- Remove some drum hits from your sequence and add some “mistakes” to your melodies. For instance if you have a long sequence of ascending patterns delete a few notes, or move them completely off pitch. If you have a rolling sequence of hi-hat notes, delete some completely.
- Use the “Alt” key when manipulating notes in the Piano Roll. This will allow you to stretch or shorten the length of any note which is useful to simulate how a human will play an instrument. For instance when you play guitar, you do not completely let go of the previous note when playing the next.
Mastering the Piano Roll is essential to creating great melodies in FL Studio.
When inspiration strikes, it’s important to be able to quickly sketch out your ideas.
The last thing you want is to waste time clicking through menus when you have a melody in your head…
Fl Studio Mac Piano Roll Keyboard Shortcuts Shortcut
This post will help you compose MIDI more efficiently.
Here’s a list of the most essential FL Studio shortcuts for the Piano roll:
- Highlight all notes (Ctrl + A)
- Copy/paste your selection (Ctrl + C/Ctrl + V)
- Duplicate your selection to the right (Ctrl + B)
- Deselect the highlighted notes (Ctrl + D)
- Transpose selection up/down 1 octave (Ctrl + Up/Down)
- Transpose selection up/down 1 semi-tone (Shift + Up/Down)
- Shift selection left or right (Shift + Left/Right)
- Toggle ghost channels on or off (Alt + V)
- Quantization (Ctrl + Q)
- Quick Chop (Ctrl + U)
Continue reading for details on each FL Studio shortcut.
FL Studio Shortcuts
Highlight all notes
Ctrl + A
Selecting notes in the Piano roll is slow.
Normally, you would click and drag your mouse across all the notes you want to highlight.
And if your screen isn’t large enough, you would have to scroll to capture all the notes…
This shortcut eliminates all that wasted time by selecting all the notes in the Piano roll.
Then you can apply whatever changes you want to make at once.
Copy/Paste your selection
Ctrl + C & Ctrl + V
These shortcuts are basic – the same across the operating system – but they’re still essential.
Use Ctrl + C to copy your selection to the clipboard, and use Ctrl + V to paste the selection at the marker.
These shortcuts will probably be some of your most used when you need to quickly apply notes in the Piano roll.
Duplicate your selection to the right
Best Keyboard Shortcuts
Ctrl + B
Free drum packs fl studio. Similar to the Paste command above, this is another essential shortcut.
Instead of pasting a selection at the marker, this shortcut will duplicate your selection to the right.
This is useful for copying notes to extend the region.
Then you can make changes to the duplicated section using the original section as a reference.
It’s also a quick way to loop a selection of notes without looping the region in the Playlist.
Deselect the highlighted notes
Ctrl + D
When you’re finished editing your selection, you’ll need to deselect it.
Use the Ctrl + D shortcut to deselect your selection.
This is a good shortcut to remember if you find yourself accidentally creating a new note in the Piano roll when attempting to left-click to remove a selection.
Transpose selection Up/Down 1 Octave
Ctrl + Up/Down Key
When working with MIDI notes, this shortcut will transpose your selection up or down by octave.
You might use this shortcut to develop bass lines for your melodies, or vice versa.
This is a great way to experiment with your notes.
Transpose selection Up/Down 1 Semi-tone
Shift + Up/Down Key
Similar to transposing by octave, this shortcut will transpose your selection by semi-tone.
Sometimes, while composing, you’ll need to experiment to find the right notes.
You can use this shortcut to quickly transpose your selection as you loop a section.
Shift selection left or right
Shift + Left/Right Key
This shortcut will help you shift the selection left or right in the Piano roll.
It’s especially useful when creating melodies.
You can take your selection and shift it left or right to change the rhythm, or to create new patterns.
Toggle ghost channels on/off
Alt + V
This shortcut will toggle the ghost notes feature on or off.
What are ghost notes in FL Studio?
Ghost notes are guides that show semi-transparent notes from another channel in the Channel rack.
They’re used so that you can see what notes another instrument is playing in the same pattern. This is helpful when you’re layering instruments together.
Turn them on or off with this shortcut so you can reference other MIDI channels.
Quantization
Ctrl + Q
This shortcut will automatically quantize your selection.
What is quantization in FL Studio?
Quantization is a feature that adjusts your notes to the nearest beat of your timeline.
It’s used to ensure that the notes you’re using are perfectly in rhythm.
Use this shortcut for a quick way to keep your notes in rhythm.
Quick chop
Ctrl + U
This shortcut will automatically chop your selection using the Quick chop feature.
What is Quick chop in FL Studio?
Quick chop is a feature that automatically slices your note selection into 1/16th notes.
Use this feature when working with percussive elements, like hi-hats, to make quick slices.
This will help you build your patterns faster and easier.
Final Thoughts
Creating patterns in the Piano roll don’t have to be a tedious process.
These shortcuts will help you save time in the Piano roll by automating many of your common tasks.
I hope this has helped you find a few shortcuts to improve your workflow in FL Studio.
But now I’m curious to know what you think…
Are there any essential FL Studio shortcuts that we missed?
Let us know in the comments!
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