Exploring the Score Editor

In this video I'm going to go over how to use the Score Editor window to create and edit MIDI notes. First let's open up the Score Editor. There are a few ways to do that. We can go to Window > Score Editor. I can also go to Setup > Preferences > MIDI, and double-click MIDI Clip Opens the Score Editor. Or we can right- click on MIDI clip, which I'm going to do right here, slide down at the bottom here, and choose Open in the Score Editor, and that opens up the Score Editor.

You can also use the shortcuts Option+Ctrl+Equals on a Mac or Alt+Start+Equals in windows. At the top of the Score Editor you'll notice the toolbars. So we have the edit tools: Zoomer, Trimmer, Selector, Grabber, and Pencil. We've got the MIDI Note Duration and Velocity, and also the Play Midi Notes When Editing. Now you've seen a lot of these in the MIDI Editor window as well, so revisit the video on the MIDI Editor if you want more information on these things.

We've got Mirrored MIDI Editing, which you'll see in action here in a second, and the Link Timeline and Edit Selection. Finally, we have the double bar line, and I'll show you what that does in a second. Here we've got the cursor location, so if I go down here, it will show where we are and what the pitch is up here. We've got the Grid value, and we've got the Selection Area. And you can see here that eight bars are selected, and they're actually shown here in the score, and they're highlighted in blue.

So let's go back to the tools here. First with the Zoomer, it does the normal things that we can do with the Zoomer tool in all the other edit windows. We can zoom in by clicking once. Press Option on the Mac or Alt on windows and you can zoom out one. We can also click and drag to create a marquee and zoom in just on that area. I'm going to zoom back out by double- clicking the Zoomer tool. And I'm going to slide over to the first page.

We can use the Trimmer to extend or shorten particular notes. So now I'm going to use the Trimmer to extend this note. I want to make it into a full whole note. And you'll see because we have Mirrored MIDI Editing on, that some of the other notes down here were also changed. So if I undo this, you'll see some of these notes come back as well, because of the Mirrored MIDI editing.

If we go to the Note Selector tool, we can click and select particular notes. So I'm just clicking and dragging and the notes are selected and shown in blue. And these notes can be deleted, moved, transposed, or processed with event operations like Quantize. We can also just hit the Delete button and all the notes will be deleted. Now the Note Selector tool only includes MIDI note and velocity data; it does not include any other MIDI or continuous controller data.

So I'll recommend, if you're going to perform large MIDI edits, do that in the Edit window or in the MIDI Editor window, where all of the data, including continuous controller data will travel with your edits. So let me undo that delete. Let's go up to the Grabber tool. (Music Playing) With the Grabber tool we can select one or more notes, and if I click and drag, we can select a number of notes.

Once they're selected, if I click and drag them, I can move them. (Music Playing) Let me go ahead and undo that. Let's go up to the Pencil tool. With the Pencil tool we can insert notes, we can select notes, and we can move notes. So-- (Music Playing) And now I'm adding notes that are locked to the grid, and they're exactly a quarter note in length, and that's what we can do with the freehand Pencil tool.

If we go to the Line Pencil tool, we'll add notes just on one pitch with all the same velocity. (Music Playing) You'll see all the notes around the same pitch. Now the rest of the Pencil tool shapes are the same, except that they have different velocity curves depending on the shape. If we choose the Triangle tool, the velocities will go in a triangle shape. If we choose the Square tool, the velocities will follow the square shapes, and finally, with Random, the velocities will be randomized.

If you want to delete a note with the Pencil tool, we can go down to the note and press Option in Mac or Alt in Windows and click the note, and it's gone. Any notes added or deleted to the Score Editor as well as any edit will also be reflected in the Edit window and the MIDI Editor. And also note that the Score Editor automatically adds rests as needed. You can also move or manually insert rests if you want to. Now the Score Editor will probably become an integral part of your MIDI-editing workflow in Pro Tools 9.

I'll cover more of the features of the Score Editor in other videos in this course.