Bitwig Studio User Guide
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Inspecting Note Clips

As with audio events, the Inspector Panel is a critical way to both access the details of note events and edit them most effectively. To focus the Inspector Panel on notes, we must first select them within the Detail Editor Panel.

Selecting Notes

To select a single note: single-click it.

To select multiple notes: click a blank area and drag a rectangle around the desired notes.

Other ways to select multiple notes include:

  • After selecting one note, CTRL-click (CMD-click on Mac) additional notes to grow the selection.

  • Click a note on the piano keyboard to select all displayed notes of that pitch.

  • With the Time Selection tool, click and drag over the time area for which all displayed notes should be selected.

    (To normally click and drag the notes after they are selected in this way, you can switch back to the Pointer tool.)

To select the next note: press ALT+RIGHT ARROW.

To select the previous note: press ALT+LEFT ARROW.

If you have one note selected, you can similarly grow the selection by pressing SHIFT+ALT+RIGHT ARROW or SHIFT+ALT+LEFT ARROW .

Once a note selection is made, the Inspector Panel will display relevant settings and functions.

The Inspector Panel on Note Events

As with audio clips and events, selecting a note clip makes certain parameters and functions available in the NOTE section of the Inspector Panel, but by selecting a note event itself, the Inspector Panel provides all settings relevant for the selected event(s).

We will take these one section at a time and also examine the functions available in the Event menu when note events are selected.

Timing and Mute Section

These settings relate to the musical position of the selected note and whether it is muted:

  • Start sets the start position of the event within its parent clip or track. Adjusting this position will move the note event as it exists, the same as clicking and dragging the event within the Detail Editor Panel.

  • Length sets the duration of the event within its parent clip. Adjusting this duration will simply lengthen or shorten the note event, the same as using the bracket cursor to adjust the right edge of the note.

  • Muted toggles whether or not the event is disabled on playback.

Note Properties Section

These parameters relate to how each selected note is sounded:

  • Channel sets the internal channel that the note will play back on. This can act as a routing control within an Instrument Layer device, or when being sent directly to a VST plug-in or a hardware MIDI device that respects multiple channels.

  • Key sets the root pitch that the note is set to. This is shown as a MIDI note value, where C3 is roughly 261.262 Hertz ("middle C") and A3 is 440 Hertz. Adjusting this value is the same as moving the note higher or lower.

    Any Micro-pitch expressions are applied relative to the note's Key setting.

  • Velocity sets the strength with which the note should be initially triggered. It is set on a scale from 0.00 % to 100 %, and this is just another representation of the note's velocity expression (see Velocity Expressions).

  • Vel Spread sets the bipolar spread range for the note (see Expression Spread). So if a note has a Velocity of 78.7 % and a Vel Spread of 10.0 %, the note will trigger with a velocity between 68.7 % and 88.7 % each time it plays.

  • R-Velocity stands for release velocity, and it sets the speed with which the note should be released. It is set on a scale from 0.00 % to 100 %. This parameter is implemented in whatever way the instrument device desires.

Operators Section

Unlike the other sections in the Inspector Panel, the section displaying Operators is only shown when notes (and not clips) are selected. Operators are covered extensively in their own chapter (see chapter 12: Operators, for Animating Musical Sequences).

Expressions Section

This section exposes five of the expressions we have covered: Gain (see Gain Expressions), Pan (see Pan Expressions), Pitch (also known as the Micro-pitch expression; see Micro-pitch Editing Mode), Timbre (see Timbre Expressions), and Pressure (see Pressure Expressions). While these expressions have completely different functions, they are programmed in the same fashion.

Most of these expressions have their units defined, with Gain set in decibels, and both Pan and Timbre set with bipolar percentages. The unlabeled Pitch is set in semitones, indicating the relative shift.

These are all automation-type expressions, so each is able to be defined by a curve made of several values. Because of this possibility, each value in this section of the Inspector Panel actually represents the average of points in that expression. We can see this in action with the Gain setting.

This note has a gain expression consisting of two points and a curve. The -6.81 dB listed for the Gain parameter is an average of these two points.

To adjust a note expression curve: change its listed average value.

This would work similarly if multiple note events were selected.

Working with Multiple Note Events

As it was with audio events, the Histogram becomes available when multiple note events are selected (see Using the Histogram).

In this example image, the Inspector Panel has labeled its bottom section as NOTES (18), indicating that 18 notes are currently selected. And with this selection of multiple note events, the Velocity, R-Velocity, Gain, Pan, Pitch, and Timbre parameters all can now use the Histogram interface for editing.

The Histogram works exactly the same as it did in the audio event context (again, see Using the Histogram). The Histogram can be useful in the note context, for example, when notes were programmed without much diversity in their velocities.

It doesn't take much to add subtle — or less subtle — variety with the Histogram. If you look, you will find places where it can aid your workflow.

< Note Event Functions   The Edit View >
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