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Step Input

The Step Input Keyboard (View › Step Input Keyboard, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+K, or the button with the note and arrow in the Piano Roll’s bar) enters notes one step at a time, as in Logic: each note goes in at the playhead, as long as the chosen note value, and the playhead moves on by that value. Notes go into the track the Piano Roll shows (the selected region’s track, or the selected instrument track): into the region under the playhead, or one that ends less than a bar before it (which grows), or else a new one-bar region. The transport must be stopped.

  • Note value: 1/1 to 1/128, with Dotted (half as long again) and Triplet (two thirds as long). Lengths follow the tempo map, so a quarter is a quarter whatever the tempo does.
  • Velocity: ppp (16) to fff (127) for the on-screen keyboard. With As Played on (the default), notes from a MIDI keyboard or Musical Typing keep the velocity they were played with; off, they get the one chosen here.
  • Rest moves on a step without a note. Back deletes the last step and moves the playhead back to it (a rest just moves back).
  • Chord: notes held down together always go in as one chord, and the playhead moves on when every key is up. With Chord on, the playhead stays put after the keys are released, so you can click a chord in one note at a time; turn Chord off (or press Rest) to move on.
  • Sustain lengthens the notes of the last step by one step and moves on.
  • Quantize snaps the playhead to the step grid (counted from the bar line) before each step.
  • The on-screen keyboard spans four octaves (− and + move it); click a key to enter a note.
  • Notes from a MIDI keyboard and from Musical Typing are entered while the window is open, and still sound as usual.
  • Each step is one undo step (a chord’s notes share it). Move the playhead yourself at any time and steps continue from there. The notes just entered are selected.

While the window is open, 1 to 8 choose the note value (1/1 to 1/128), 9 Dotted, 0 Triplet, N Rest and Shift+Backspace Back. Chord, Sustain and Quantize have key commands without keys. All of them are in Settings › Key Commands › Step Input (see the key reference).

Logic uses ⌥⌘K for the Step Input Keyboard; in Marbble that opens the Marker List, so the window has Ctrl+Alt+Shift+K (⌥⇧⌘K on macOS).