Copy notes

Copy notes in the Piano Roll Editor

There are a number of ways to copy or move notes in the Piano Roll Editor. In addition to Option-dragging or using the Copy and Paste menu commands, there are advanced Copy and Move operations such as directly swapping events, or merging a group of notes from one section of a region to the same region, or another region.

Copy notes

Do one of the following:

  • Option-drag notes to a new position.

    Figure. Option-dragging to copy a note in the Piano Roll Editor.

    Tip: You can Option-drag notes between two Piano Roll Editor windows (showing different regions, for example), or even between the Piano Roll Editor windows of different projects.

  • Use any of the following Clipboard commands:

    • Edit > Cut (or Command-X) to move notes into the Clipboard.

    • Edit > Copy (or Command-C) to copy notes into the Clipboard.

    • Edit > Paste (or Command-V) to paste notes at the current playhead position, at their original pitch.

Copy or move a range of MIDI events

  1. Define the area that you want to move or copy using the left and right locators.

  2. If you want to copy or move the events to another track, select the track you want to copy the events to.

  3. Set the playhead to the insert position.

  4. Choose Functions > Copy MIDI Events.

  5. In the Copy MIDI Events dialog, choose settings, then click OK.

    Figure. Copy MIDI Events dialog.

    • Mode pop-up menu: Choose one of the following options:

      • Copy Merge: The copied data is blended with any data present at the destination position.

      • Copy Replace: The data at the destination position is deleted, and replaced with the copied data.

      • Copy Insert: All data at the destination position is moved to the right, by the length of the source area.

      • Move Merge, Move Replace, Move Insert: These three modes work similarly to the Copy modes, but actually move the selected events, removing them from their original positions.

      • Rotate: The source events are moved to the destination position. The data that was previously at the destination position, and the data that falls between the source and destination positions, are all moved toward the source position. This rotates the data around a central pivot point (halfway between the source and destination positions).

      • Direct Swap: Exchanges the source data with data of the same length, starting at the target position. This allows you to swap the notes in bar 1 of a four-bar MIDI region with the notes in bar 3 of the same region, for example.

      • Remove: Removes the MIDI data from the source region, but leaves the region at its original position.

    • Left Locator and Right Locator: Allow you to edit the source area you defined with the left and right locators.

    • Destination: Defines the destination position independently of the playhead position.

    • Number of Copies: Defines the number of copies.

    • Create new Region: When selected, a new MIDI region is created at the destination position. It contains the copied (or moved) events.