Record a MIDI performance

You can record in Visualizer and Editor. The take becomes part of the project, and you can edit its notes and controllers afterward. In Practice, REC is disabled; your training records belong to the practice history.

Before you start

1. Connect and enable your MIDI device.
2. Choose an instrument and check that it responds when you play.
3. Create or open a session.
4. Switch to Visualizer or Editor.
5. If you'll play to a steady pulse, set the tempo and time signature and turn on the click.
6. If you want to keep the rhythm exactly as you play it, leave the Q button for Quantize While Recording off in the editor toolbar.

Recording with the transport stopped

1. Place the playhead where you want to start. Press Return to start from the beginning.
2. Press REC. The button blinks: recording is armed but hasn't started yet. If you change your mind, press it again to disarm.
3. Press Play or the Space bar.
4. Play your performance.
5. Press Stop or the Space bar to close the take and stop the transport.
6. Play back the result.
7. Save with Cmd+S.

To start right away from the keyboard, Cmd+R —or 3 on the numeric keypad— starts recording without stopping at the armed state. Don't confuse arming REC with actually capturing a take.

In Visualizer you can record even when no piece is loaded: the grid starts with four bars and keeps growing as you play. When you stop the take, Medussa trims the leftover empty bars.

Recording over existing playback

1. Open the MIDI file or session you want to play over.
2. Move to a point before where you'll come in and start playback.
3. Press REC when you want to start adding notes: with the transport running, the take starts instantly, anchored to the playhead, without going through the armed state.
4. Play the new part.
5. Press REC again to close the take and keep listening, or Stop to stop everything.
6. Review the combined result in the editor and save.

This adds MIDI events to the project. Check for overlapping notes if you record a part that was already there.

Recording several passes of a loop

1. Switch to Editor.
2. Set an A/B range and turn on the loop.
3. Start playback and press REC.
4. Play through one or more passes.
5. Stop recording.
6. Review the notes added on each pass.

Each pass comes in as an undoable take. New notes are added on top: don't assume a pass replaces the previous one.

Fixing or discarding a take

1. Switch to Editor and find what you recorded.
2. Play the passage.
3. To remove the last take, press Cmd+Z and check the name of the undo action.
4. To fix just a few notes, use the piano roll.
5. Save a variant if you want to compare two performances.

Everything you record comes in as Right hand. If you want a part drawn in the left-hand colors, select it afterward in the editor and mark it: Marking the hands.

MIDI capture keeps notes and messages such as sustain; it doesn't capture the internal audio of the connected piano. To get rendered sound, use Export WAV audio.

Recording freely and setting the tempo later

You can play without a metronome and then build a tempo map around the performance. Before you change that map, switch the anchor to SMPL to keep the take's absolute timing. The steps are in Tempo and audio.