Quickly split a chord over multiple tracks in MTS

MisplacedDevelopment

I’m still finding new tricks in MultiTrackStudio despite it being my main DAW for some time now. Here is a tip for quickly splitting chords over multiple tracks in MTS.

First, we drag a simple C chord over from Tonality:

Then in the Multi-MIDI mode piano editor:

1. Select the note that you want to move to a different track
2. At the bottom of the screen, click on the track you want to move the note to.
3. Click the “Move” button.

If you wanted to keep the note in the source track to double-up instruments, you could click copy then paste to create a second copy of the note before the move.

Do the same thing for the other note and you end up with the three notes of the chord on different tracks:

Score view:

BirbHope

Why am I only really just hearing about this DAW now? Granted Ive only been at this iOS music for a couple of months but Ive been obsessed.
Whats the catch? Is it under-featured in some area? Does it support AUv3 automation?
On paper this app should be really popular.

Anyway, sorry to derail. Thank you for the tip.

jrjulius

@BirbHope said:
Why am I only really just hearing about this DAW now? Granted Ive only been at this iOS music for a couple of months but Ive been obsessed.
Whats the catch? Is it under-featured in some area? Does it support AUv3 automation?
On paper this app should be really popular.

Anyway, sorry to derail. Thank you for the tip.

There are a few areas where it’s less polished than other apps — MIDI mapping is extremely limited, MIDI and audio routing is a little basic, and the piano roll is quite slow to use if you’re entering notes manually (although VERY precise when editing already-placed notes). AUv3 automation can be edited but not recorded. But despite that, it’s an extremely powerful and well-maintained recording environment that, IMO, deserves far more attention than it gets around here. I’ll definitely be using this trick in the future!

Edit: To be fair, entering notes into the piano roll works like any desktop DAW if you use a mouse and keyboard. The touch interface is built on a press-and-hold system that’s very precise but very slow; however, MTS has excellent MIDI AUv3 support so you can use another app and “print” MIDI to the MTS piano roll for later editing. It’s extremely workable. And of course, if you’re a good enough player to record live using a controller, you’ll be just fine. But I’m a horrid keys player so I rely a fair bit on manual input.

ipadbeatmaking

@MisplacedDevelopment Slick!

ipadbeatmaking

@jrjulius said:

@BirbHope said:
Why am I only really just hearing about this DAW now? Granted Ive only been at this iOS music for a couple of months but Ive been obsessed.
Whats the catch? Is it under-featured in some area? Does it support AUv3 automation?
On paper this app should be really popular.

Anyway, sorry to derail. Thank you for the tip.

Edit: To be fair, entering notes into the piano roll works like any desktop DAW if you use a mouse and keyboard. The touch interface is built on a press-and-hold system that’s very precise but very slow; however, MTS has excellent MIDI AUv3 support so you can use another app and “print” MIDI to the MTS piano roll for later editing. It’s extremely workable. And of course, if you’re a good enough player to record live using a controller, you’ll be just fine. But I’m a horrid keys player so I rely a fair bit on manual input.

This is spot on. Its dreamy with a mouse and keyboard or magic keyboard case, but I really wish we could at the very minimum get pencil ✏️ drawing in mode or a drawing mode toggle for touch so that we wouldn’t need to hold to draw a note. For the time being, I often use atom 2 for this and just print the completed midi to the piano roll.

BirbHope

@jrjulius, @ipadbeatmaking
‘Printing’ midi simply means exporting from some other app correct?

jrjulius

@BirbHope said:
@jrjulius, @ipadbeatmaking
‘Printing’ midi simply means exporting from some other app correct?

Yes, but it’s smoother than that. You can load a MIDI AUv3 into the keyboard slot and record its output to any armed MIDI tracks, or you can capture MIDI from an onscreen AUv3 if it supports MIDI output (e.g. I added a MIDI Out module to my Drambo drum sampler and recorded MIDI directly from Drambo’s sequencer while I manually changed clips), OR you can add a MIDI Effect slot, create your sequence, and hit “Apply to Track.” It’s very seamless.

And of course, you can simply import and export MIDI files if that fits your workflow better.

Littlewoodg

@MisplacedDevelopment
Thanks for this - I’ve been on MTS since day 1, I have the Windows version, and i never thought of/knew about this maneuver.

It occurs to me now, your discovery could be sweet for splitting out a drum track too, after sketching the whole kit in one track (Matrix sampler, or drum AUv3) one could then split out each part of the kit across multiple tracks for the mix

MisplacedDevelopment

@Littlewoodg said:
It occurs to me now, your discovery could be sweet for splitting out a drum track too, after sketching the whole kit in one track (Matrix sampler, or drum AUv3) one could then split out each part of the kit across multiple tracks for the mix

Very good idea! The chord dragging thing was inspired by the recent MTS videos put together by @ipadbeatmaking

Littlewoodg

@MisplacedDevelopment said:

@Littlewoodg said:
It occurs to me now, your discovery could be sweet for splitting out a drum track too, after sketching the whole kit in one track (Matrix sampler, or drum AUv3) one could then split out each part of the kit across multiple tracks for the mix

Very good idea! The chord dragging thing was inspired by the recent MTS videos put together by @ipadbeatmaking

Yep, I picked up some nice nugs from those videos. Made me wish I had the Magic keyboard, instead of the Logitech (no F keys!)

Just tried the drum version of your idea, with Sugarbytes DrumComputer. Very nice. Easy to program the complete drum part in one track then separate out each part of the kit across tracks.

And with voices separated they can each be rendered to audio if need be for chopping etc.

There are apparently keyboard shortcuts for this tactic you discovered, in the Multi MIDI Editor:

Tab / Shift-Tab: make next/previous track active.
Option-M: Move selected notes to active track.

uncle808us

This is spot on. Its dreamy with a mouse and keyboard or magic keyboard case, but I really wish we could at the very minimum get pencil ✏️ drawing in mode or a drawing mode toggle for touch so that we wouldn’t need to hold to draw a note. For the time being, I often use atom 2 for this and just print the completed midi to the piano roll.

I’ve been trying for years to get this. Good luck!