Note effects

Most effects apply to a whole track or a whole section. Note effects apply to one note: a single sustained chord with a long reverb tail while everything around it stays dry, one hi-hat stuttered into a fill, one pluck with a sudden filter close.

Two kinds live in the piano roll. Per-note effect overrides change a normal effect's settings for the lifetime of one note. The sequencer-level note effects, stutter and humanization, transform the notes themselves rather than the audio. Both are reached by right-clicking a note.

Per-note effect overrides

Pick any effect in the chain and override its settings for one note. When the note starts the override swaps in; when it ends, the value returns to the section setting, or to wherever the automation curve is if one is running, so nothing jumps.

You can override whether the effect is enabled, which preset it uses, and any of its macro values.

Setting one

Right-click the note, choose Note effects, then pick a slot. Adjust the settings, which are the same controls as the normal effect card, and close the menu.

The note grows a thin coloured stripe along its top in the effect's category colour: orange for shape, purple for color, cyan for space, amber for character. Hover the note for a list of its overrides.

To remove one, right-click the note, open the slot's submenu and choose Remove override.

When it earns its place

A single climactic chord with a long tail while the section stays dry. One deliberately bitcrushed note. A pluck with a short delay throw while the section's delay is set long. A held pad note with the filter open while everything else sits closed.

Use it sparingly. If you are overriding the same slot on most notes in a section, the section's own setting is what should change.

Stutter

Stutter retriggers a note, turning one note into several short hits at the same pitch: two, three, four, six, eight or sixteen of them. It happens at the note level, so it works on any instrument and the retriggers respect the patch's articulation.

That is different from the Gate effect, which chops volume in the audio. Stutter suits synth stabs, plucks and short-attack instruments where you want the attack to fire again and again. Gate suits pads and held sounds you want chopped rhythmically. They combine.

Right-click a note, choose Stutter, and pick a count to split it into that many equal hits.

For a progression, select a range of notes, right-click, choose Stutter, then Progression. The count ramps across the selection, starting low and building, using the same subdivisions and snapping to the grid so the result stays musical.

Both are one-shot: the timings are written into the pattern. Right-click the affected notes and choose Remove to clear them.

It is worth reaching for on the last hi-hat or snare of a bar to push into the next section, on every fourth hit of a synth line for a glitchy lead, and across the last few notes of a phrase where a ramping count reads as a build.

Each retrigger inherits the parent note's velocity, so loud notes stay loud.

To Chord

To Chord turns a note into a chord, or swaps one chord for another. The note you clicked becomes the root and the chord tones stack above it.

Shift+right-click a note, choose To Chord, and pick a type: major, minor, diminished, augmented, sus2, sus4, major seventh, minor seventh or dominant seventh. The new tones appear above the root sharing its start, length and velocity, and the whole chord is left selected so you can nudge or re-voice it straight away.

On a single note this builds a chord on top of it. On a note that is already part of a chord, a stack sharing the exact same start and length, picking a type replaces that chord, and the note you clicked becomes the new root. So right-clicking the third of a C major chord and choosing major gives you an E major chord, which makes auditioning chord colours quick.

To Chord is hidden when notes only partly overlap the one you clicked, with a different start or length. That spot is too tangled to convert cleanly, so line the notes up first.

A chord built high in the range may come out with fewer notes, because a tone would land above the top of the range is left off. If a re-chord would leave nothing but the root, the existing chord is kept.

Humanization

Humanization is not per-note. It is a track-wide transform that adds small timing, velocity and duration offsets so notes do not sit exactly on the grid. Toggle it with the FX button in the editor header, and see the editor pages for the detail.

The two work in opposite directions and compose well: humanization adds small random variation across many notes, while overrides and stutter make deliberate changes to specific ones.

Getting the most from them

The stripe colours are a quick check. Scrolling the piano roll shows you which notes carry overrides without opening a single menu.

And keep the division of labour straight. If a whole verse should have heavier reverb than the chorus, that is a section setting. Per-note overrides are for the exception.