First shot at Editing MIDI Regions, a bunch of FIXMEs to fix

content/editing-sessions/editing-midi-regions/index.en.md

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+title = "Editing MIDI regions"
+chapter = false
+weight = 10
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+
+Almost all the MIDI editing happens in the _Internal Edit_ mode (**E**
+shortcut). The vast majority of the work there involves tweaking position and
+duration of notes, adjusting velocity, and editing automation. Ardour provides
+tools to edit these settings both interactively and numerically.
+
+So let's review available tool and then do a quick exercise.
+
+Most of the editing assumes having at least one note selected in a MIDI region.
+We'll start with selecting notes.
+
+## Selecting notes
+
+There are multiple ways to select notes in the _Internal Edit_ mode, it really
+depends on what you want to do.
+
+To select one note, just single-click it. To add another note to the
+selection, press and hold **Ctrl**, then click that note. To remove a note
+from the selection, again, press and hold **Ctrl**, then click it.
+
+If you need to extend an existing selection to another note and include all
+notes inbetween, press and hold **Shift**, then click the note that you want
+to extend the selection to.
+
+To select multiple adjucent notes, you can do a regular rubberband selection.
+Move the mouse pointer to a blank part of the canvas that is close to those
+notes, press and hold the left mouse button, then drag the mouse to "draw" a
+rectangular area. All notes inside that area will be selected. Release the
+mouse button to complete the selection.
+
+{{< figure src="en/.gif" alt="" >}}
+
+Finally, if you need to select all notes, just press **Ctrl+A**.
+
+Once you selected multiple notes, you can mass-edit them in various ways.
+
+## Editing start and end of notes
+
+To edit the start or the end of the note, hover an edge of a note until you
+see the mouse pointer change its icon. Then press and hold the left mouse
+button, drag left or right to edit, release the mouse button to confirm the
+edit.
+
+Snapping options apply here, when snapping is enabled. Moreover, if multiple
+notes are selected, they all will be shrunk or extended.
+
+{{< figure src="en/.gif" alt="" >}}
+
+Quantization effectively means adjusting start and end times of notes in a way
+that makes them snap to a grid of your choice. It is something you will
+probably use after real-time recording. Ardour provides some flexibility when
+applying quantization: you can snap to grid just the starts, just the ends, or
+both.
+
+Another command that effectively adjusts the duration of notes is _Legatize_.
+When you have two notes that begin at different positions on the timeline,
+_Legatize_ adjusts the end of the note that begins earlier so that it ends
+exactly where the second note begins.
+
+{{< figure src="en/.gif" alt="" >}}
+
+This is, however, a very simple use case. You can legatize multiple notes:
+
+{{< figure src="en/.gif" alt="" >}}
+
+## Removing overlaps
+
+Sometimes when you perform a part, your finger won't release a key in time, so a
+note will play a little longer thus resulting in overlapped notes where not are
+supposed to be.
+
+Two commands available through the right-click menu, _Legatize_ and _Remove
+Overlap_ help removing overlaps. Here is how they differ.
+
+FIXME
+
+## Shifting and transposing notes
+
+You can shift and/or transpose selected notes by just pressing arrow keys on
+your keyboard. Alternatively, you can hover the middle of one of the selected
+nodes, press the left mouse button, hold it and then drag the selection
+left/right or up/down (or both).
+
+You can also transpose by a given amount of octaves and semitones in one go.
+Left-click on the region where some notes are selected, choose _Transpose..._.
+Then specify the amount of octaves and semitones to transpose by.
+
+{{< figure src="en/midi-note-transpose.png" alt="Transpose MIDI notes" >}}
+
+## Editing velocity
+
+Ardour uses two ways to represent a note's velocity: through color coding and
+through a 2D chart.
+
+{{< figure src="en/velocities.png" alt="Velocities" >}}
+
+The paler the note and the shorter the dark line inside the note, the lower the
+velocity. A deep red note and the dark line going through the entire note mean
+the velocity is at (on near) its maximum value.
+
+To quickly change a note's velocity, hover its middle on the canvas, then start
+scrolling the mouse wheel up and down to change the velocity value. When
+multiple notes are selected, each will receive the same amount of adjustment. So
+you can select, let's say, 3 notes at 25, 50, and 100 velocity values
+respectively, increment each one by 20, and end up with notes that have 45, 70,
+and 120 for velocities.
+
+## Applying multiple transforms all at once
+
+FIXME
+
+## Editing example start to end
+
+Let's have a look at this quick real-time performance capture.
+
+{{< figure src="en/example-original.png" alt="" >}}
+
+Even without listening to it, a few things stand out:
+
+- wrong start times;
+- wrong durations;
+- velocity all over the place.
+
+Let's fix it and start with positions and durations.
+
+1. Press **E** to switch to the _Internal Edit_ mode.
+Rubberband-select all visible notes.
+
+{{< figure src="en/example-select-all.png" alt="" >}}
+
+2. Right-click, select _Quantize_, use 1/8 or Main Grid for note starts and
+ends, because in this case, it's the same thing.
+
+{{< figure src="en/example-quantize-dialog.png" alt="" >}}
+
+This is already much better:
+
+{{< figure src="en/example-quantize-result.png" alt="" >}}
+
+But there are some overlapping notes.
+
+3. Right-click and select _Legatize_.
+
+{{< figure src="en/example-legatize.png" alt="" >}}
+
+4. Press **Arrow Left** key just once to shift all selected notes by one grid
+unit so that they start right at the beginning of the bar:
+
+{{< figure src="en/example-shift-left.png" alt="" >}}
+
+Positions are all fine now. But there's more.
+
+5. It's time to cleanup velocity. Select all notes but the first one in each of
+the two bars. You can do that by pressing **Ctrl+A**, then using **Ctrl-click**
+twice to deselect first notes in both bars. Or you can rubber-band select the
+first portion, then press and hold **Shift** and add the second portion.
+
+{{< figure src="en/example-select-all-but-firsts.png" alt="" >}}
+
+6. Right-click, select _Transform_. We need to set this to more or less the same
+lower velocity, let's say, 60. So we set Velocity, we set it to an exact value,
+and we use 60:
+
+{{< figure src="en/example-transform-all-60.png" alt="" >}}
+
+This, again, much better:
+
+{{< figure src="en/example-now-all-60.png" alt="" >}}
+
+But it's going to sound a little too robotic if we keep it that way.
+
+7. Let's call the _Transform_ dialog again and add a tiny bit of random
+variation:
+
+{{< figure src="en/example-transform-variation-56-to-64.png" alt="" >}}
+
+Given the small range of the variation, the difference won't be very visible.
+But if you hover individual notes, you'll see that notes' velocities are now
+somewhere between 56 and 64.
+
+8. Finally, click the first note of the first bar and use mouse wheel scrolling
+to set its velocity to 82, then repeat for the first note of the second bar. You
+will now how a regular velocity pattern where the first note of each bar sounds
+louder than the rest of the notes in each bar.
+
+{{< figure src="en/example-regular-velocity-pattern.png" alt="" >}}
+
+
+
+<!-- ## Editing and creating automation -->