In general, most MIDI editing will probably be done with the mouse in object mode. This allows to select notes, copy, move or delete them and alter their properties (see below). But at some point, adding notes to a MIDI region using the mouse will mean dragging with the mouse. Since this would normally be a selection operation if the mouse is in object mode, there needs to be some way to tell Ardour that the user is trying to draw new notes within a MIDI region. Ardour provides two ways do this. One is to leave the mouse in object mode and Left-drag. The other, useful to enter a lot of notes for a while, is to switch the mouse into Draw Notes mode, which will now interpret any drags and clicks as requests to add a new note. For obvious reasons, Draw Notes mode can not be used while using region-level editing.
So, to summarize:
| Selecting, moving, copying, trimming, deleting regions | Note Level Editing disabled, using object, range or other mouse modes |
|---|---|
| Selecting, moving, copying trimming, deleting notes | Note Level Editing enabled, and using mouse object mode |
| Adding new notes | enabling "Note Level Editing" and then either
|
Note that there is also a step entry editor allowing to enter notes from a virtual keyboard and lots more besides.