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layout: default
title: Step Entry
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<p>Sometimes you'll want to edit MIDI data directly from a connected MIDI device like a music keyboard or pad controller. Sometimes you'll want to use the mouse. Sometimes you'll want the fine-grain control, precision and speed of entry that comes from using a custom note entry dialog. </p>
<p>The step entry dialog is accessed via a right click context menu on the rec-enable button (its there because step entry is related to <em>recording</em> MIDI data. You cannot simultaneously step edit and record MIDI via the track's MIDI port.</p>
<p><img src="/files/a3/a3_step_entry.png" /></p>
<p>The dialog (quite closely modelled on Logic's) contains:</p>
<ul>
<li>Chord entry switch (successive notes are stacked in a chord until it is released
</li>
<li>Note length selectors
</li>
<li>Triplet toggle
</li>
<li>Normal, single, double and triple dotted note selectors
</li>
<li>Sustain button
</li>
<li>Buttons to:
<ul>
<li>Insert a rest of the current selected note duration
</li>
<li>Insert a rest of the current grid step size
</li>
<li>Move back to the last inserted note
</li>
<li>Move forward to the next beat, or bar
</li>
<li>Move forward to the edit point
     </li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Dynamics controls from pianississimo to fortississimo
</li>
<li>Channel selector
</li>
<li>Explicit numerical velocity selector, for more precise control than the dynamics selectors
</li>
<li>Octave selector
</li>
<li>Buttons to add bank or program change events
</li>
<li>a full 10 octave virtual keyboard
</li>
</ul>
<p>More or less all actions in the step entry dialog can be driven directly from the keyboard, so you do not need to keep moving back and forth from keyboard to mouse to do complex data insertion.</p>