Strumming

Strumming spreads a held chord into strokes. Enable Strum in the piano roll header and a lane appears under the velocity and sustain lanes with a section across the clip; each section plays its chord in a pattern of downstrokes and upstrokes with a spread you choose. The written chords stay editable and the strokes are generated at playback, so you can change the voicing or the pattern at any time.

When to use it

Make a guitar or piano chord part move like a player would: a folk pattern under a verse, a driving pop pattern in the chorus, offbeat upstrokes for a reggae feel, or bass and brush for a country figure. Sections let the pattern change from bar to bar within one clip.

Controls

Sections

The first time you enable Strum it creates a Folk section across the visible clip. Drag empty space in the lane to add a section, or turn on Draw sections to paint over existing ones; painting replaces what it covers and keeps the rest. With drawing off, drag a section to move it and its edges to resize; the + button adds one and Delete removes the selected section. Edits snap to the grid, Alt bypasses it. Where there is no section the held notes play as written.

Pattern

Patterns repeat over eight eighth-note slots. Steady down strokes every quarter; Down & up alternates on every eighth; Folk is the familiar D · D U · U D U; Offbeat plays upstrokes only; Driving pop adds pickups before beats three and one; Bass & brush plays the lowest held note on one and three and sweeps the rest low to high on two and four. A downstroke runs low to high, an upstroke high to low at a little less velocity.

Spread

How far apart the strings of a stroke land: Together, Tight, Natural, Wide or Very wide. Spread is set in musical time, so it follows the tempo.

Length

How long each stroke rings, as a share of the distance to the next stroke, bounded by the written notes and the section.

Timing

A clip-wide value from −200 to +200 ms. Negative moves every generated stroke earlier, which lets a slow-attack sound land on the beat; positive moves it later. Drag the bar, use the arrows (Shift for 1 ms steps) or click the value to type it.

Tips

• Leave a little space before the first clip when using negative Timing: nothing can sound before the song starts, so the first stroke’s spacing compresses otherwise.
• A pitch whose note ends before its delayed attack does not sound. Hold chords through the stroke, or tighten Spread on short chords.
• Arp and Strum are alternatives on a clip; the arpeggiator is the choice for single-note lines.