When the Controllers menu item is checked, the MIDI controller strip appears at the bottom of the Graphic Editing window. The Controller strip lets you view, insert, and edit MIDI controller data, which produces musical effects such as pitch bending, continuous volume changes, panning, chorus and effects depth, sustain pedal, pitch modulation, and more. The strip can display any type of controller data for any player, and it can show data for multiple players at a time (i.e. volume for all players at once), although it only shows one type of data at a time (i.e. volume or pitch bend, but not both).
(1) What exactly is a controller?
The word controller is shorthand for the MIDI term continuous controller data, which is a type of MIDI information. Continuous controllers are used to add musical effects that change smoothly over time, such as volume changes (crescendos & decrescendos), amount of vibrato (which often increases in intensity over the duration of a note), and pitch bend to name a few. There are over a hundred types of controllers, although only about 30 are commonly used. In most cases, controllers affect whatever notes are playing at the time that they occur. In addition, they usually consist of a stream of individual data events that change their value over time. For example, a crescendo that occurs over the period of one bar might actually consist of 50 or 60 individual volume control MIDI events spaced only a few fractions of a second apart. In addition, each one has a value that is a little higher than the one before it (controllers have a value range from 0 to 127). To our ears, the net effect sounds like a smooth crescendo.
Since Controllers have this dual nature (individual events that constitute a smooth gesture) FreeStyle displays them in a way that lets you see where each event is, as well as the overall shape. Whenever you see a bracket in the controller view it indicates that there is a single event in effect for the entire duration of the bracket.
Note velocities (the “velocity” of a note determines how loud it is) are the one exception to the way that controllers are displayed. Since there is only one velocity setting for each note, they are drawn as vertical bars, rather than as a connected shape.
(2) Drawing controllers in the controller grid
Controllers are inserted, displayed, and edited in the controller grid, which appears right below the note grid in the Graphic Editing view. To display the grid, display the Graphic Editing view and then choose Controllers from the Windows menu, or press command= (equal sign) instead as a shortcut. In FreeStyle’s controller grid, you can draw a single controller by clicking once with the pencil tool to achieve a sudden effect, or you can draw a smooth curve by dragging the pencil, line, and curve tools. When inserting controllers, you do so for one player at a time: the currently record-enabled player. So any time you draw controllers, first record-enable the player you want to edit.
(3) Selecting controllers for editing
To select controllers for editing, use the I-beam tool and then drag over them. If several Players’ controllers overlap in a section, show only the Players whose controllers you want to edit and hide the others.
(4) FreeStyle is intelligent about editing controllers with notes
Many sequencers treat notes and controllers completely separately, and they leave it up to you to remember to edit the controllers after you edit the notes they affect. For example, if you copy some notes that also have a crescendo, you’d need to remember to copy and paste the crescendo after doing so with the notes.
FreeStyle also gives you a hand when it comes to pasting controllers. In other sequencers, when you paste controller information on top of other controller information, the events are simply merged together. This almost always yields horrible sounding results. FreeStyle takes a more intelligent approach. It looks at the controllers that are being merged together, and if there is a conflict it only keeps the controllers you are pasting. What you are pasting always takes precedence over the destination. In this way the notes that you paste will sound the same as when they were copied. (You can reverse this behavior by checking the “keep destination controllers” preference.)
FreeStyle helps you out by automatically selecting controllers when you select notes by dragging a selection box over them. When you copy or modify the notes, the controller information will come along for the ride. FreeStyle decides whether or not to auto-select the controller information based on the amount of overlap that the selected notes have with the other notes around them. Since there are times when FreeStyle may not select controllers you want it to, or may select ones you don’t, you should keep the controllers view open if you are not sure what is happening. Also, if you find that you do not like the decisions that FreeStyle makes about when to select controllers, there is a preference to turn auto selection off.
