MIDI keyboard and virtual instruments · Manual

With a MIDI keyboard you enter pitches by playing them instead of finding them with the mouse or typing letters. Maestro uses it in two ways: to enter note by note in Speedy Entry and Simple Entry, and to record in real time while you play, like Finale’s HyperScribe.

If you don’t have a MIDI keyboard, you can play and enter notes with the on-screen virtual instruments, or sing or play into the microphone.

Connecting the keyboard

There is nothing to set up: Maestro recognizes every connected MIDI keyboard, including ones you plug in or unplug while the app is open.

On the Mac, Playback → MIDI Devices lists the connected devices and leads to MIDI and Recording Settings….
On Windows, connected devices are listed in Edit → Settings… → MIDI.

By default you hear the notes you play with the sound of the instrument on the staff you are writing on; if your keyboard already makes its own sound, turn off Play incoming notes (MIDI thru) in the MIDI settings.

In Speedy Entry

As in Finale, the MIDI keyboard gives the pitches and the computer keyboard gives the durations:

Place the Speedy Entry cursor where you want to write.
Hold down one or more keys on the MIDI keyboard.
While holding them, press the duration number (1–8, for example 5 for a quarter note).

One key enters a note, several keys a chord. If the cursor is on an existing note, you replace it with what you are playing (and with the new duration), and the cursor moves to the next note.

With MIDI keys held down, ⏎ enters the note or chord with the current duration; if the cursor is on an existing note, it adds the keys you are holding to that chord.

With no MIDI keys held down, the number enters a rest of that duration, as in Finale: no need for 0 or the arrow keys. On a note that is already written, the number changes its duration instead. If you’d rather have a number on its own enter a note at the cursor’s pitch, turn off Speedy Entry: 1–8 without MIDI keys held enter a rest in the MIDI settings.

Enter on key press

If you prefer to choose the duration first and then play, turn on Speedy Entry: enter on key press in the MIDI settings. Each key is entered as soon as you press it, with the current duration; keys pressed almost together become a chord. You change duration with the number keys as usual.

In Simple Entry

In Simple Entry every key (or chord) you play is entered at once with the duration chosen in the palette, after the last note of the measure you clicked. When the measure is full, entry moves on to the next one. The new note stays selected, so you can adjust it with +, - or ⌥↑ ⌥↓ (on Windows Alt+↑ Alt+↓).

Pitch spelling and percussion

The notes you play are spelled according to the key signature: in D major the black key between F and G becomes F♯, in E♭ major the key between G and A becomes A♭. If you don’t like a spelling, change it with + and - or by transposing.

On a percussion staff each key is a General MIDI drum sound, written at the position and with the notehead defined by the staff’s percussion map (see Instruments and staves).

Real-time recording

To play a passage in time and let Maestro transcribe it:

Choose where to start: select a measure or a note, or put the Speedy Entry cursor there. Recording goes onto that staff, in the active layer, starting from that measure.
Start recording with Playback → Record from MIDI Keyboard (⌃⌥R; Ctrl+R on Windows) or the record button in the playback bar or the toolbar.
The metronome counts one measure in; then play.
To stop, press Space, Esc or the record shortcut again.

The recorded notes are:

quantized to the grid chosen in the settings (eighths, 16ths or 32nds);
grouped into chords when they start together;
filled out with rests where you don’t play, while short gaps are filled in;
split and tied at barlines and on beats, with pitches spelled according to the key signature.

Recording replaces whatever was in that layer of the recorded measures, unless you turn on multi-pass recording (see below). It undoes in one step with ⌘Z.

Recording options

You find them in the MIDI settings:

Record while hearing the other parts (on by default): after the count-in the other staves play from the recorded measure, while the one you are recording stays silent.
Recognize triplets (on by default): in simple meters, a beat clearly played as a triplet is written as a triplet, even with mixed values (the quarter-eighth of swing). With a 16th grid or finer, 16th-note triplets are recognized too and written as a sextuplet.
Multi-pass recording (merge with written notes): recorded notes are merged with those already in the layer instead of replacing them. You can record the melody first and then the notes above it. The layer stays a single voice: for independent rhythms, record into another layer.
Piano: record both hands on the two staves (on by default): on piano, harp and organ the right hand goes to the upper staff and the left hand to the lower one. By default the split moves with your hands (a melody dipping below middle C stays in the right hand); alternatively choose a fixed point: middle C (C4), G3 or F4.
Record two voices on the same staff (layers 1 and 2): on a single staff, notes are divided by pitch between the upper voice, in the active layer with stems up, and the lower voice, in the next layer with stems down.

The count-in before recording (0 to 2 measures, one by default) is set on the Mac in Settings → Playback → Count-in → Before recording, and on Windows in Settings → MIDI → Count-in.

Virtual instruments

Below the score Maestro can show a panel with an instrument you play with the mouse: a piano, a drum set or a guitar neck. Open and close it with View → Virtual Instruments (⌥⌘J; Ctrl+Alt+J on Windows), with the panel menu in the playback bar, or with the Virtual Instruments button, which you can add to the toolbar.

It works like an on-screen MIDI keyboard:

a click plays the note with the sound of the staff the cursor is on;
with Speedy Entry or Simple Entry active, the note is also entered, with the current duration (in Speedy Entry, if the cursor is on an existing note, its pitch changes);
⇧-click (Shift+click on Windows) adds the note to the one just entered, to build a chord;
dragging the mouse across the keys only plays the notes, without entering them.

During real-time recording, what you play on the panel is recorded too.

While the score plays, the panel lights up with the notes that are sounding; when stopped, it shows the selected notes. The keys you press, with the mouse or on the MIDI keyboard, light up as well.

Piano

A full 88-key keyboard. During playback each staff lights its keys in its own color. Keys outside the range of the cursor’s instrument are darker, and those of difficult notes are shaded. The lower on the key you click, the louder the note.

Right-click the keyboard to choose:

Key Names: Only C (the default, with the octave: C4), All White Keys or None.
Keys: Concert Pitch (the default) or Written Pitch (Transposing Instruments). With written pitch the keys are the ones the player reads: for a B♭ clarinet, the C you press is the written C and sounds B♭.
Size: Small, Medium or Large.
Hide Piano closes the panel.

Drums

When the cursor is on a percussion staff, the piano is replaced by one pad for each sound in the staff’s percussion map (see Percussion and maps), with its name on it: cymbals and other metals at the top, drums and everything else at the bottom, in the colors of their family, like a drum machine.

A click on a pad plays the hit (louder in the middle of the pad) and, in Speedy Entry or Simple Entry, enters it with the notehead and position from the map; ⇧-click (Shift+click) adds the hit to the one just entered, for example the hi-hat on the bass drum. During playback the pads light up with the hits being played.

You can arrange the pads the way that suits you by right-clicking a pad:

Pad Name… changes the name written on the pad (for example “HH” instead of “Closed Hi-Hat”); an empty name brings back the name of the sound;
Move to a New Row puts the pad in a row of its own, at the bottom;
Hide Pad removes it from the panel (it stays in the map and in the score); Hidden Pads brings it back, at the end of the last row;
Move Pads by Dragging: while it is checked a click does not play, and dragging a pad moves it to another place or another row (a bar shows where it will go); choose it again to go back to playing;
Automatic Pad Layout goes back to the standard layout.

The layout applies to the instrument (the drum set, congas, each custom map) in all scores.

With Play Pads with the Keyboard (in the same menu) the computer keys play the pads and, in Speedy Entry or Simple Entry, enter the hit: each pad shows its letter, by default the Q W E R… row for the top row of pads and the A S D F… row for the bottom one (with a single row A S D F…, with three also Z X C V…). Holding two keys together, or with ⇧, puts the hits in the same note, for example bass drum and hi-hat. Pad Key… chooses another letter or digit (the pad that had it loses it; empty, no key). While the item is checked those letters play the pads instead of their commands: choose it again to get the commands back.

Guitar, bass and ukulele

On staves with strings (a tablature staff, a staff with a tuning, or one with a guitar or bass sound) the panel shows the neck: the strings of the staff’s tuning, the highest at the top as in tablature, and the frets.

A click on a string and fret plays the note and, in Speedy Entry or Simple Entry, enters it on that string, so also in the tablature (see Tablature); ⇧-click (Shift+click) adds it to the chord. Sounding and selected notes light up with their name, at the same positions as in the tablature.

Choosing what the panel shows

By default the panel follows the cursor’s staff: the piano, the drums on percussion, the neck on string instruments. You can fix it by right-clicking the panel → Show:

Automatic (by Staff), the default;
Piano: always the keyboard;
Drum Set: the pads stay visible even when the cursor is on another staff (for example during playback) and light up with the percussion staff; in that case a click only plays;
Guitar and Bass: always the neck, of the cursor’s staff or of the first string instrument in the score.

The same choices are in the panel menu of the playback bar, plus None (Panel Hidden): choosing an item opens the panel on it.

On the neck, the right-click menu only has Show, Size and Hide Piano; on the drums it also has the pad items.

Notes from the microphone

You can enter a melody by singing or playing an instrument into the computer’s microphone: Maestro recognizes the pitches and transcribes them in time, like recording from the MIDI keyboard.

Choose where to start as for real-time recording: select a measure or a note, or put the Speedy Entry cursor there.
Choose Playback → Record from Microphone (⌃⌥⇧R; Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows).
After the count-in, sing or play one note at a time, following the metronome. Recognized notes light up in the virtual instruments panel, if it is open.
To stop, press Space, Esc or the shortcut again.

The notes are written on the chosen staff, in the active layer, and undo in one step with ⌘Z (Ctrl+Z on Windows). The recording options for quantization, triplets and multi-pass recording apply, with a few differences:

the microphone hears one note at a time: no chords, no two hands on the piano and no two voices on the same staff;
the other parts don’t play, because the microphone would hear them and write them down;
quantization is at least to eighth notes, even if you chose a finer grid in the settings;
notes are read legato: a short gap between two notes (a breath) doesn’t become a rest, and very short sounds are discarded;
a slightly out-of-tune note is written as the nearest correct note; halfway between two semitones, the one in the key wins;
at the end Maestro shifts all the notes together so they fall in time, making up for the small delay of the microphone and of the singer.

Microphone permission

The first time, the Mac asks whether Maestro may use the microphone. If you said no, enable it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone. On Windows, if the microphone doesn’t respond, check Settings → Privacy & security → Microphone.

MIDI settings

A summary of the MIDI section of the settings (on the Mac Maestro → Settings… → MIDI, on Windows Edit → Settings… → MIDI):

Setting	What it does
Devices	The connected keyboards
Speedy Entry: enter on key press	Enters each key as soon as you press it, with the current duration (off by default, as in Finale)
Speedy Entry: 1–8 without MIDI keys held enter a rest	With a keyboard connected, a number on its own enters a rest (on by default, as in Finale)
Play incoming notes (MIDI thru)	Lets you hear the notes you play (on by default)
Quantization	The recording grid: eighths, 16ths (default) or 32nds
Recognize triplets	Writes beats played as triplets as triplets
Record while hearing the other parts	The other staves play during recording
Multi-pass recording	Merges recorded notes with the ones already written
Piano: record both hands on the two staves	Splits the hands between the two staves, with the split point
Record two voices on the same staff	Divides the notes between two layers

MIDI files you open are also transcribed with the grid and triplet recognition from these settings: see Files.