Create gives you several ways to make MIDI parts and drum beats: generate patterns that fit your song, draw notes yourself, or play them in from a MIDI controller or your computer keyboard.
Add an instrument or Drum Rack track
Instrument track: New MIDI tracks use your default instrument. To choose the default, go to Settings → MIDI → Default instrument. Create uses Synth unless you pick another instrument.
Drum Rack track: Click + Add Track → Drums. You can also load a Splice pack as a ready-made kit (see "Load a drum kit from a Splice pack" below).
Generate chords, bass, leads, or arps
Create can write MIDI parts that fit the rest of your song.
On an instrument track, drag across empty lane space to select the bars you want to fill.
In the card that appears, click Chords, Bass, Lead, or Arp. Create fills the bars with a new MIDI clip and opens the clip in the clip editor, with the generated patterns listed in the sidebar.
Click a pattern in the list, or press
↑/↓, to hear each option played in place of the clip.Click the blue Keep pill on the pattern you like to save that pattern as the clip's notes.
Tip: Want more options? Click the Create pill under the pattern list to generate six new patterns. Use the Type menu above the list to switch between Chords, Bass, Lead, and Arp.
To shape a pattern further, click the Shape tab in the clip card. Shape lets you adjust the pattern's octave, voices, density, velocity, and note repeats without editing notes one by one. Click the Patterns tab to go back to the pattern list.
Draw and edit MIDI notes
Double-click empty space on an instrument track to create an empty MIDI clip. You can also press
Cmd+Shift+Mto insert a clip at the playhead.In the piano roll, click the Pen in the editor toolbar (or press
B), then click the grid to add notes. Without the Pen, double-click and drag in the grid to create a note.Drag notes to move them, and double-click a note to delete the note.
Useful shortcuts for selected notes:
↑/↓transposes by a semitone, andShift+↑/Shift+↓by an octave.←/→nudges notes by the grid.Cmd+Dduplicates the selected notes.
To tighten or loosen timing, right-click the MIDI clip, or use the piano roll's toolbar, and choose Quantize or Humanize.
Build a beat with the step sequencer
Double-click empty space on a Drum Rack track to create a one-bar step-sequencer clip.
Each row in the grid is one drum pad. Click a cell to add or remove a hit, or drag across a row to paint several hits.
Use the Velocity, Offset, Repeat, and Tie tabs in the action bar to adjust those values for each hit.
Use Length, Rate, and Swing in the footer to change the pattern's length, step size, and groove.
Tip: Click Double at the left of the action bar to double the pattern.
To generate a beat instead, click Create new pattern at the bottom of the pattern sidebar and describe the beat you want, such as "a house beat". Create writes the pattern for the sounds already on your pads. You can also drag across bars on a Drum Rack track and describe a pattern in the fill card.
To view a drum clip as a piano roll, click the Piano Roll tab next to Sequencer on the Clip tab.
Load a drum kit from a Splice pack
Click Sounds to open the Splice catalog, then open the Packs tab.
Hover over a pack and click Load as Drum Rack.
Create builds a Drum Rack from the pack's drum one-shots. Use the ‹ and › buttons in the Drum Rack header to step through other packs; pads you've locked keep their sounds.
Note: Pads use preview audio until the samples are licensed. Loading or swapping a pack doesn't spend credits.
Play notes with a controller or your computer keyboard
MIDI controller: Connect your controller and enable the controller on the MIDI page in Settings.
Computer keyboard: Turn on Musical Typing to play notes with your computer keyboard.
To capture what you play, see How do I record audio and MIDI in Create?
Create patterns with Rheo
You can also ask Rheo, for example "give me a house beat" on a Drum Rack track, or "write a bassline for the chorus". Generated parts land in the clip's pattern list, so you can compare them and Keep the one you like.