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Play a hardware controller

Plug the controller in and select an instrument track. Play: it reaches the selected track exactly as the computer keyboard does, with the velocity you play. The device appears in Settings → MIDI.

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Choose a controller layout

Pick Default, Drums, Scale or Follow in the Controller Layout picker in the Inspector’s Instrument section, directly under Keys Layout.

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Good to know

  • Gridshift connects every MIDI input device automatically. Connected devices are listed in Settings → MIDI.
  • Only notes are recorded. Control Change, Pitch Bend and Aftertouch are passed to the instrument. Recording, capture and step entry work as with the letter keys; see Record MIDI and MIDI Capture.
  • Controller Layout is never switched for you. Every track starts on Default and stays there until you change it, and it is separate from Keys Layout: a track can be a drum kit under your fingers and a scale ladder under the letter keys.
  • In Drums, Scale and Follow the controller’s black keys are silent. That silence is how you can tell a layout is on.
  • To make a controller drive Gridshift (transport, mixer, navigation), map it with Controller Profiles or ad-hoc MIDI Bindings.
  • Input goes to the selected track, or to the clip open in Focus Mode. An arpeggiator or chord generator on that track plays along: MIDI Effects.
  • On a sample track, controller notes trigger the sample’s slices, starting at MIDI 36.
  • In Scale and Follow the root sits in the octave nearest the C you played, not always above it. In A minor, C4 plays the A below it rather than the A above, so a layout change does not move your hand.
  • A layout shorter than seven notes, such as a pentatonic scale or any chord in Follow, keeps climbing into the octaves above rather than leaving white keys silent. Two white keys can then land on the same note; every C is still the root. A three-note chord in Follow reaches two octaves up by the seventh white key, and the next C drops back to the root.
  • Follow needs a chord track with chords in it. Without one, the picker does not offer it.
Last modified on October 22, 2026