Turn it on and off
Press⌥V, click the bars button in the toolbar, or run Dynamics Mode On/Off from the command palette (⌘K, group Clips). A Dynamics Mode pill in the top right shows the mode is on; click its × or press Escape to leave.
Arming a pattern stamp leaves the mode, and switching the mode on disarms a stamp. Opening or creating another project leaves the mode too.
Draw levels on the timeline
- Click a step to set it to the height you clicked.
- Drag up or down to keep setting it. Hold
⌘for a fine drag at a tenth of the speed. - Paint: drag sideways and every step the pointer crosses takes the height of the pointer as it passes — a quick sweep sets a crescendo across a whole drum part. A stroke stays on the track it started on.
- Double-click a step to reset it: 0 dB for audio, velocity 100 for MIDI.
Escape while the mouse is still down cancels the stroke and writes nothing.
A readout above the step shows its value: the gain in dB for an audio clip, the velocity for a single note, and the range for a chord (Chord · 3 notes · 84–110).
How levels map
Audio steps run from −36 dB at the bottom to +24 dB at the top, with 0 dB at 60 % of the height. Dragging never mutes a clip. MIDI steps run from velocity 1 to 127. A chord is one step. Setting it moves its loudest note to the new level and every other note by the same amount, so the voicing keeps its balance. To balance single voices, use the piano roll (below).Painting an audio clip that is linked to others unlinks it first, so the accent lands only where you drew it. The sample stays on the track. Notes in linked MIDI clips change in every copy, as any note edit does.
Draw velocities in the piano roll
The mode and the piano roll work together. Open a clip’s piano roll while the mode is on, or turn the mode on in the roll: the notes themselves become steps, filled up to their velocity, and the rest of the arrangement keeps showing its steps around the roll. A note is only one row high and height means pitch there, so editing is relative:- Drag on a note to move its velocity up or down — 1 step per point, a fifth of that with
⌘. When the note is marked, every marked note moves with it. - Sweep sideways and every note whose start you pass moves by how far you have risen or fallen at that moment. Rising to the right gives a crescendo relative to what was played; a chord’s voices keep their differences. With notes marked, only marked notes change.
- Double-click a note to reset it to velocity 100. A click alone changes nothing.
Work from the keyboard
On the timeline, while it has keyboard focus:
Moving selects what you land on — the clip for an audio step, the notes of a MIDI step — so the number keys act on it as they do on any selection: on audio they set clip gain relative to the clip’s peak, as everywhere else in Gridshift; on MIDI the step’s loudest note goes to that velocity and the others keep their distance. Repeated presses on one step are one undo step. While recording, the number keys lay down notes as usual.
In the piano roll, arrows and number keys keep their usual piano-roll meaning.
Related
- Humanize Dynamics applies a whole accent or phrasing shape in one go.
- Clip gain and normalize — the number keys outside the mode.