Prepare the Singer/Instrument Track
Select one singer/instrument track and open the Track Control Panel(Shortcut Key [C]), then you will see the Input Channel Selections, Record Arm, Monitor Switch.
Turning on the [Record Arm] indicates that this track will join the recording. Hold [Ctrl/Cmd] to activate Record Arm on multiple tracks to let them record midi together.
Turning on the [Monitor Switch] indicates that you will hear the real-time preview sound from a simple sampler while seeing it appear on the track meter.
Virtual Device
If you don’t have a MIDI device, you can use your computer keyboard as a virtual device for midi input. You can activate it by selecting “Computer keyboard” from the [Edit] menu (Shortcut key [/]).
When the virtual device is triggered on, the keyboard dialog will show up:
- Keys from [A] to [L] represent notes from [C4] to [D5] in default. Keys of [W], [E], [T], [Y], [U], [O], [P] are for flat/sharp notes.
- Press [Z] / [X] to switch octave lower / higher.
- Press [C] / [V] to decrease / increase velocity.
- Press [/] to activate / deactivate the virtual device.
- The keyboard dialog can be closed while remaining the virtual device available.
- During the activation of the virtual device, shortcut keys that conflict with the virtual device will be temporarily disabled. You need to turn off the virtual device to use those shortcut keys.
Start Recording
Place the marker-line where you want to start recording. Click the [Record] button in the Transport (Shortcut Key [R] or [3] from the number pad) to start recording.
- While recording, you will hear the count-in click for 1 bar by default (You can change the count-in duration or turn it off in the [Preference]-[Audio]). The playback starts after the count-in. In the meantime, the track with [Record Arm] on will record the inputted signal into a new clip, and the new clip will overwrite the clips that are already on the track.
- You can also start recording during playback. The count-in won't be activated in this case.
- Click the [Record] button in the Transport (Shortcut Key [R]) again during recording to stop recording, but the playback will keep going.
- The recording ends when the playback stops (Shortcut Key [Space])
- Nothing can be edited on the track while it’s on recording.
While recording on a singer track, the midi you input will always be converted into monophonic melody by default —— overlapping notes will be turned into sustain notes.
If you want to create harmonies, there are two ways to do that:
- Go to the midi channel settings from the track panel, and select "record in polyphonic"
- You can use the ACE bridge to record polyphonic midi from your DAW with the polyphonic mode turned on in ACE Bridge.
With either of these two ways: When the recording is done, the polyphonic midi will be split into different layers on several singer tracks in ACE Studio.