Hi! I searched for it but didn’t find anything: How can I move MIDI notes In X axis only? This would be super handy!
[edit] I mean moving by dragging. This lack of precision from my part has caused slightly off-topic answers.
Use the X axis arrows (and for Y only use the Y axis arrows)
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The “crash course” was quite useful for me, i found a few good tips there i didn’t know (and still miss a lot). That’s why i link it, even the answer is already given.
The big midi tutorial on youtube i also liked, in case you don’t know it, It is a bit too long if one only searches for a very specific question/answer:
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Unfa’s tutorials are the best ones . Highly useful. Or at least “were” the best ones, because there have been a lot of newly added Ardour features in the meantime .
I learned a lot from it too. I forgot a lot of what i learned. Ardour, to me, is really complex and difficult. Lots of fun too, of course.
Just wanted to let you know that you are not alone 
Thanks! I keep a .md file with Ardour tips and tricks that save lots of time, maybe I should publish it somewhere at some point.
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That would be really appreciated! GitHub might be the best place for it.
@Loki_Harfagr Actually I can’t make it work. If what you meant was moving notes while a keyboard’s X arrow key is pressed, then it doesn’t work for me. Could you help me to understand exactly how to do?
I just meant use the arrow pad keys ←→ (and ↑↓)
(the X and Y in the sentence where simply the usual math name for ordinates)
Yes that was I understood, then it doesn’t work.
Just to be sure have that simple test:
- you have a region in a MIDI track which contains some notes previously played/drawn
- you select that region then press the key “E” to enter in "E"dit mode (you notice the appearance of notes changes and the keyboard on the left now is more “furbished”)
- you select one or several notes in that region (using the mouse)
- you press one of the arrow pad keys
- either the note(s) moved and that a success or nothing happens and you might have found some glitch in your version of Ardour (which one?) or you OS installation (soft or hard ware)
Hopefully it worked, if not describe a bit more which Ardour/OS/hardware was used.
I am afraid it doesn’t work. I am using Ardour 9.8.0 on Ubuntu Studio.
I just tried on Studio with 9.8.0, make sure you’re in “internal edit mode” (see screenshot), hightlight your note, and hold down the shift key (then drag it with your mouse). See if that works.
Yes, I am in “internal edit mode”, still no axis locking on note move, with the shift key or arrow keys.
There’s currently no axis locking modifier when dragging notes. Arrow keys can be used to move notes using the keyboard directly, they are not related to note dragging.
Edit: I think there ought to be locking modifiers actually, why they don’t work remains to be determined.
Pressing and holding Shift before clicking on a note does constrain the dragging motion to the first axis it is moved along.
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I finally got the arrow keys (nudge) to work, but I don’t know how. For a while, it would only nudge the whole region. I don’t know what changed, but then it started just nudging the selected notes. Make sure your nudge is set small… I set it to bars:beats, and set it to 00|00|0010
Edit: What behavior are you getting from the arrow keys? And just curious, what plugin do you have on the track? Wondering if it’s hijacking it somehow.
Pressing and holding
Shiftbefore clicking on a note does constrain the dragging motion to the first axis it is moved along.
That works! Thank you.
What behavior are you getting from the arrow keys? And just curious, what plugin do you have on the track? Wondering if it’s hijacking it somehow.
Arrow key pressed while dragging: no effect, I can drag anywhere
Arrow key pressed when a note is selected: the note moves incrementally on X or Y
Arrow keys are not supposed to do anything more than that in this context.