Right, that 4th button is something we are absolutely not doing. We do not believe that switching to some dedicated window is the right workflow. We know that other people don’t agree with this, and that’s OK. No contemporary DAW is the right tool for everyone.
Note also that “Rec”, “Edit” and “Mix” are still global views, which is the very opposite of what a dedicated piano-roll style editor is all about.
This is a brilliant suggestion but I agree with @paul that the buttons are global and are not suitable for a single MIDI region. It doesn’t mean that a dedicated window isn’t a good idea though and could be accessed by a double-click on the MIDI region itself.
The zoomed-in state of the current implementation is a great foundation to build on. Turning this into a dedicated view mode is a matter of fine-tuning and smaller changes.
To reiterate: we will not add a dedicated piano-roll editing window to Ardour.
Not from the perspective of someone who works mostly with MIDI data and plugin instruments. For users like me, editing MIDI notes and data is creating the music. Which is a complex task that deserves a proper toolset. Currently, MIDI in Ardour is a second class citizen, a byproduct and only edited in the context of the whole session and tracks. The tools and view modes that are used to display and edit audio regions and tracks may not be the best choice to edit MIDI content efficiently.
Sad to read this. I absolutely don’t understand why you’re so opposed to the idea. It is really weird, as if MIDI is nonsense to you.
Maybe the guys from Harrison can introduce some improvements at least to Mixbus then.
MIDI is absolute intended to be first class. We spent a very long time when MIDI was added to Ardour 3.0 debating this. We decided that there are many reasons why the separate piano-roll model for editing MIDI is suboptimal. We were gratified when ProTools actually switched their entire MIDI editing model to be based on the same conclusion. While not commenting on the rest of PT MIDI, I am mentioning this simply to show that we’re not the only DAW development team to reach this sort of conclusion.
We understand that some people don’t agree with this. We’ve listened and discussed this a lot. We haven’t persuaded them, they haven’t persuaded us. We know that no single DAW is the right one for everyone. If you feel that separate piano roll editing is vital for your work, then Ardour isn’t going to be the right DAW for that.
Harrison is extremely unlikely to do anything substantively different with MIDI. We work in constant collaboration with them. Most Mixbus customers are more audio-focused anyway.
Well, if MIDI is intended to be first class in Ardour, my feedback at this point in time would be it has a long way to go in terms of ergonomics. I hope to see further improvements on that front and wish the best of luck to the project.
Also, I should be clear. I don’t disagree that while editing MIDI, a different/extended toolset being easily accessible is probably an excellent idea. That’s different than a dedicated window or pane, however.
I see MIDI editing in the same way I see opening Audacity, Soundforge, RX, SpectraLayers etc to edit some audio while in the DAW. To edit MIDI beyond splitting regions and resizing I gravitate toward a dedicated MIDI editor window where the zoom is exactly where I want it without messing with track size.
As you say, minds seem to be made up about this so it is rather a moot point. That’s why I use REAPER for MIDI work and Ardour for everything else these days. I can’t live without a dedicated window having given both ways a decent run out. I started out in Samplitude so old habits perhaps. C’est la vie!
@anon60445789, @paul, @whitewolfmusic
I’d like to give my voice to the “Editing all in one window” style. I’ve already wrote some thoughts about “piano roll redundancy” here: My Ardour MIDI rant - #40 by cooltehno.
For now I compose my melodies in such way:
Very nice. You’ve inspired me to give it another go 
@paul
May be a feature request could be a “rude”-command/shortcut to minimize the session horizontally&vertically simultaneously? The workflow could be so simple like:
You can use a saved view for this (that is how i do it):
Ctrl + F1 = save view
F1 = recall view
You can save adittional views to other function keys.
@mrMute
O, mr. Mute! That’s super!! Didn’t know! Just I’ve tested - very very useful feature! Thanks!
Also this solves the problem, when the session has so many tracks as they can not fit to the vertical space. Now I go to the upper side of my session - press Ctrl+F1, then scroll down vertically as I need - &press Ctrl+F2 etc… F3, F4…
In combination with “z” - super fast workflow!
a DrumGizmo session example of using z-F1 combination:
One of the most important mantras for a sound engineer is: Know your gear! No matter what hardware or software one has, having shortcuts, knobs, and workflow in the muscle memory makes one very effective and it’s wise to spend a considerable amount of time to learn the gear. Not every single shortcut, item, or anything else related to a program is an intuitive thing for everyone and what’s intuitive is also different from person to person. I guess that one can’t make something that’s totally perfect for everyone that’s using a program, especially when it’s so complex and big as Ardour.
One of Ardour’s selling points (or maybe I should use the word philosophy here) is to have as much of the workflow inside the same window as possible and to me, this is a great idea. While waiting for the fixes that will arrive in version 7, I’m using another program for the initial MIDI stuff, and to me, many windows cluttered everywhere are only something that takes energy and time to handle. I’m looking forward to version 7 and that this also will benefit Harrison Mixbus*. I really like the decisions the developers did when they implemented the MIDI workflow.
Is this a bug? Do you have the same issue: when I save my session - the “F1, F2…” setup is not stored. Next time I reload my session - I need to make Ctrl+F1,F2… again//
(Ardour (nightly) 6.7.61)
Why dbl-click? Is region metadata something a user often needs to access?
@whitewolfmusic Check out Zrythm. It has a MIDI editor more in line with what you’re after.