Locking and Unlocking the Performed Attack and Release Times

Under certain circumstances, the performed timing of a note is locked. When the as-performed timing of a note is locked, then any changes you make to the attack location or duration of the note, such as with A+ or D+, will affect only the notated location and duration of the note. Its performance will be unchanged.

Composer uses the following rules for determining whether the performed timing of a note is locked or not:

Notes imported from a MIDI .mid or Karaoke .kar file are locked or not according to whether you set a check mark for the following option using the Note Performance Locking Options command in the Setup menu:

Similarly, notes recorded from your live performance on a MIDI keyboard are locked or not according to whether you set a check mark for the following option using the Note Performance Locking Options command in the Setup menu:

The performed timings are unlocked for all notes that you add with mouse clicks, or by the Step-Time Recording Method.

The performed timings are locked or unlocked if you explicitly lock or unlock the timings with the Lock Performance command.

You can view and change whether the performed timing of a note is locked or not, as described in the procedures below.

To check the lock status of the performed timing of notes:

Toggle the as-notated and as-performed buttons so that they are all in an up position: , , and .

The Piano Roll Notation for all notes will be shown. Those notes with locked performed timings will have white piano roll rectangles. Those notes with unlocked performed timings will have yellow rectangles.

When you use the Note Palette and menu and shortcuts to change the durations and locations of notes, the notation will always be changed. However, the performance will be changed only for those notes with unlocked performed timings.

To lock or unlock the performed timing of a note:

The note's notehead and its rectangle will be highlighted in the color blue.

2.	Toggle the Lock Performed Timing button in the Piano Roll Palette.

-- OR --

Type "lp" for lock (unlock) performance.

To observe the effect of locking versus unlocking the timing of a note:

2.	Click the Piano Roll Notation button so that the Piano Roll Palette is showing.

3.	Toggle the as-notated and as-performed buttons so that they are all in an up position: , , and .

5.	Click the Lock Performed Timing button in the Piano Roll Palette.

Notice how the rectangle of the first note is now white, which indicates that the performed timing of this note is locked.

Notice that:

The as-notated duration of both notes is an eighth note.

The as-performed duration of the first locked note is still the original full quarter note duration.

The as-performed duration of the second unlocked note has been changed to an eighth note duration.