Terminology: Piano Roll

A piano roll is a common input interface into DAWs. A piano roll is a graphic representation of a piano keyboard (usually on the left of the display), and a grid connected to the keys. By drawing marks on the grid of the piano roll, you are programming the notes on the instrument. The easiest way to think of this is that it is the digital version of a player piano. If the spot is marked, it will play that note. If you want to play a chord, draw the corresponding notes.

Piano rolls are also a good interface for cleaning up imperfect or sloppy playing from a MIDI input device. If you record the notes from an external interface (keyboard, drum machine, etc), you can manually adjust the layout in the piano roll to be spot-on without re-recording it.

Variations on the piano roll include a "drum mode" which marks the point where the drums are triggered, rather than the customary rectangles that are used to mark the duration of a note.

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Terminology: VST

VST is an acronym for "Virtual Studio Technology", a popular audio plug-in format. A VST is a virtual instrument or effect that has been distributed as a file or set of files. The format was created by Steinberg, makers of the Cubase DAW.

VSTs have become the defacto standard for audio plug-ins in a Windows environment, though using "wrapper" programs, they can also be used on other operating systems and with programs that support other plug-in formats.

The creation of VSTs has become so popular that there are literally thousands of freeware and shareware VSTs available on the web, in addition to the myriad of commercial VSTs also available.

Note: Not all VSTs will run in DAWs that support the format. It is always good to find out whether the VSTs are compatible with your particular software before spending any money on them.


VSTi is a subcategory of VST, specifically defined as being a VST instrument This specific format label is used to help identify what is a root-sound generating plugin. A VSTi is triggered by MIDI commands to generate the audio signal, whereas other non-instrument VST plug-ins usually work by modifying the audio signal fed into it.

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Terminology: Latency

Latency is a measure of the time it takes (in milliseconds) for your audio signal to passed through your system. This delay is caused by the time it takes for your computer to receive, understand, process as needed, and send the signal back to your outputs.

High latency (slow signal time) is the enemy. High latency means it is taking too long for the audio in to become audio out. High latency will make you pull your hair out, guaranteed.

The lower your latency, the better your music will stay together and in sync, up to a point. If you try to push your latency too low, you might not be allowing the computer enough time to do what it needs to do, so under too-low latency conditions, your audio stream will break up into random static as it bogs down.

The key is to adjust your latency (either through your sound card settings, or through third-party audio drivers) as low as it can go without breaking up. How low your latency can be set is dependent on factors such as your computer speed, system bus speed, sound card performance, system memory, etc. In practice, you have to experiment to find your best performance settings.

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Terminology: DAW

DAW is an acronym for Digital Audio Workstation. This is generally a combination of hardware and software used for processing audio. You can think of a DAW as the heart of your studio system.

Popular DAWs include ProTools, Ableton Live, Sony ACID, Cubase, Cakewalk Sonar, GarageBand, and REAPER.

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Terminology 101

One of the biggest hurdles to setting up your own home recording environment is the terminology. You might know how to write a song, play a dozen instruments, but you freeze up when you see messages on the boards like: "My system's latency is causing my DAW to choke on the VSTi's piano roll." Huh?

To help set a baseline, I've started this terminology list. Each term will have its own posting, with this as the master index. (Yes, it's sparse now, but this list will grow with time.)

ASIO
Automation
Arm
DAW
Digital Audio Workstation
Latency
MIDI
Piano Roll
VST
VSTi


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