Hardware
Melony works with two kinds of hardware: MIDI keyboards for playing notes, and audio interfaces for recording sound.
Any MIDI keyboard
To connect a MIDI keyboard, plug it in by USB and open the settings dialog. Go to the Input tab, and you should see your device listed in the dropdown under MIDI device. Select it and click Connect MIDI.
Once connected, playing a note on the keyboard will make sound through whichever track is currently selected in the arranger.
Melony remembers the connection. The next time you open the app, it will try to reconnect automatically when a new track is played or recorded.
What MIDI keyboards control
Once connected, a MIDI keyboard can do the following:
- Play notes - the note is sent to the selected track's instrument. Recording captures them if the track is armed
- Sustain pedal - if you have one connected to the keyboard, notes will ring out after you release the keys, just like a piano's damper pedal. Melony also has a Sustain toggle in the transport that does the same thing
- Pitch bend wheel - bends the pitch of any currently playing notes, up to two semitones in either direction. Releasing the wheel returns to the original pitch
- Modulation wheel - adds a subtle vibrato to playing notes. The amount depends on how far you push the wheel up
Audio interfaces
Audio interfaces are handled on a per-track basis. If you want to record a guitar or microphone, create an audio track, then choose your interface from the track's Input dropdown. From that point on, that track listens to that interface, and no other.
You can have as many audio tracks as you like, each pointing at a different input. The Channels dropdown next to it lets you record in stereo or mono, depending on what the source is. A single microphone is usually mono, and a stereo synth or a mixed output from an interface is usually stereo.
For more details on recording the audio, see the Recording page.
The Novation Launchkey 61 MK3
This keyboard is highly recommended for Melony. It has a full-size 61-key keyboard, eight faders, eight knobs, sixteen pads, and works well with the DAW interface.
The pads
By default, the sixteen pads become a color-coded map of your project. Each pad represents a track, starting from the top-left and working across.
Press a pad to select the track it represents. You can see the track's information change in the app as you move between them.
Pad modes
The pads can do more than select tracks. Melony supports four modes, and you cycle between them by pressing the mode button on the Launchkey itself. When you do, the mode button's LED changes color, and the pads change what they do:
- Clips - press a pad to select the track it represents
- Stop - pressing a pad stops the transport and selects that track
- Solo - pressing a pad solos or unsolos that track
- Mute - pressing a pad mutes or unmutes that track
When you cycle between modes, the pads briefly flash to show the new color. The mode is remembered between sessions, so if you left Melony in Solo mode, it will come back in Solo mode.
You can also change the pad layout between a horizontal arrangement (two rows of eight) and a vertical one (eight rows of two). The setting is under Input in the settings dialog.
Faders and knobs
The Launchkey has eight faders and eight rotary knobs, and Melony lets you bind any of them to any effect parameter, on any track, at any time.
To bind a control, open the effect panel for the track you're interested in. Right-click the parameter's slider you want to control, and a diagram of the Launchkey appears. Click the physical control you want to use. From then on, moving that fader or knob will move the parameter.
Mapped parameters show a small badge next to their name in the effect panel, marking which fader or knob they're attached to. The LED above that fader also lights up in the track's color, so you can see at a glance which controls are in use.
Right-clicking a mapped slider and choosing a different control rebinds it, and choosing the same control again unbinds it. Bindings are saved between sessions.
Two of the controls are reserved and always active:
- The ninth fader controls the master volume. It's the rightmost fader on the Launchkey.
- The button next to it toggles the record-arm state of the currently selected track. Its LED reflects whether that track is armed.
The screen
The Launchkey's two-line LED display is Melony's smallest piece of UI. It shows short messages that change depending on what you're doing: the name of the playing track when you hit play, the name of the instrument when you load one, the pad mode when you cycle it, and more...
You don't need to interact with the screen directly. It's there for feedback, and it tells you what Melony is doing.
Drum pads
When you open the Drum Pads widget from the Widgets menu, and the currently selected track has a drum kit loaded, the Launchkey's pads switch from track-selection mode to drum mode. Each pad triggers one piece of the kit - kick, snare, hi-hats, and so on - and the pad lights up in time with the sound.
The Drum Pads widget also lets you choose from a variety of fun lighting effects, which displays how the pads light up when you hit them.
If something doesn't work
Your MIDI keyboard is connected but no sound plays? Make sure a track is selected and the track has an instrument loaded. Also check that the track isn't muted.
The Launchkey's lights don't come on? Confirm that Melony sees it under Input in the settings dialog.
The pads select the wrong tracks? The Launchkey's pads map to tracks from top-left onwards. If you have more tracks than pads, the extras aren't reachable from the pads. Reorder your tracks so the ones you care about are the first sixteen.