It’s confusing to figure out all the things that you might need to get when you start producing music. I can remember researching for hours and finding all kinds of articles on the essentials that you need to start producing.
And that can you leave you with questions, like can I use FL Studio without a midi keyboard? Yes, you can use FL Studio several ways without a keyboard, including using the pencil, paint brush and stamp tools to create notes and chords in the piano roll, as well as utilizing your computer keyboard to substitute as a midi keyboard.
We’ll examine a few different ways that you can still work in FL Studio without a midi keyboard, plus we’ll cover a bonus way that can shortcut your process even more!
Can you use FL Studio Without a Midi Keyboard?
There are many tools that are built into FL studio that will allow you to work with midi notes without having access to a midi keyboard. A midi keyboard is just a device that helps translate the notes on a piano surface, but you can use the built in piano roll and tools to create all the notes and chords you need.
Here is a list of the different ways you still create midi notes without a midi keyboard:
- The Pencil Tool in the piano roll to draw in notes and chords
- You can use the Paint Tool in the piano roll to paint in notes and chords
- The Stamp Tool in the piano roll to place chords
- Your computer keyboard can be turned into a substitute midi keyboard in FL Studio
- Midi Packs can be used as a way to shortcut the process
Let’s dig into each one.
Using the Pencil Tool in the Piano Roll
This is probably the most common way to create notes and chords in piano roll.
First in FL Studio you have to load in an instrument that is capable of playing multiple notes, something like a piano or a synth.
Let’s load in the FL Keys instrument for this example. To do that, you need click the + icon at the bottom of the channel rack, and choose the FL Keys instrument from the section labeled MISC. This will open up the FL Keys instrument.
Next you need to open up the Piano Roll.
Go back to the channel rack and make sure that the FL Keys instrument has the green highlight next to it. Then press F7 on your keyboard, and the Piano Roll will open up. This is the place that you deal with midi notes.
You can use the piano roll to create the chords and notes for your songs.
By default the pencil tool is already highlighted. You can see the pencil icon at the top of the tool bar, and it should be highlighted in orange.
To use the pencil tool, just left click in a location where you want to place the note. You can see what note you are placing by looking at the the left side of the window, which shows you a piano. You can left click on each of the piano keys to hear the note before you place it on the piano roll grid.
Once you have found the note that you want, you can left click on the grid, and a green bar will appear. You can left click and drag the note to place it where you want. You can also place you mouse over the right edge of the note and a double arrow will appear, when that happens, you can left click and drag out the end of the note to make it longer or shorter.
After you have placed a few notes, you can play what you have created by pressing the space bar. Press it again to stop it.
You can create chords by placing multiple notes along the grid.
Using the Paint Brush in the Piano Roll
You can also use the paint brush in much the same way that you used the pencil tool. You can find the brush tool at the top of the tool bar. Click on it and it will turn orange and you can begin to use it.
You can also select the paint brush tool by pressing the B button as a shortcut key on your keyboard.
The difference between the brush and the pencil tool is that if you drag with the brush tool it will continue to paint notes one after the other. With the pencil tool you have to click to place each note.
Using the built in Chord Stamp Tool
There is another pretty powerful tool that is built into FL studio.
You can find the stamp tool by left clicking on the arrow at the top of the Piano Roll window and going down to the menu option for Stamp.
When you do that you will be presented with a large set of options, things like melodic chords, melodic scales, percussions and special. We will focus on the melodic chords. Go under the melodic chords and find major.
Click on major and it will bring you back to the piano roll.
Find the starting note of the chord you want to create. Let’s say you wanted to place a C Major chord, then find the C note on the piano roll and left click. When you do this you will see that a chord gets placed on the piano roll grid.
That’s pretty cool, right?
If you know basic music theory, then you can be off to the races with creating some pretty great chord progressions pretty easily.
Using your computer keyboard as a midi keyboard in FL Studio
This is a pretty interesting tool as well.
You can actually turn your computer keyboard into a makeshift midi keyboard in FL Studio. To do this, you have to turn on the Typing Keyboard to Piano Keyboard button at the top near the transport bar in FL Studio.
It’s the icon that looks half like a regular keyboard and half like a piano.
CAUTION – When you turn this function on, you will not be able to use your keyboard shortcuts anymore in FL Studio. So if you like using keyboard shortcuts, make sure you turn it off when you are done using it.
Once it is highlighted orange, you can press different keys on your keyboard and you will hear/see the notes light up on the left side of the piano roll.
In order to get those notes placed, you have to record it. So find a melody that you could play with the keyboard.
Then go to the record button at the top. Right click the record button and make sure that the Notes option is highlighted. Then press record and play the melody on your keyboard. Stop the recording, and you should see the notes show up on the piano roll.
Pretty sweet, right?
Now let’s talk about a shortcut.
Using Midi Chord Packs to Shortcut the Process (link to Unison or other Chord Pack)
There are actually some midi packs that are available around the web. What this means is that someone went through and created all kinds of chord progressions and even melodies ahead of time, and made them available for you to be able to use for your projects.
So you can load in a midi pack, drag in a progression to the piano roll, and you are off to the races on creating songs.
There are a couple of midi packs that I have seen around.
One is the Unison Midi Pack. The other is the Niko’s Midi Pack.
Both have very similar things, so you can use those to shortcut your production time. Some people might think it’s cheating, but if you can give yourself the opportunity to produce music faster, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t.
Hope you all enjoyed this post.
Share it if you liked it!