The Notes mode is the equivalent of the Key Edit window in Cubase, and allows what is commonly called piano-roll editing, where you can edit or enter notes within a representative keyboard-style graphic "clef." To the left is a vertical piano keyboard for pitch reference, with two arrows to scroll upwards or downwards, to display other ranges of the keyboard.

If you're like most users, you'll stay in Regions mode when working on the song structure, and switch to Notes mode when you need to tweak MIDI notes (a bit like switching from the Arrange window to the Key Edit window in Cubase). The absence of a separate window for graphic editing makes it easy to work on several tracks at once in a single working environment. The MIDI/audio editing synergy at hand, for instance, the ability to align MIDI regions to audio regions is a rare and welcome attraction for a digital audio sequencer. The downside is that you'll need to rearrange the display frequently -- enlarging a MIDI track, say, to facilitate easy editing, then switching from Regions to Notes mode, etc. Unfortunately, while memory locations store zoom values, they do not store the chosen display mode.

Overall, Pro Tools 5's piano roll editing is quite an achievement (it feels a lot like Performer's graphic editor). Classic operations (insert/erase a note, transpose, duplicate, stretch) can be executed quickly, thanks to the Smart Tool. There are other clever shortcuts as well. Control-clicking switches to the Pencil, so that you can insert a note or a string of notes, and Command-clicking toggles the tool between the Selector and Grabber, which lets you make a selection or move a single note. Non-contiguous note selections are possible, and you can resize multiple selected notes at once with the Trimmer. Pro Tools also allows you to trim the start point of a note leaving the end point untouched and fixed at its location; to our knowledge, this is a unique feature, which will come in very handy to adjust the start position of a MIDI note triggering a loop.

By switching to the Velocity mode, the velocity of each note is displayed, represented by a vertical bar topped by a little circle, and may be edited with the same tools, such as the Pencil tool, used for automation data.

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