Piano Roll and VSTs

In this lesson Andy takes us through software instruments, more commonly known as VST Instruments (a.k.a. VSTIs or just VSTs). The Piano Roll is what we use to play these instruments - it's literally just a piano keyboard spread down the left hand side of the screen. We can use the mouse to add notes on the grid.

Key points

• The grid shows note pitch vertically, and time horizontally
• The time aspect of the grid is separated into bars and beats, so setting the tempo is important when making music in this way
• GarageBand has loads of great VST Instruments built in, but you can also find more online