Live MIDI, Faster Audio Exports, Cleaner Scans and Instrument Sorting

A score rarely starts on a blank page. Sometimes it begins as a phrase you play on a keyboard, sometimes as a printed part you scan, sometimes as notes you type in one by one. And the work doesn't stop once the notes are down: you listen back, export a track for the people who will play it, fix something and export again.

This October we worked on all of those moments. You can now record from your MIDI keyboard into your score, scans of PDFs and photos read ties, rests and silent staves more accurately, and a new audio engine, rolling out now, makes audio exports 6 to 30 times faster. With Flat Power, instruments now land in score order, brackets included. The editor also gets six new dynamics, new keyboard shortcuts based on your suggestions, and help articles right inside Quick Search.

Let's take a look at what's new!

Contents

• Live MIDI
• Faster audio export and playback with a new audio engine
• Scan sheet music from PDFs and photos more accurately
• Instrument sorting and nested brackets
• Notation updates in the editor
• Quick search: find help without leaving your score
• On Android: use your MIDI keyboard's pads as shortcuts

Live MIDI

Playing an idea is often faster than writing it down. With Live MIDI, you play it on your MIDI keyboard, see your notes on screen as you play, and fix the take before it goes into your score. You'll need a MIDI keyboard connected to your computer and a browser that supports MIDI devices, such as Chrome, Edge or Firefox. Safari doesn't support MIDI devices, so Live MIDI won't work there.

For now, we're opening Live MIDI to everyone so you can try it. Later it will become a paid feature, which helps us keep supporting it and make it better.

💡 If Flat doesn't find your keyboard, our MIDI troubleshooting guide covers drivers and MIDI-to-USB adapters.

See your notes as you play

Start recording from the MIDI panel in the editor. Our guide to MIDI input and real-time recording shows you how.

Before starting your recording, you can turn on the metronome (1), set the tempo (2) or start with a countdown (3). Without a countdown, the take starts on your first note. Your notes scroll by on screen while you play, so you're not recording blind.

Read the review screen

The notation at the top is a preview (1), and it updates in real time as you edit the notes below it. In the note grid (2), blue notes (3) belong to the top staff and teal notes (4) to the bottom staff. Solid bars (5) are your notes snapped to the grid you chose. Dashed outlines (6) show the notes as you actually played them.

Fix the take before it reaches your score

When you stop, your take opens in Review your recording. Nothing is in your score yet, and the notation preview at the top updates as you edit. Here is what you can do:

I. Choose the grid:

Your timing is never perfect when you play: one note lands a little early, the next a little late. Flat moves each note to the closest line of a grid, so it's written where it belongs. Pick 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/4t or 1/8t to match the shortest notes you played, and watch the preview update. A run of eighth notes needs 1/8: with 1/4, those notes get pulled onto the beats. The "t" grids are for triplets.

II. Edit your take

i. Edit a range selection

Select one or more notes to open a small bar with the number of notes selected, a subdivision menu, a staff choice, Split, and delete.

ii. Change a note's length. Choose the right subdivision, then drag the edge of the note in the grid to make it longer or shorter.

iii. Split a note to half of its duration with Split (1).

iv. Delete the notes you don't want (2).

v. Move notes to another staff with the staff choice (3).

vi. Change the grid (4).

vii. Trim the recording (1) and adjust the tempo (2).

III. Listen, undo and start again

i. Compare with what you played: Switch between your quantized notes and the notes exactly as you played them with Hide raw notes and Show raw notes.

ii. Listen before you save: Play the take back before it goes into your score.

iii. Undo or start over: Use undo and redo as you go, or discard the take and record it again.

IV. Choose where it lands

Pick the measure where your recording starts. Before you confirm, Flat shows how many measures it adds and highlights in red the ones it will overwrite.

Faster audio export and playback with a new audio engine

Flat has a new audio engine, and it's rolling out across every platform. Once it has reached all of them, the same engine will render your MP3 and WAV exports and play your scores on Mac, Windows, iPhone and iPad, the web and Android, so a score sounds the same wherever you open it.

What's new with this audio engine:

• Audio exports are 6 to 30 times faster.
• Large scores play without interruption on iPhone. In our tests with the new engine, an orchestral score with 20 to 30 parts played to the end in 6 of 6 runs, against 1 of 6 before, with 40% less memory and half the processing power.

The new engine reaches audio export first, then the Mac and Windows apps, iOS, the web, and Android a bit later. While the rollout continues, you can switch back to the previous engine in Settings on Mac, Windows and iOS.

A new audio engine for playback and audio export, rolling out across Flat

Flat has a new audio engine, rolling out across every platform. The same engine renders your MP3 and WAV exports and plays your scores on Mac, Windows, iPhone…

Flat

Our guide to printing and exporting covers every export format, including MP3 and WAV.

Also, "A tempo" is now available in audio exports and published scores. Our guide to tempo changes covers accelerando and ritardando, the tempo changes that "a tempo" undoes.

Scan sheet music from PDFs and photos more accurately

Our scanning model, which turns PDFs and photos of sheet music into editable scores, has a new version that reads your music more accurately. It improves results on 24 of the 26 kinds of music we test it on.

This is what the new version reads better:

Easier importing

• Import as many scores as you want at once: before, you could have up to 10 PDF or photo imports processing at the same time, and an 11th was refused. Now you can start as many as you like. The extra ones wait in a queue and are processed in turn.

• On iPhone and iPad: open a PDF in Flat straight from Files, Mail or Safari.

Scan and import sheet music from a PDF or photo - Flat

Turn a PDF, scan, or photo of sheet music into a fully editable score with Flat’s optical music recognition (OMR). See which notations are supported and how to get the best results.. Flat Help Center

FlatVincent Giersch

Each imported page uses one credit. Flat Power includes monthly credits, and you can top up with credit packs on any plan. Our guide to scanning and importing sheet music explains how imports work.

Instrument sorting and nested brackets

Instrument sorting

Every type of ensemble has a standard order for its instruments on the page. With Flat Power, the editor now keeps your instruments in that order and groups them with brackets.

• Choose a sorting style: in the Instruments tab, under Advanced options (1), open Sorting and pick Orchestra, Concert band / Wind ensemble, Jazz big band, Chamber / small ensemble or British brass band.
• Your instruments follow it: Flat reorders your instruments and their brackets to match, and every instrument you add or replace goes straight to its place.
• Prefer your own order? Choose Custom (Manual sorting) (2), and Flat leaves your instruments in the order you put them.

Nested brackets

With Flat Power, you can now put a bracket inside another one, like Violin I and II inside the strings. Select a bracket in your score and click Nest bracket.

Adding, replacing and editing instruments now happens in the Instruments tab of the side panel, so you stay in your score. Our guide to instruments covers adding and changing them.

Notation updates in the editor

Six new dynamics

You can now mark sf, fz, sffz, rf, sfp and sfpp in your scores. Each one has its own symbol and plays back. You'll find them with the other dynamics, as described in our guide to adding dynamics.

A final barline on any measure

You can now end a movement or a section in the middle of a score with a final barline on any measure, from the Barlines and repeats toolbar. Our guide to barlines and repeats covers the other barline tools.

Accidentals above trills

When a trill's upper note is outside the key signature, you can now put a sharp, flat, natural, double sharp or double flat above it, from the trill dropdown in the ornaments panel. Playback, the engraving and MusicXML export follow it, and a trill without one now follows earlier accidentals in the bar.

How to add and remove a trill in Flat - Flat

Add and remove a trill in Flat from the Ornament section of the Notation panel, writing the tr symbol above the note you want the player to alternate.. Flat Help Center

FlatTitouan Rannou

New keyboard shortcuts, from your suggestions

We went through the shortcut suggestions you sent us through in-app feedback and added default keys for the most requested ones:

On Flat Power, you can also assign your own keys to more actions, like tying the last note you added, switching it to its enharmonic or muting the current part. Our guide to custom keyboard shortcuts shows how. To see every shortcut while you write, press Alt + / in the editor.

Quick search: find help without leaving your score

When you're not sure how to write something, the answer is now in the same place as the tools. Press / in the editor to open Quick Search, type what you're trying to do, and the matching help articles appear next to the actions, each with a short tip.

On a computer, an article opens in a side panel next to your score, so you can follow the steps while you write. A Help filter shows only articles, and the articles you opened come back in Recent.

Help articles in Quick Search are in the Flat editor on the web.

On Android: use your MIDI keyboard's pads as shortcuts

If your MIDI keyboard has pads, you can now use them to control the editor on Android. With MIDI Learn in the MIDI input settings, you assign editor actions like play, undo or note durations to each pad. Each keyboard keeps its own pad map, and unassigned keys and pads still enter notes.

That's October in Flat. Open Flat, connect your keyboard and record a few bars, or import a PDF you've been meaning to edit. If something doesn't behave the way you expect, write to us at hello@flat.io. Thank you for composing with Flat!