Writing notes with a MIDI controller vs clicking

[DimensionX]

I am interested in hearing peoples experience AND preference with the 2. Personally I have never used a MIDI controller and have enjoyed it thus far, I actually initially got into computer music because I got sick of playing instruments, but now that I had a nice break I am thinking of how I used to write music by physically playing the notes.

I am now for the first time writing music that is in my head (no theory understanding whatsoever) and Im realizing how hard it is to get the idea's down by writing it into a grid because of the distracting overly quantized sound. It makes more sense to just play it on a MIDI controller although the one thing I've always found is I can't find the notes in my head as easily as clicking since the piano roll can adjusted so the notes are more easily accessible. (and I never want to own a more-than-25-keys midi controller).

So yeah.. What do you think?

 

[KonKossKang]

Grid vs staff...I'm gonna say staff wins for note locating while grid's more flexible when it comes to no quantize. Was very reluctant to learn basics of that lol but it really is nice to know tbh.


I use mouse for melodies I can not do on midi lol. But for anything else, midi to the moon.
riffs, drums, sampling has to be done with a mouse though there's no workaround for that I think.

Scales help because chords can be found for triads like bam. [1st note/3rd note/5th note] that quick bam boom.

C chord's CEG I think with that formula I think then in the scale of D it's DF#A and E scale chord is EG#B, definitely could be wrong but man, I try to find shortcuts for everything lol.

 

[krushing]

I do both, but usually only resort to mouse-clickery when I've found what I want with jamming around on the keys & decided I want something super-quantized for this particular part. The inherent problem with mousing is that you tend to resort to what you've done before - there's not that much trying things out and happy accidents just don't really happen.