Lemon wiki

Recording

The round Record button on the toolbar arms recording. Arming doesn’t start playback: you start when you’re ready, with Space. R does the same as a click while the computer keyboard isn’t playing notes. Armed, the whole button fills red.

Record notes

Select an instrument in the instrument rack.
Click Record. It asks What would you like to record? Choose Notes only, or Notes and automation to catch your knob moves too.
Press Space and play, on a MIDI keyboard, the computer keyboard or the Touch controller.
Press Space to stop.

The notes go in the current pattern, for the selected instrument. They snap to the toolbar’s snap when it’s set to a fixed step, and Line leaves them as you played them. A take replaces the notes that start inside it, and it’s one undo step. In SONG mode, a clip of the pattern is placed if none is playing there, and made longer if you play past its end.

The Record filter

Right-click Record for its menu. The same settings are on the Recording page in Settings.

Recording filter: tick Notes, Automation and Audio. Audio means the armed mixer tracks, below.
Options: Ask what to record turns the question on and off. Recording starts playback and Disarm on stop do what they say.
Quantize: Note start time and Note end time snap what you play. Untick them to keep your timing.

Count-in and other options

These are in the OPTIONS menu and on the toolbar.

Count-in (Ctrl+P) plays one or two bars of metronome first. Set the length in Settings, or by right-clicking the metronome button. With the arranger in front, Ctrl+P switches Performance mode instead, so use the menu there.
Start on input (Ctrl+I): Play waits for your first note, which lands at the start.
Blend recorded notes (Ctrl+B): a take keeps the notes it overlaps.
Loop record: playback loops, and each pass is a take that replaces the last. Off, recording runs on past the end and the pattern grows.
Step edit (Ctrl+E): with playback stopped, what you play is written a step at a time.

A time selection in the piano roll (PAT) or arranger (SONG) sets where you punch in and out. With Loop record off, it plays once and stops. TOOLS ▸ Cancel recording stops and undoes that recording.

Record audio with Quick record

The fastest way to get an input into your song.

Click the microphone on the toolbar, or open TOOLS ▸ Quick record.
Pick an input. It switches to SONG mode, arms Record and plays from the song position, after a count-in if that’s on.
Stop. The take is saved as a WAV file and placed as a new audio clip where playback started.

Choose Into the audio editor to record into Tesla on the master track instead. The Record button’s question offers both too.

The inputs come from your audio device: see Audio setup.

Record into mixer tracks

For several inputs at once, or for effects on the way in.

In the mixer, select a track and choose its input under Audio input source, at the top of the right panel.
Click the small dot near the bottom of its strip (Arm disk recording), or use Arm selected track(s) in its menu. Arming turns on Audio in the Record filter.
Arm Record and play. Every armed track records.
Stop. Each take is a WAV file named after its track, and with Mixer options ▸ Disk recording ▸ Auto-create audio clips on, it’s placed in the arranger where it started.

The icon beside the input sets what’s recorded: External input only, External and mixer input, Post effects, Post EQ, Post level and panning or Post track. It also sets Monitor external input: Off, When armed or On.

Recordings go in the project’s data folder when it has one, else in your user folder. The Recording page in Settings shows where.

Catch what you already played

MIDI capture: every note you play is kept for 30 minutes, recording or not. TOOLS ▸ Capture MIDI into pattern writes the last 2 to 30 minutes into the current pattern at their real timing, and asks whether to merge or replace if it already has notes. Clear log empties it.
Retro audio capture: while TOOLS ▸ Retro audio capture ▸ Enabled is ticked, which it is by default, Lemon Studio keeps what your audio device has been playing. Settings sets how long, from 1 to 10 minutes, and the heading shows the memory it’s using. Open capture in audio editor saves it to a WAV file and opens it in Tesla.

Good to know

To record knob moves, see Automation.
An Audio track in the arranger has Arm recording in its Track mode menu, and a take recorded on its mixer track lands there.
Recording markers in the arranger can punch in and out: see Markers.