Transpose shifts the FLkey Mini’s notes on the keys in semitone increments from 1 to 11 semitones. This allows you to play in different keys or transpose ideas easily.
To transpose the keyboard, hold the Transpose button, or double-tap to latch, and four pads light white. When the four central pads light white, the keyboard is at standard pitch with no transposition.
You can transpose the keys using any of these methods:
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Enable Transpose and press pads 1 to 11 to transpose the keyboard by 1 to 11 semitones. The number of green pads lit shows the number of semitones of transposition. In the image below, the six green pads show you’ve transposed the keyboard +6 semitones.
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Hold Transpose and press the Octave +/- buttons, when transposing downwards the pads light red.
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Latch Transpose (double-tap the button) and press a key on the keyboard.
Pressing the Octave buttons increments and decrements the keyboard octave by ±1. The available octaves range from C0 to G10 in FL Studio (C-2 – G8 with other software). Shift-pressing the Octave buttons transposes the keyboard up or down by one semitone.
After you change the octave, the screen displays the current Octave range for five seconds. You can tell if your keyboard is in a different Octave as the Octave +/- button lights. The brighter the button, the more octaves you have moved.
To reset the keyboard octave to 0, press the Octave +/- buttons simultaneously. To reset the keyboard transposition to 0, hold shift and press the Octave +/- buttons simultaneously.
Hold Shift and press Octave +/- to transpose the keyboard up or down in semitones. The screen shows the transposition amount.
Note Repeat applies to the pads and allows you to play notes (especially drum hits) at various Rates, locked to a set Tempo.
When connected to FL Studio, Note Repeat always follows the DAW tempo regardless of the playback state. By default, master sync (in FL studio’s MIDI settings) is enabled, making Note Repeat trigger tightly to the grid. If you disable master sync, Note Repeat begins when you press a pad.
Press the Note Repeat button to enable Note Repeat on the pads. FL Studio sends MIDI clock to the FLkey by default, so it synchronises to this tempo. Hold any pad, and they repeat at the set Rate and Tempo.
In Sequencer mode, the Note Repeat function doesn’t affect the pads. In Sequencer mode, the pads assign notes to the sequencer.
To change the rate, hold the Note Repeat button (or double-tap to latch) and press a key labelled 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, Triplet. The Triplet option applies a Triplet feel to the currently selected rate, e.g. if the Rate was set to 1/8, enabling Triplet sets the rate to 1/8t.
With Note Repeat held or latched, you can change the Rate as you play the pads too. When you hold or latch Note Repeat, the button pulses to show the keys are controlling the Rate and Tap Tempo.
You can use pad pressure to control the Note Repeat hit’s velocity. The initial velocity is set as you press the pad. As you hold it, you can increase pressure to increase velocity, or reduce pressure to reduce velocity, etc.
You can disable Velocity in the Settings menu, see FLkey Mini settings.
If you reduce pressure after the initial hit, the Note Repeat output keeps the initial velocity constant and only change velocity if you increase the pressure above the initial velocity setting.
Scale Mode allows you to set the entire keyboard to only play notes in a scale you select. This allows you to play the keyboard without ever hitting a wrong note! Press the “Scale” button to activate this mode, the button lights to show the mode is active.
There are two elements to a scale, the root note, and the Scale Mode. To change the Scale’s root note, hold the Scale button (or double-tap to latch) and press the corresponding key in the FLkey’s lowest octave:
To change the Scale Mode, hold the Scale button (or double-tap to latch) and press the key under one of the Modes, the four modes available are:
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Minor
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Major
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Dorian
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Phrygian
The Shift button allows you to access the features printed on the FLkey’s front panel. When you hold the shift button (Or latch the Shift button) The following options are available:
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Channel (Transpose Button) – To change the FLkey’s MIDI channel, use the Shift button and hold Channel (or Latch). The pads light red with the brightest pad showing the current MIDI channel, press a pad 1-16 to change the MIDI channel.
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Preset (Octave Buttons) – Hold Shift and Press the Octave up and down buttons to step up and down FL Studio native plugin presets. The buttons’ LEDs light to show if preset navigation is available.
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Page ◄ ► (Channel Rack Up/Down buttons) – Press these buttons to page left and right in FL Studio.
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Mixer Track Press the Mixer track ◄ ► buttons (Scale/Note Repeat) to move left and right in your FL Studio Mixer tracks.
You can latch control pages open and access the controls for those modes. This feature gives single-hand access to control pages, including:
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Scale, Note Repeat controls
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Transpose setting
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Note Repeat
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Shift functions - such as rotary control select and MIDI Channel.
Double press the Control Page button and the controls appear and remain accessible on the pads and rotary controls. To return to normal operation and exit the Controls page, press the Control Page button again.
To latch the Transpose controls, double press Transpose. The Transpose controls open and remain accessible on the pads. The Transpose button pulses to show it is open. To return to normal operation, or to exit the Transpose controls, press Transpose or Shift.
To latch the Shift controls, double press the Shift button. The Shift controls open and remain accessible on the pads. The Shift button remains lit to show it is active. To exit the controls, press Shift. After you’ve latched Shift controls, you can latch the MIDI channel controls. To do this, double press Transpose. To exit the MIDI channel controls, press Transpose or Shift.
When you connect FLkey to FL Studio, it follows the Pickup (takeover mode) setting in FL Studio’s Settings.
In standalone mode, you can turn on Pot Pickup from the settings menu. When Pot Pickup is on, FLkey saves the various pages for the Pot’s states. The control only outputs MIDI when it moves to the position of the saved state. This prevents sudden jumps in the control’s value.
When you move a pot, and it’s not yet picked up the value, the screen displays the saved value until you’ve moved it to the pick-up point.