To record your performance do this:

1)  Connect the instrument's midi ports to the computer.  Ypu will probably use a MIDI USB cable to do this.  (Check "midi usb cable" on google to find one).

2)  Select the midi IN device.  See Selecting the Midi IN Device.  The record button will turn from disabled to enabled.

                        record button   --  midi IN selected

3)  Start the device by clicking on the record button once.

                        record button -- midi IN started

4)  Click on the record button again.

                        record button -- midi recording state

To begin recording midi messages start plaing on the piano keyboard or have the instrument play demo midi songs.

When recording, only the note ON and

note OFF messages are captured.  All other messages, including the system exclusive messages (see Receiving Midi Messages) are discarded.  See Playing for what this implies when playing FastChords' recorded midi.

While recording the recorded messages are displayed as they arrive to the computer.  The keyboard also reflects the musical notes played.

To stop recording, click on the record button again.  This reverts to the midi IN started state.

  started state               stop button

You can also click on the stop button.  This reverts to the midi IN selected but not started state.

    midi IN selected but not started state

As soon as recording is stopped, the recorded midi messages are displayed in normalized format.

This simply means that timing starts at zero.  The timing data displayed is in milliseconds.

Fastchords uses its own timer to synchronize events, but it records both the timing data sent by the instrument and its own timing data.  When playing, you can ask the program to use either timer.  Only a very discriminating ear will perceive a difference between the two.

Each note ON and OFF message is also displayed with the corresponding musical note and its position on the keyboard.

To see where the octaves are on the keyboard simply click on the note.  All active notes at that point of time will be displayed on the keyboard, including the one corresponding to the message you click on.

See Single Stepping Through Recordings.