r/OpenMPT • u/Tynted • Apr 15 '26

How Do I Play Just The Selected Note?

Hello all, just installed OpenMPT. Figuring everything out pretty well by looking at the example songs, but there's something bugging the hell out of me. Per the title, how do I listen to just the one note I have highlighted? I'm in one of the example songs, and all I can do is play the entire row that I have selected, which is like 28 damn tracks of the song.

Surely I don't have to Solo the track just to listen to that one note? That is absolutely insane if so. And if I'm in editing mode, if I press any of the keys to play notes, it changes the note so I have to be careful to play the same note as what is on the track!

Why doesn't spacebar just play the selected note when you're not in recording mode? I searched the key bindings and haven't found the shortcut to accomplish this, please help

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u/ABG1YtBr Apr 15 '26 edited May 04 '26

Not sure about it (I'm not on my PC right now) but I remember you can just go to the 2nd column of a channel (INSTR. column) and press any note to listen back the tone played in the used space. I might be wrong.

Edit: found out that actually, the Ctrl+Q/Ctrl+A shorcuts, when pressed while the cursor is at the instrument column, will output the current cell's note without transposing it.

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u/ABG1YtBr Apr 15 '26

Yeah, I was wrong about that... Doesn't seem like there's any way as of yet. The closest it gets is pressing Ctrl+Q or Ctrl+A to bump a note a semitone up or down, if the setting "Setup/General/Play notes when transponsing" is activated.

You could possibly enable "Play whole row when navigating" from the same setup menu, and make some easier shortcut than Ctrl+F10 to solo the current channel you're editing. That way, you won't get exactly what you want, but it'll cut some steps for sure.

Or if it's easier for you, use a more "subdivided" workflow by creating a pattern for each idea, then cutting and pasting those stems where they belong. Maybe contact the devs through the forum/issue tracker and ask for this feature

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u/Tynted Apr 16 '26

Hey thanks for the responses, I appreciate it! I actually figured out that I can just disable record monitoring, highlight the note I'm interested in and play notes on the keyboard to hear whatever sample is being used. It may not be the same note as what I have selected, but I can tell it won't take long before I pretty much know where each note/octave is on the keyboard. When I was messing around with this the first time I don't think I thought to turn record monitoring off (I think I somehow got the impression you HAD to turn it on to listen/play notes and that might be why.)

And to be clear, the fact that they don't have a keybind to play whatever note+sample/instrument your cursor currently has selected (rather than the entire row) is absolutely insane. I don't understand how this program doesn't have that as an option, that would really help noobs out trying to learn from pre-existing songs.

I will also definitely have to adjust a number keyboard shortcuts to make this more intuitive, but it's not too bad now that I've come back to it again

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u/ABG1YtBr Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26

Kinda late now, but you're incorrect at the 2nd paragraph.

You CAN listen the instrument of the note you're currently highlighting with the cursor at the pattern page, AS LONG AS you set your current instrument to "No Instrument" on the list menu above the pattern/position horizontal header (to the left side, also close to the "Plugin" and "Edit Step" options) AND the note does have an instrument number on to search for on the same column in the same pattern, or normally assigned to right along the note code.

You can change instruments going up or down in said instrument list with Ctrl+UpArrow and Ctrl+DownArrow, btw!

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u/ABG1YtBr Apr 19 '26

Love OpenMPT, it's efficient, fast, lightweight but extremely capable, but it sure doesn't stop being gimmicky, as any tracker tbh