Setting Note Length With The Pencil Tool

Use the pointer, not the pencil (select from tool dropdown in piano roll). Mouse the pointer over the note in question and it will morph to a tool that'll allow you to change note length. Other tools allow you to change velocity, etc to play around a bit.

More experienced users may have a better workflow, but here's what I do:

The pencil always draws a note the length (and velocity) of the last note it drew.

So make a note with your pencil. Then change to the pointer to shorten/lengthen. Then switch to the pencil to make another note (since you can have two tools active in PR, switching between them with the control key, this is not as inefficient as it sounds). This note should be the same length as the one you edited with the pointer.

Again, there may be a more efficient way of doing it, but this works pretty well for me when I'm doing something simple like creating a basic backbeat or rhythm track. You can always go in and "humanize" it by altering note length/creating ghost note/whatever later.

You can use the pencil tool to click, hold, then drag to the length you want it. All subsequent clicked notes will be that duration until you click/hold/drag a new note length.

-droo

Thanks Andrew! I knew there was a smarter way to do it.