Tracks keyboard shortcuts: every hotkey, and how to play notes with your keyboard

By Tongkit Leong · September 16, 2026 · 7 min read

Your computer keyboard is a full two-octave piano in Tracks — the Z row plays one octave, the Q row and number row play the octave above it, Arrow Up/Down shifts octaves, and press ? any time to see the complete shortcut sheet without leaving the studio.

You don't need a MIDI keyboard to play notes

Every browser has a keyboard attached to it, and Tracks turns yours into an instrument the moment you arm a track. No plugin, no permission prompt, no hardware. Select an instrument track, click the arm button, and start pressing letter keys — you'll hear notes immediately.

This is separate from connecting a real MIDI keyboard over USB, which is still supported and gives you actual velocity sensitivity from your playing. The computer-keyboard mode is what you reach for when you don't own MIDI hardware, or when you just want to sketch an idea fast without getting up to plug anything in.

The layout: two manuals, no overlap

Tracks uses an FL Studio-style split layout. The bottom row of letter keys is the lower manual, and the row above it is the upper manual, pitched exactly one octave higher with no overlapping notes between them.

Lower manual — Z row (one octave)

Z S X D C V G B H N J M plays C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B in order — the white and black keys of one full octave, starting on Z.

Upper manual — Q row and number row (the octave above)

Q 2 W 3 E R 5 T 6 Y 7 U continues the same octave pattern one step higher, and I 9 O 0 P [ ] carries it further up. Because the two manuals are contiguous instead of doubled, you get almost two full octaves under your fingers at once without any note repeating in two places.

Tracks reads the physical position of each key rather than the character it types, so this layout plays the same shape on AZERTY and QWERTZ keyboards as it does on QWERTY — you don't need to remap anything if you're on a non-US layout.

Octaves, pitch bend, and getting unstuck

• Arrow Up / Arrow Down — shift the whole layout up or down an octave. The default puts C4 on the Z key.
• Tab — bend up two semitones while held.
• Left Shift — bend down two semitones while held.
• Escape — panic: cuts every currently sounding note. Tracks also does this automatically if the browser tab loses focus, so a held note can't get stuck ringing in the background while you switch windows.

The full shortcut sheet

Beyond playing notes, most of the studio's editing workflow has a hotkey. This is the same list you get by pressing ? inside the studio.

Transport

• Space — play / stop
• Enter — return to the start of the timeline

Editing clips and notes

• Cmd/Ctrl Z, Shift Cmd/Ctrl Z — undo / redo
• Cmd/Ctrl C, Cmd/Ctrl V — copy / paste a clip (paste lands at the playhead)
• Cmd/Ctrl D — duplicate the selected clip
• Cmd/Ctrl E — split the selected clip at the playhead
• Delete — delete the selected clip, or the selected notes if you're in the piano roll

Selecting in the piano roll

• Shift drag — box-select multiple notes
• Shift click a note — add or remove it from the current selection

Everything else

• Double-click a track lane — create a new clip
• Double-click a dial — reset it to its default value
• Drag the ruler — set the loop region
• ? — toggle the shortcut sheet on or off

Shortcuts are disabled while you're typing in a text field — renaming a track or a project won't accidentally trigger playback or delete a clip.

What keyboard notes can't do

Be honest with yourself about the one real limitation: your computer keyboard is not velocity-sensitive. However hard or soft you tap a key, Tracks records it at full velocity, because a keyboard switch can only report on or off, not how hard it was pressed. A real MIDI keyboard captures how hard you hit each key and writes that dynamic into the recording.

That doesn't mean a keyboard-played part has to sound flat. Every note you record — from a computer key or a MIDI controller — lands in the piano roll as an editable note with a velocity value you can reshape by hand. See how to edit note velocity for a more human-sounding performance for a walkthrough of pulling life back into a part after the fact.

Playing drum and sampler tracks with your keyboard

The same keys do something different depending on what kind of track is armed. Arm a melodic instrument — the subtractive synth, the FM synth, or a SoundFont track — and the keyboard plays chromatic notes as described above. Arm a drum machine or the 16-pad sampler instead, and those same physical keys are remapped to trigger specific drum sounds or sample pads rather than pitches, so you can play a beat live the same way you'd play a melody.

Frequently asked questions

Why isn't anything happening when I press keys?

Check that a track is armed — the keyboard always plays whichever track has the arm button enabled, not just whichever track is visually selected. If no track is armed, key presses have nothing to play into.

Can I use my computer keyboard and a MIDI keyboard at the same time?

Yes. Both inputs play the same armed track, so you can noodle on the keyboard with one hand while reaching for a MIDI controller with the other, or fall back to the keyboard the moment your MIDI device is unplugged.

Does this work the same on Mac and Windows?

Yes. The layout is based on physical key position, not the operating system, so Z-row and Q-row play the same notes on both. The one difference is the modifier key: shortcuts listed as Cmd on Mac use Ctrl on Windows and Linux.

Will my keyboard input still work if I switch to a different browser tab?

No, and that's intentional — the moment the tab loses focus, Tracks releases every held note so nothing keeps sounding in the background. Come back to the tab and pick up playing where you left off.

Is there a way to see this shortcut list without leaving the studio?

Press ? at any time inside the studio to open the same cheat sheet described in this guide. Press it again, hit Escape, or click anywhere to close it.