VirtualKeyboard

VirtualKeyboard is a highly configurable virtual keyboard for use as a MIDI Instrument or Logic MIDI Effect plugin, or as a standalone program. Display multi-channel MIDI notes in a resizable keyboard layout to visualize the harmony, learn new songs, show what you are playing in your video demos or send notes by clicking or tapping on its keys if you don’t have a MIDI controller.

VirtualKeyboard is also a live MIDI looper: record, play and loop MIDI play-alongs in any DAW and set the tempo live with a tap button. Set time and key signatures and transpose your MIDI recordings quickly without having to open a DAW.

A free download of an acoustic piano is included.

Features

You’ll find this virtual keyboard more flexible than other ones because it allows you to:

• Stop the cursor in your DAW and still see what notes were being played (note that most virtual keyboards will clear all notes when you press stop).
• “Mute” or “Solo” MIDI channels and display their notes in different colors. To mute a channel: “Cmd”-click (Mac) or “Ctrl-click” (Win) on the MIDI channel legend or click on the “Mute” button. To solo it: Alt-click on the MIDI channel legend or click on the “Solo button”.
• Make the notes fade away instead of ending abruptly to help you visualize quick runs. Use the “Fade” sliders to set their visual queue in milliseconds for each channel. Notes sustained with the sustain pedal can be set with a longer, independent fade out. Tip: set the sliders to the maximum for infinite fade outs.
• Visualize the Soft, Sostenuto and Sustain pedals and play them with your mouse (or hide them by dragging the top of the pedals to the bottom). You can also use the “Shift” key to control the sustain pedal if you don’t have a physical pedal. Please click inside the plugin if the keyboard focus is lost while switching between plugins.
• Display o hide (by dragging their right border to the left) the Mod and Pitch wheels.
• Use multi-touch devices to play notes and control the Mod and Pitch wheels.
• Change the color of the highlighted notes that are on or sustained.
• Hold “Alt” to drag the keyboard horizontally with your mouse.
• Hold “Alt-Cmd” (Mac) or “Alt-Ctrl” (Win) and drag the keyboard to stretch it (changing the key width).
• Resize it: drag the bottom-right corner of the keyboard to change its height and width, drag the pedal boundaries to change their dimensions and edit the key width in the menu.
• Label the keys with their note name, octave or MIDI number .
• Hide all settings to show only the keyboard by clicking anywhere on the keyboard while holding the “Cmd” (Mac) or “Ctrl” (windows) key.
• Trigger notes with different velocities (clicking at a different height of each key if “Velocity” is 0 or send constant velocities if “Velocity” is greater than 0).
• Save/Load your visualization settings to/from a preset.
• Save your settings automatically with your DAW project.
• Play, pause and resume MIDI files at different speeds. In Settings you can define options for it such as “Play on MIDI load” (to start playing a MIDI file when you open it). You may also find the following keyboard shortcuts useful:
  • ‘spacebar’: play / pause.
  • ‘ESC’: rewind.
  • ‘left arrow’: rewind 4 seconds.
  • ‘right arrow’: fast forward 4 seconds.
  • ‘up arrow’: increase the speed.
  • ‘down arrow’: decrease the speed.
  • ‘del/supr’: unload file.
• Record MIDI files. In “Settings” you can define several options such as “Precount after tap”, “Mute Tap” and “Play after Rec”. You may also fifnd the following keyboard shortcuts useful:
  • ‘1’: start/stop recording.
  • ‘4’: record tap tempo.
  • ‘ESC’: cancel recording.
  • ‘del/supr’: unload recording (delete if it wasn’t saved to a file).
• “Tap to record” or “Tap to play” to start recording / playing at a live tempo.
• Transpose MIDI recordings/files. You can change the signature key of a MIDI file with or without transposing the MIDI content (depending on the “link” toggle status).
• Drag-and-drop the MIDI of the player / recorder.
• Control buttons with your MIDI controller/keyboard. Simply right click on a button to open the “MIDI learn” controls and press a pad or a note to assign that button to it.
• Play notes too with your computer keyboard. Click on ‘Settings’ to configure your computer keyboard. The key mappings for a QWERTY keyboard are:
  • ‘1 octave’ mode:
    • “asdfghjkl” for notes CDEFGABCD.
    • “z”: decrease octave.
    • “x”: increase octave.
    • “c”: decrease velocity.
    • “v”: increase velocity.
  • ‘2 octaves’ mode:
    • “zxcvbnm” for notes CDEFGAB, “qwertyuiop” for notes CDEFGABCDE (+1 oct).
    • “, “: decrease octave.
    • “.”: increase octave.
    • “k”: decrease velocity.
    • “l”: increase velocity.
  • Use “Shift” to control the sustain pedal in both settings.
    Important: please click inside the plugin if the keyboard focus is lost while switching between plugins.
• Finally you can use the VirtualKeyboard standalone application to play the piano or open, play, pause, record and transpose MIDI files at different speeds without loading a full featured DAW.