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 input in a resizable keyboard layout to learn new songs, show what you are playing in your video demos or send notes by clicking on its keys if you don't have a MIDI controller. The Synth and standalone versions offer a free download of an acoustic piano. You'll find this virtual keyboard more flexible than other ones because it allows you to:

• Use multi-touch devices to play notes and control the mod and pitch wheels.
• 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 the Pitch and Mod Wheel changes or use them to send your own values. You can also hide them by dragging their right border to the left.
• 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.
• Use it to 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).
• Play, pause and resume MIDI files at different speeds. You will probably find the following keyboard shortcuts useful:
  • 'up arrow': increase the speed.
  • 'down arrow': decrease the speed.
  • 'spacebar': play / pause.
  • 'left arrow': rewind 4 seconds.
  • 'right arrow': fast forward 4 seconds.
• 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.
• Save your settings automatically with your DAW project.
• Finally you can use the VirtualKeyboardStandalone version to open, play, pause and resume MIDI files at different speeds without loading a full featured DAW.
  VirtualKeyboardStandalone is compatible with Windows Audio, DirectSound, ASIO and Apple's CoreAudio devices. If you are runnning Windows, please select ASIO to minimize latency (and if your soundcard doesn't include an ASIO driver, try with ASIO4All).

This download includes 2 plugins: VirtualKeyboard and VirtualKeyboardSynth, and a standalone program: VirtualKeyboardStandalone.

VirtualKeyboard doesn't produce sound.
If you need it please use VirtualKeyboardSynth or VirtualKeyboardStandalone: they both have a SFZ (aka sound font) Sampler built-in.

{See video at top of page}

VirtualKeyboard with Cubase