Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard

Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard (or VMPK for short) is an open source, freely distributed and multi-platform graphical software project designed from the ground up to act as a standalone MIDI controller tool. The software runs on all mainstream operating systems and can be used to drive a MIDI synthesizer, despite that fact that it cannot be used to produce sounds.

Features at a glance

Key features include support for driving software or hardware MIDI synthesizers, support for driving internal or external MIDI synthesizers, support for mouse and keyboard peripheral devices, which can be used to play MIDI notes, support for viewing played MIDI notes from another MIDI file player or instrument, support for receiving MIDI events, support for generating MIDI events, as well as a modern graphical user interface written in Qt.

in addition to the above, the software features alphanumeric keyboard mapping, which can be easily configured using the GUI (XML files are used for storing the settings), support for French, Spanish and German keyboard layouts, as well as the ability to send controllers and program changes to a MIDI synthesizer. All the MIDI input/output features are powered by the cross-platform Drumstick RT framework.

Provides definitions for different devices and standards

Please note that Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard can provide definitions for different devices and standards as .INS files, which can be written by popular applications, such as QTractor and TSE3.

Under the hood, availability and supported OSes

The application is written in the C++ programming language, using the Qt GUI toolkit for its beautiful graphical user interface. Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard is a cross-platform software, supported on the GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. On GNU/Linux, it’s available for download as universal installers in the .run file format, as well as a source tarball.

What is new in this release:

• Fixes for ALSA (Linux) and Windows input drivers, (provided by Drumstick 1.0.1 libraries)
• Packaged using the Qt Frameworks 5.5.0
• Fixed ticket #27: save keyboard maps with default xml extension
• Fixed ticket #29: display input event noteon with velocity=0 as noteoff
• Color palette management fixes
• Updated Russian and Serbian translations

What is new in version 0.6.0:

• Qt5 migration completed. XCB replacing X11 library on Linux/Unix
• RtMIDI replaced by Drumstick-RT with pluggable backends: ALSA Seq, OSS, Windows, Mac OSX, Network and FluidSynth.
• Ticket #39: keyboard can start on any note
• Allow to configure any number of keys, instead of full octaves
• New translations: Serbian and Galician

What is new in version 0.5.1:

• Fixed bug #3599827. No default keyboard shortcuts were available in 0.5.0 on fresh installations
• Qt5 build compatibility (not yet fully functional)

What is new in version 0.5.0:

• This version includes a patched RtMidi 1.0.15, enabling several MIDI drivers to be compiled at once and allowing the user to select one at runtime.
• Several bugs have been fixed related to transpose, shortcuts, and preferences.
• A new implementation of the Network MIDI driver has been included.
• MIDI channel state enforcement is now possible.
• A MIDI IN Omni mode has been added.
• The user can independently enable/disable note input using the keyboard, mouse, or touch screen.
• Note highlight color policies have been added with the color palettes editor.
• There's an option to show a colorized scale.
• XML comments within keyboard map files are allowed.

What is new in version 0.4.0:

• This version adds touch screen support (multi-touch) for all platforms, if it is supported by the OS and hardware. New RtMidi classes have been merged, which includes Jack MIDI support and a new network MIDI driver (UDP multicast) compatible with ipMIDI and QmidiNet.
• A Symbian^3 port has been made.
• There are new translations to Dutch and Swedish.
• A bug crashing the program when changing the octave base has been fixed.

What is new in version 0.3.2:

• A new D-Bus interface has been added, exposing many program features to other D-Bus clients.
• The switch type extra control shows now much larger shapes when using the custom style.
• There is a new Simplified Chinese language translation and the German translation has been updated, including the program online help.

What is new in version 0.2.5:

• Bender returns to zero when mouse is released
• Dialogs: help "WhatIsThis?"
• Updated spanish translation and help file
• Import Sound Font Instruments
• MIDI In always enabled on Linux and Mac
• Implemented RFE# 2779744 - keyboard window: always on top
• Fix for bug# 2790316 - startup crash in OSX when no MIDI port present

What is new in version 0.2.4:

• merged RtMIDI 1.0.8
• overhauled preferences: removed channels, velocity, base octave
• implemented RFE #2488065 - online help
• applied patch #2490414 from Serdar Soytetir: Turkish translation
• build app bundle in Mac OSX
• version string = 0.2.4cvs
• better about dialog
• thru function: Send every incoming event to the output port, do not modify incoming channels. Process inside MIDI callback for better performance.

What is new in version 0.2.3:

• fix for bug #2364787 Rosegarden renders vmpk input unusable
• optimization for Linux: do not create an ALSA queue

Requirements:

• Qt
• CMake