"Piano Hi-Lite" and alternatives

danklim · Post by **danklim** » 05-25-18 8:40 am

Hi, looking into the "Piano Hi-Lite" and alternatives.

How good are these? Do they work great or have any problems?

Which is the best option?

Wondering if the tech is ready for completely seamless playing w synesthesia yet or i should wait a couple months/years?

Thanks, Dan

danklim · Post by **danklim** » 05-25-18 8:44 am

Also curious about lighted keyboard vs lighted add on for keyboard. Would appreciate any comparisons/info of these as well

Post by **Nicholas** » 05-25-18 1:43 pm

Regarding the Hi-Lite, during our testing I was surprised at how well it worked. As long as you've got a full 88-key piano (otherwise it would be too long), it should work well. In the collective hour or so of testing use, I don't remember seeing a single miss-detected note.

My only nitpicks:

They made some really strange decisions with the Bluetooth feature; plan on using it with a wire.
If you bump it (fairly hard) it will switch some keys back into the little 1-2 second calibration mode. That bump almost has to be intentional to be hard enough, though.
I saw a bit of glitching when Synthesia was sending many (10+) key light messages at once. For simpler songs with only one part being sent out as key lights, that's a non-issue. If you wanted to use it like a laser-light show and send many complicated parts out to it, you might end up with some stuck lights. (The lights themselves are completely optional. You can use the strip as an input-only device if you prefer.)