Don't need midi cable anymore

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anquang8396
Posts: 2

Post by anquang8396 »

Dear Sir
I've practiced piano for 1 month and I found synthesia is the best app for me to practice because I can play some vietnamese songs that I like which isn't quite popular in the world through midi. But after trying some hard sheets, I found it was hard to follow the notes even if I use 10% of normal speed. Another problem is my piano doesn't have midi cable to plug into my labtop or tablet. I've tried to search other app to help me and I found flowkey has a function that allow its app hear the notes that I was playing. My device’s microphone will pick up notes heard on my acoustic piano, if I play notes right I can continue play the next note. I hope synthesia can do the same, If it has this function, I think synthesia will be the best app for me and I'm sure I will pay to have synthesia.
Best regard
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

anquang8396 wrote: 10-23-21 4:05 amAnother problem is my piano doesn't have midi cable to plug into my laptop or tablet...
Most of Synthesia's usefulness comes from having a MIDI connection to a digital piano, so I can see how just trying to follow along at very low speeds wouldn't be as helpful.

I've gone back and forth on how desirable a feature like the one in FlowKey might be to Synthesia. By using a microphone, the computer or tablet can't know about the note until the keyboard has actually played it and played it loudly enough and long enough for the app to have the confidence to say "yes, that's an F#". If there's any noise in the room, it takes even longer to gain this confidence.

To contrast: a MIDI signal is sent when you begin striking a digital piano key well in advance of any sound coming out of the speakers. And when it arrives at the computer or tablet, there is immediately 100% confidence in the note you intended to play.

It doesn't sound like much, but the delay between the two might be something like 150 to 200ms. For very slow, single-note playing with lots of pausing and waiting for the user, it can mostly work. For anything more advanced than that, it quickly falls apart and gives a bad experience.

So we're stuck in a strange place: we could add a feature that would enable more users to use Synthesia... to have a poorer experience. (Once you don't need a MIDI connection, I'd imagine general indolence would even drive many users that have MIDI-enabled keyboards to simply use the microphone method, leading to a worse experience for even more users!)

For now, it's something I'd like to tinker with in the future, but I've not put any special priority on getting there quickly. There are other features that will have a stronger positive impact on more users that I'd like to get to first.

It's a lot to ask of all of you out there, but requiring a USB or MIDI connection with a digital piano increases the responsiveness of the app so dramatically that I don't mind making it a requirement.
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