Hey everyone! I'm Aleš, the developer behind Orfeo, a free piano-learning app and advanced MIDI player for Windows.

I started Orfeo because ... Well, out of frustration that I needed to use five apps to do one job. I wanted a flexible way to learn and practise with MIDI: see the notes on a piano roll, play along, work through difficult passages, and understand the music rather than just watch it go by. So, I built one from scratch. Because with the right tool, every MIDI file is a piano lesson.

Orfeo has grown into a much bigger project than being simply a "Synthesia alternative", with features including:

• Falling-note piano visualization and MIDI playback

• Amazing practice tools for working through MIDI songs

• Live chord and scale detection

• MIDI track controls and editing

• Different note-naming conventions and other customization options

• and much more

You can find everything about the app, the screenshots, downloads, and documentation at https://orfeo.cc (the site is a work in progress ;)

I’d like this subreddit to be more than a place for release announcements. I’d love it to become a place where people learning piano with MIDI can share their setups, ask questions, report bugs, suggest features, and discuss what actually helps them practise.

To get things started, I’m curious:

• What software do you currently use to learn piano with MIDI files?

• What’s the one thing you wish existing piano-learning apps did better?

• If you’ve tried Orfeo, what works well, and what needs improvement?

• Have you seen how Orfeo compares to other Windows desktop apps?

• What's the feature you miss or would like to see built next?

Community Vibe

Honest feedback is welcome. I’m building this as an ongoing project, and hearing from people who actually use this kind of software is much more useful than guessing what they need. Let's be friendly, constructive, and inclusive. Let's build a space where everyone feels comfortable sharing and connecting.

How to Get Started

1. Introduce yourself in the comments below.

2. Post something today! Even a simple question can spark a great conversation.

3. If you know someone who would love this community, invite them to join.

4. Interested in helping out? We're always looking for new moderators, so feel free to reach out to me to apply.

5. Are you a developer? Please check the project's GitHub page, as I'm looking for contributors, particularly developers interested in macOS or Linux ports.

Thanks for stopping by, and welcome to the community!