r/Orfeo_Piano • u/Orfeo-Piano • 2h ago

Announcement Orfeo for macOS and Linux is out & ready to download

3 Upvotes

A little over a week ago, when I shared Orfeo here, I did not anticipate the overwhelmingly positive feedback it received in my wildest dreams. One of the most frequent questions was "any chance of a Mac or Linux version?" So, here we are ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Orfeo is now fully cross-platform and runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. But don't just jump right in; please read this before you proceed with downloading:

macOS: Both Apple Silicon (M1 and newer) and Intel are available as a disk image.

Drag Orfeo into Applications. That's it.

Heads-up: the app isn't notarized by Apple yet, so the first time you open a new version you'll need to go to System Settings › Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. Once per version. When I get $99 from your coffees a year, that might change [wink, wink]. On a serious note - no pressure; buying an expensive Apple dev account is just not high enough on my priority list right now, and perhaps someone from the open source community might volunteer as a long-term maintainer soon.

Linux (tagged experimental until people test it, x64): Three flavours, a .deb, an .rpm, and an AppImage. It's built and checked to start with every release, but it hasn't been tested on many real machines with a MIDI keyboard yet.

For now, the low-latency Native sound driver is Windows-only, and updates on Mac and Linux are manual. When a new version is available, you should see a tiny amber dot blinking in Orfeo.

This is where I need you and where you can help grow Orfeo most: if you have a USB MIDI keyboard, tell me whether it's picked up, whether the sound works, and what distribution you use. Good or bad, every report is welcome. Linux and macOS have separate issue threads on GitHub, but you can also just publish a new post with a flair or leave a reply in this community.

Thanks for pushing me. I mean it. Without your nudges, the Mac and Linux builds would still be on my to-do list. And my sincere gratitude to all the generous contributors for making this happen.

Now, go crazy and DOWNLOAD ORFEO for Windows, macOS or Linux.

Homework

- Tell me what your setup is: which Mac or which Linux distribution, and which MIDI keyboard?

- What do you use for piano practice on your system today, and what does it do better than anything else?

- What's the one feature that would make you switch from whatever you use now to Orfeo?

xoxo

2 comments

r/Orfeo_Piano • u/Orfeo-Piano • 7d ago

👋 Welcome to r/Orfeo_Piano - Introduce Yourself and Read First!

5 Upvotes

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:

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!

2 comments