Flex Music Labs

Learn

Send PianoFlex's notes to another instrument

PianoFlex can pass notes on instead of playing them: a MIDI file's notes, ComposerFlex's songs, and what you play. They can go to a hardware synthesizer, a digital piano with MIDI in, or another program on the same PC. PianoFlex stays silent while it does, so you hear only the other instrument.

What you need

  • For an instrument: connect it to the PC by USB or a MIDI interface, and switch it on.
  • For another program on the same PC: a virtual MIDI port, which passes MIDI from one program to another. PianoFlex doesn't include one. Two free ones work:
    • loopMIDI, by Tobias Erichsen (tobias-erichsen.de). Open it once and click + to make a port. Leave it running, with Autostart loopMIDI ticked.
    • LoopBe1, by Nerds.de (nerds.de). Its port is always there once it's installed. It's free for personal use; commercial work needs a license after 30 days.

1. Choose where the notes go

In the MIDI out box beside the slots, click the port's name (with its ▾), or press Shift+5 (the % key). Pick your instrument or virtual port from the list. PianoFlex remembers it for next time.

2. Switch MIDI out on

Click the MIDI out box, or press 5. It reads On, and PianoFlex goes quiet.

  • A MIDI file: open one and press Play. Its notes go to the port as it plays.
  • ComposerFlex: its songs go to the port too, with a file open or not. The box reads On, live when it's ComposerFlex alone.
  • Your playing: your MIDI keyboard, the keys on the screen and the pedal bars go there as well.

3. In the other program

Choose the same port as its MIDI input. In REAPER, for example, set a track's input to that port, arm it, and switch on record monitoring for the track. The track then plays, or records, what PianoFlex sends.

4. Switch back

Click the MIDI out box or press 5 again, or click a slot. You hear PianoFlex again. You can switch back and forth as often as you like, and the port you chose is used at once.

Stopping the file, or opening another one, switches MIDI out off too. Switch it on again to send the next file.

When something's off

  • "No MIDI port to send to on this PC" in the yellow line: connect an instrument or install a virtual port, then try again.
  • The port isn't there when you switch MIDI out on: the yellow line says so, and the list opens so you can choose another.
  • The port goes away while MIDI out is on (a cable pulled, loopMIDI closed): the yellow line says so. When the port comes back, PianoFlex sends to it again by itself.
  • Your keyboard comes in on the same port MIDI out sends to: PianoFlex doesn't send the keyboard's notes out, because they'd go round in a loop, and the yellow line says so.
  • The touch feels different on the other instrument: your keyboard's Velocity Curve shapes the keyboard's notes PianoFlex sends. A file's and ComposerFlex's notes go out as they are, unless All notes is ticked in the Velocity Curve panel. See Fit PianoFlex to your keyboard.
  • MIDI out is in the PianoFlex program only. In a music program, use its own MIDI routing.

More: all the Learn guides and the PianoFlex user guide.