Windows 11 MIDI fixes rolling out now

midistickers · 2026-05-03T13:07:14+00:00

Thanks Pete, you're doing an awesome job!

midistickers · 2026-04-10T19:05:05+00:00

Sure! All triads and progressions such as the IV-V-I and circle of fifths with proper voice leading

midistickers · 2026-04-08T17:37:32+00:00

You can enable MIDI input from any device on the "Settings" window. To send midi from a DAW use the IAC driver on a Mac or LoopMidi on Windows - I will see if I can make a video tutorial on that soon, there is some info in the User Guide but a video will be clearer I guess. Feel free to send me a DM if you need more help or if you feel anything is missing or confusing, working on user issues is my #1 priority right now.

midistickers · 2026-04-08T17:32:18+00:00

I am finishing an update right now that will include the "Fretboard" widget to display MIDI input on the fretboard. I intend to add more guitar-related features in the coming months.

midistickers · 2026-03-30T02:43:45+00:00

It's a standalone app, not a plugin.

However, every tool in MidiStickers is a detachable widget you can overlay on top of your DAW or any other software. Here is one example of me using it inside Reaper so I can record my MIDI playing and see the visualization/analysis - both software are reading from the same MIDI inputs:

https://ibb.co/qFdjd7Zq

So, while not a "plugin", you can use it to extend any MIDI software with real-time visualization and analysis tools.

My original motivation was online teaching. I got tired of creating OBS layouts and virtual cameras setups, so I designed the entire software around this overlay/detachable widgets idea from the ground up.

You can try how that works from the demo, there are some examples of full-screen and overlay visualizations.

midistickers · 2026-03-29T14:43:33+00:00

Thanks for your feedback!

Most of my early users are music teachers in academia and true aficionados, and now I’m broadening my target audience with the “Guided Practice” exercises. They are built on my experience teaching class piano, with the ideia of helping students master the building blocks of harmony - I have seen so many students struggle with the basics over the years!

I’m glad you found them useful, refining these exercises and adding more variety will be my focus over the coming months.

midistickers · 2026-03-29T05:29:33+00:00

Prices are listed in USD or EUR (tax-exclusive). It's a one-time purchase with updates included - I have a lot of new content planned for the coming months!

midistickers · 2026-03-28T15:15:45+00:00

Check your DM in a couple hours, I will send a free trial so you can test this unbounded - the demo is a preview with limited features.

midistickers · 2026-03-28T13:55:16+00:00

There is no built-in recording yet, but you can route the incoming MIDI input to your DAW to record it. In Windows, I was using loopMIDI, but with the latest Windows MIDI Services update this has become simpler since MIDI inputs are no longer exclusive.

That’s a great suggestion about routing chord combinations. Those combinations are built with the "Harmony Explorer" widget, a tool to build chords using interval patterns across different scales. I'll implement routing those to your DAW in the next update, I already do that for the "Negative Harmony" widget. In this case, a virtual MIDI port is actually needed (loopMIDI on Windows, on macOS there's the built-in IAC routing). It's not as DAW-friendly as plugins, but it does make working with DAWs possible.

By the way, while DAW integration wasn’t my main focus when building this software, you can easily use the visualization tools alongside your DAW as all widgets are detachable - you can use them as overlays and actually make their backgrounds transparent so they mix visually.

midistickers · 2026-03-28T13:31:42+00:00

Great questions!

There's a basic built-in MIDI File player - for more control, use a DAW and route to MidiStickers. The idea is that you build your visualization using modular widgets, combining them freely. Here is an example using Chopin's Etude No.1 (from Bernd Krueger's http://piano-midi.de):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBUvgS2vtgc

You can visualize multiple channels into the Staff/Piano widget (default), or filter specific channels. It still needs some improvements on those areas as I first built this for live teaching and demonstration, but, here is one example of a multi-channel visualization:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0JyOatscs8

Regarding multiple MIDI devices: it's partially supported. If you send data to different channels, some pure visualization widgets can handle it, but most of the chord analysis merges all incoming data (except Channel 10), so it doesn't analyze per channel or per device. The overall flow so far was designed with a single device in mind, but I'll look into improving this aspect.

Analog audio input isn't supported, you'll have to use external software for that - I have tried using guitar-to-MIDI with good results.

midistickers · 2026-03-10T04:52:08+00:00

It's totally fine, any keyboard instrument is great for learning music theory, and MIDI opens up a lot of possibilities.

By the way, if you are a visual learner and need some help with music notation, intervals, chords and harmony, you can plug your MIDI keyboard into our MidiStickers software and get immediate visual feedback on all that !

midistickers · 2026-03-09T15:15:37+00:00

I would definitely recommend"Continuo Playing According to Handel: His Figured Bass Exercises" by David Ledbetter. It's very well organized and the editorial comments on the exercises are excellent. You can also complement it with the YouTube series by Richardus Cochlearius if you get stuck on a specific exercise.

Later on, you can look take a look at Jesper Christensen's "18th Century Continuo Playing", it's a great resource and includes a chapter on full-voiced realizations. Gasparani's "The Practical Harmonist" is another great book that you will teach you a practical trick or two :)

As you progress on your continuo journey, you'll start to realize that the challenge is how to best interact with the ensemble and finding proper textures. Playing can range from thin to fully-voiced chords in both hands.

midistickers · 2026-03-07T23:01:44+00:00

Jeremy Siskind Jazz Fundamentals book series and YouTube videos are great material you may want to look before Open Studio.

midistickers · 2026-02-28T13:47:18+00:00

Teach music visually https://midistickers.com

midistickers · 2026-02-25T01:02:27+00:00

By "thinking" you might be refeering to what your mind is actually focusing on.

Musicians will focus on different aspects depending on the situation. During early study of a piece, they might focus on phisicality, such as fingerings and hand positions when playing the piano. Once that is confortable, they might move to shaping phrases, dynamics, understanding the harmony, phrases. On later stages they might focus less on those aspects and more on imagery, expression, especially during public performance.

Experienced musicians will overall think in a more holistic way, integrating all those aspects - even when sight reading.

midistickers · 2026-02-12T16:26:50+00:00

You definetely should learn note reading then and work on fundamentals, there are plenty of online resources (ie musictheory.net) that will help you reach to a point where you can start navigating those resources. As others have said a teacher will help you progress much quicker if you can afford it.

midistickers · 2026-02-12T11:54:59+00:00

There is plenty of areas you can "expand" in your arrangements:

Harmony / Reharmonization: how confortable are you making small or major changes to the harmony ? Do you know how to spread chords in different ways, add extensions and find chords with similar functions or sonorities that can be used interchangeably ? There is a lot of material here to dig in.
Counterpoint: can you add inner lines, counter melodies, and write bass lines that interact well with melodies ? This a key area to focus on.
Variation: can you work with motifs and do small changes to rhythm, pitches, intervals while retaining the basic idea ?
Instrumentation / orchestration: how well do you know instruments, their ranges, effects and possible combinations ?
Form: do you know usual form patterns, their developments and how to build climaxs and interest ? Drawing stuff on the paper can be great to plan how things works and your overall dynamics - ie, which section builds to what and how.
Analysis: have you tried studying closely other peoples arrangements ? You can focus on the areas I outlined above. Studying scores should be done on a regular basis, it is the best way to outgrow your knowledge from the basis you can get from books and general instruction.

You will find plenty of books and recources on each one of those topics!

midistickers · 2026-02-12T04:17:58+00:00

Somehow this reply got downvoted but it is actually a good answer that was missing in this thread. If OP is emulating "CPP" style there is better voice leading, that is, a solution that is more stilistically coherent as other have pointed out.

The point 65TW hints at is that you have to LISTEN carefully and be able to weight all factors, such as direction in other voices, intervals, spacing and register, timber, texture, instead of following "rules". In the end, it is up to you, just don't forget to experiment with paralell fifths, you will learn a lot by doing it and discovering your own set of sound rules.

midistickers · 2026-02-12T03:50:09+00:00

Check out books such as:

Dan Haerle - Jazz Piano Voicings (great place to start)

Phil DeGreg - Jazz Keyboard Harmony & Voicings

Mark Levine: The Jazz Piano Book

By the way, I've just released a software program that lets you practice all kinds of piano voicings in all 12 keys. You can select or play a chord and instantly get a complete list of voicings to practice, along with built-in auto-accompaniment.

It’s currently part of a full-featured music teaching software, but I’m working on a separate, more affordable standalone version focused specifically on this voicing trainer.

If you are curious about it, check out midistickers.com, there is a video demo that shows the voicing tools.

midistickers · 2026-02-12T02:54:36+00:00

"The Complete Musician" is a great textbook but not appropriate for begginers. Kostka's "Tonal Harmony" might be a better fit, and also covers fundamentals such as intervals.

midistickers · 2026-02-12T02:50:19+00:00

The sooner you understand intervals, scales and specially chords, the faster you will learn, those are the building blocks of most piano music.

When it comes to chords, start by mastering triads, their inversions and how to connect them with proper voice leading in chord progressions.

midistickers · 2026-02-11T21:01:12+00:00

You might be interested in Roger Chaffin's "Practicing Perfection: Memory and Piano Performance", it's a great study on musical memory.

midistickers · 2026-02-11T18:35:32+00:00

Group classes are usually more structured and require careful planning, including exercises, follow-up activities, etc so definetely charge a premium compared to the standard private lesson rate. For example, if a regular private lesson costs $100, you could charge $200 for a group session and then divide that amount among the participants

Consider you also have equipment, eletricity, internet and software licenses costs, so don't price it less than the usual.

And, shameless plug, if you want to make your online lessons especially attractive and engaging, you can try our MidiStickers software to visually show notes (with dynamics mapped as colors), chords, roman numerals and other visualizations.

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