We’re always pleased to see an open source tool compete with well-known commercial products. A good example is Virtual Midi Piano Keyboard, or VMPK for short. This is a spectacular application for musicians and also for everyone else who enjoys piano music. VMPK doesn’t produce any sounds itself, but does provide a user-friendly interface between you and the MIDI subsystem in Linux. Naturally, those people who own real piano synthesisers will be most interested in VMPK. This tool is superb for digital music recording once you connect the piano keyboard to your Linux machine. Even the standard MIDI bank (aka ‘General MIDI’) has a vast selection of instruments to choose from, and you can attach custom banks, too.
Enjoy a responsive virtual piano with dozens of instruments, sustain, note editing and more.