MPE Keys

Standalone app, out now for Windows and macOS

Every note you play,
on screen.

The Keyboard, wheels and Grand Staff of MPE Insight, now an app of their own.

For the stage, the stream and the lesson: a piano that shows what your hands are doing, key by key, from any MIDI keyboard you already own. No keyboard at hand? Typing Keys plays it from your computer keys and Mouse Mode from the pointer, and both send real MPE out of the app.

Get MPE Keys It already runs inside MPE Insight

Any MIDI keyboard, computer keys or mouse MPE Keys Your screen, and on to your synth

Pressure Timbre ring Hand split Pitch bend Mod wheel

The idea

One window.
Just the keys.

MPE Insight is a workshop, a full expression laboratory. Most of the time, though, you want the keys. MPE Keys is the keyboard, the wheels beside it and the staff that writes it down, running on their own, in a window shaped for just them.

What it is

A standalone app

Not a plugin and not a browser page. One window with the Keyboard, the PB / Mod display and the Grand Staff in it, and nothing else in the way.

What it shows

Expression, per key

Every sounding note with its pressure as colour or fill, its bend as a dot that travels to the pitch it sounds, and its timbre as rings around that dot.

Where it comes from

One source, two apps

The same code MPE Insight runs, built a second time with fewer files in it. Every improvement to the keyboard arrives in both.

A smaller app, not a smaller keyboard. Nothing about the Keyboard module itself is cut down for this build.

The film

MPE Keys,
in motion.

The app doing its one job: every note you play, drawn as you play it, with its pressure, its bend and its timbre.

Press play, or watch it on YouTube.

Microtonal, a short demo, or watch it on YouTube.

MPE Keys and MPE Insight can now type, or watch the demo on YouTube.

The short, on YouTube.

Designs

One module,
many ways to read it.

A piano to look at is not one picture. Some rooms want a real instrument, some want a stripe of light, and a camera wants something else again. Every design draws the same four readings and every one carries its own colours. Click a picture to see it full size.

The Classic design in the app window: a full ivory and ebony piano, a red cluster of held keys low down and a blue one an octave above it, each sounding key carrying a coloured dot. — Classica real instrument

The Glass design on a black window: dark polished keys with a gradient down their length, the held notes glowing green, amber, white and violet. — Glasspolished, with depth

The Neon design on a magenta window: keys drawn as dark outlines with magenta caps, the held notes burning as red rings on the left and cyan rings on the right. — Neonoutlines only

The Minimal design on a cyan window: flat white and black keys with no shading, a thin cyan bar at the foot of every key, and three white dots where notes are held. — Minimala bar at the foot of the key

The Dark design on a green window: the keyboard nearly black with a green bar at the foot of each key, the held notes showing as magenta and green dots, and one white column of light. — Darkonly the notes carry light

The Fingerboard design on a yellow window: equal width magenta stripes instead of key shapes, with four held notes glowing as cyan, yellow and green discs. — Fingerboardsemitones, equal width

The Motion design on a dark green window: no keys at all, one wave across the full width, red at the left, rising into magenta in the middle and running out blue to the right. — Motiona wave, not a key

The Microtonal design on a grey window: every key split into a front and a back field so a quarter tone sits behind each one, with glowing rings under the held keys and a wide white ring above them. — Microtonala quarter tone behind every key

The Pixel Grid design in its Piano layout on a blue window: the keyboard as a raster of dim LEDs, held keys lit as solid red and yellow columns in the keyboard's own silhouette, with ripple rings spreading around them. — Pixel Grid, Pianothe keyboard's own silhouette

The Pixel Grid design in its Fingerboard layout on a blue window: the same LED raster, four held notes each lighting a yellow column the full height of the panel, with magenta rings rippling out around them. — Pixel Grid, Fingerboardone column per semitone

The Pixel Grid design in its Accordion layout on a blue window: the LED raster as a chromatic button field, three semitones to a column, with magenta and amber rings rippling out across the cells. — Pixel Grid, Accordionthe button field

All of them are the same module, photographed in the running app, each with the preset it ships with, and every colour in it can be changed. The colour behind the module is not part of the design: that is Transparent BG, the fill a video mixer keys out, and it is yours to pick. Pressure can also fill a key from the bottom like a meter, and a hand split gives the left hand a colour pair of its own.

Per note

Four things happen
on one key.

On an ordinary keyboard display a key is on or off. Under MPE a key has a life: it is struck, it leans, it presses, it brightens. All four are drawn at once, on the key itself.

Pressure

How hard, right now

Channel pressure moves the key's colour between a low and a high tone, or fills it from the bottom up like a meter.

Pitch bend

A dot that travels

The dot slides along the keys to the pitch the note actually sounds, scaled by the bend range your instrument reports over RPN 0. Until it reports one, the MPE default of 48 semitones stands.

Velocity

How hard it was struck

The strike sets how bright the key lights: a soft touch glows dim, a hard one at full strength. A hand split gives the left hand a colour pair of its own.

Timbre

A brightness ring

CC74 rides its own ring, with its own colour pair, size and intensity, so slide and pressure never have to share one signal.

And beside the piano, the two wheels: master pitch bend and modulation from channel 1, as two sliders or as one dial. A third face for the tile is the Expression Pad, a stack of tilting rings you play with the mouse, sending real channel pressure and CC74 to every sounding note.

Three PB / Mod modules side by side in one window. On the left the Classic style: two rounded sliders, one pink for pitch bend and one cyan for modulation. In the middle the Radial style: two concentric arcs around a centre dot, blue for pitch bend, green for modulation. On the right the Expression Pad: a swirl of fine turquoise rings tilted away mid gesture. — PB / Modsliders, dial, or the Expression Pad

The wheel display is the one reading on the page that never converts. It shows the raw master pitch bend position, so full deflection is full deflection whatever range the instrument reports.

Notation

Play it,
then print it.

Record a take and the same playing comes back out as a page: treble and bass clef, the key signature you picked, chord symbols over the systems and the pitch bend drawn as a curve out of the notehead rather than thrown away. The sheet prints whatever the Grand Staff is showing, which makes three pages out of one recording.

The engraved sheet: five systems of treble and bass clef on black, chord symbols such as B flat major 13 and G minor 9 named in amber above them, cyan noteheads trailing a line for as long as the note is held, and thin curves where the pitch bends. — Timeengraved, with barlines

The Flow sheet: four systems with no staff lines and no barlines at all, every voice a coloured ribbon on white, red, green, blue, orange and violet, each one riding at its own height. — Flowribbons, no barlines

The Tab sheet: seven systems of six string lines on white, a fret number on the string each note is played on, a bar behind it for its length and a waving line where the pitch bends. — Tabsix strings, fret numbers

Five views of one playing, side by side: Now, Time, Flow, Weave and Tab. In the app you pick one and switch whenever you like.

Bar breaks follow the tempo of the transport or the incoming MIDI clock, and a recording whose tempo moves gets a grid that moves with it. The same take also leaves the app as a standard .mid and as a CSV.

No controller

It plays, too.

Both playable ways in from MPE Insight come along, and both send real MPE out of the app. A third road runs the other way: what you play presses keys in another app.

Typing Keys

Two manuals under your hands on the computer keyboard, eight white keys each with the sharps on the row above. Those are key positions, not letters, so QWERTY, QWERTZ and AZERTY fall under the same fingers. Space is the sustain pedal.

Mouse Mode

Click or touch a key to send a real MPE note. Each pointer gets its own MPE member channel, so multi touch chords work. Drag sideways for pitch bend, up for pressure, down for timbre.

Hotkeys

The same road the other way. Notes and controllers you play press real computer keys in whatever app is in front, so a pedal can arm the recording in your DAW. Two clicks per row: Learn takes the next thing you play, Set key the next key you press.

The two manuals on a computer keyboard: the number row carries the upper manual's black keys 2 3 5 6 7 above the white keys Q W E R T Y U I, the home row carries the lower manual's black keys S D G H J above Z X C V B N M and comma. Below, the same mapping drawn as a piano from C3 to C5, where the lower manual's top key and the upper manual's first key are one shared C4. — Left, the two manuals on the computer keyboard: the black keys sit where a pianist expects them, because the key rows are staggered like a piano. Right, the same keyboard read backwards: the Hotkeys panel lists what you play against the computer key it presses. The full map is in the docs.

The Hotkeys panel open in the toolbar: four note rows map C3, C sharp 3, D3 and F2 to the computer keys J, K and Shift plus minus, and two controller rows map CC 1 and a row still waiting to learn its trigger. — Left, the two manuals on the computer keyboard: the black keys sit where a pianist expects them, because the key rows are staggered like a piano. Right, the same keyboard read backwards: the Hotkeys panel lists what you play against the computer key it presses. The full map is in the docs.

Mouse Mode: sideways is pitch bend, up is pressure, down is timbre, and all of it leaves the app as real MPE. Every pointer takes its own member channel, so several fingers on a touchscreen are separate voices. On the left, the Expression Pad tilting with the gesture.

And a Demo Mode that generates synthetic MPE without any controller at all, for setting a look up before anyone is watching.

One piece of the key strip, C4 to C5: the note names on the keys, and above them the computer keys they press, A W S E D on C4 to E4 as a T, then F T G Y H U J. — A free printable key strip: the whole Hotkeys map on paper, to stand behind your keys, with W A S D and the arrows each under one hand. PDFs for 88, 61, 49 and 25 keys.

Your setup

Plug in and it runs.

Any class-compliant MIDI device, no drivers needed. An MPE controller shows its full expression straight away; an ordinary keyboard lights the keys it plays.

Key range: 88, 61, 49 or 25 keys. A smaller range means bigger keys, which is what a small screen and a small controller both want.
Tuning: The Microtonal design plays a scale of your own: quarter tones, just intonation, 2 to 96 equal steps, or a Scala file you load, with the concert pitch of A4 wherever your ensemble puts it. The keys sound it on screen and your synth is retuned to match.
Stage view: Shift and F11 clear everything but the picture: no toolbar, no frames, no titles, and the cursor hides after two seconds.
Transparent BG: Drops the panel chrome so only the keys render, with nothing painted behind them.
MIDI in and out: What you play with the mouse or the computer keyboard goes out to any MIDI port you pick: a hardware synth directly, a software synth through a virtual port (loopMIDI on Windows, the IAC Driver on macOS).
MIDI files: Play a .mid file through the same path as live input, with full transport. Its tempo, time signature, key signature and lyrics are read along with the notes.
Grand Staff: The same playing on treble and bass clef, with the key signature you pick and the pitch bend drawn as a curve from each notehead. Five views: the notes you hold right now, a scrolling timeline, expressive ribbons, a harmonic field, or guitar tablature.
Notation: How it is written is yours: note labels as names, degrees or sol-fa, chord labels as symbols, Roman numerals or figured bass, round noteheads or the seven shape notes, and a guitar or ukulele fingering drawn above the chord.
Record and export: Capture a take and write it out as a standard .mid for any DAW, as a CSV to read the numbers, or as a printable notation sheet.
Presets and snapshots: Presets for the keyboard, the staff and the wheels as starting points, then your own looks saved alongside them, and global snapshots for the whole window.
MIDI Learn: Map a hardware knob to a control and keep your hands on the instrument.

Under the hood

System: Windows and macOS
Modules: Keyboard, PB / Mod and Grand Staff
Controller: Any class-compliant MIDI device

MPE Keys is the smaller of the two apps on purpose. AURA, FORGE, CASCADE, DRIFT, the Expression Overview and the Stream Log are not in this build, and not switched off either: the underlying modules are not included at all. If you want those, you want MPE Insight.

Before you buy

Questions

How is it different from MPE Insight?

MPE Keys is the Keyboard, the PB / Mod display and the Grand Staff of MPE Insight, as an app of their own. AURA, FORGE, CASCADE, DRIFT and the Stream Log are not in it. If you want those, you want MPE Insight.

Do I need an MPE keyboard?

No. Any class-compliant MIDI device works: an ordinary keyboard lights the keys it plays, with its wheels on the PB / Mod display, and an MPE controller adds pressure, bend and timbre per note. Typing Keys and Mouse Mode send real MPE with no controller at all.

Does it make sound?

No. MPE Keys is a display, not a synth. What you play with the mouse or the computer keyboard goes out as MIDI to any port you pick, so a hardware or software synth makes the sound.

Can I use it on a stream or a stage?

Yes. Stage View clears everything but the picture, and Transparent BG drops the panel so only the keys render over your stream. Looks are saved as presets and global snapshots.

Where should I buy it?

The price is the same everywhere. The Windows download comes with a licence key for one machine at a time; the Mac App Store and Steam need no key and update the app themselves.

Which one

Which one
fits?

They share one engine and one idea, and each is built for a different desk. Pick by what you want to do with it.

You want to	MPE Drift For your DAW Plugin · CLAP, VST3, AU & AUv3 · Windows & macOS 24,99 € · seven day trial Open MPE Drift	MPE Keys For your screen App · Windows & macOS 14,99 € Get it	MPE Insight For the whole picture App · Windows & macOS 34,99 € Open MPE Insight
Play an ordinary MIDI keyboard and get MPE out
Octave layers, a chord machine and an arpeggiator
Run it inside your DAW as a plugin
Run it on its own, no DAW needed
See the Keyboard, wheels and Grand Staff on screen
AURA, FORGE, CASCADE and the LOG
Record a take and export it as .mid
Play with no controller at all: Typing Keys and Mouse Mode

MPE Drift is the DRIFT module of MPE Insight, extracted into a plugin around the same engine. MPE Keys is the Keyboard, PB / Mod and Grand Staff of MPE Insight as an app of their own. Each one is complete by itself, and none of them needs the others.

Get it

One purchase,
no subscription.

Pay once, download straight away, own it. Updates are included, and there is no subscription behind any of it.

Licence Yours to keep

MPE Keys

Standalone app · Windows & macOS

14,99 €

price incl. VAT

Windows Direct download macOS Mac App Store Steam Windows · Steam

Pay once · No subscription · Updates included

The Windows download comes with a licence key for one machine at a time. On the Mac App Store there is no key at all: the app is tied to your Apple Account.

Updates

What changed

3.1.0 Presets, undo and redo, a key strip2026

Presets. One browser for every collection: step through them, mark favourites, find them by category, keep your own under Mine. The same view in every panel and in the ☰ menu; the names lost their emoji.
Hotkeys for a whole keyboard. One click lays a typewriter onto your keys, and a printable key strip puts the same map on paper behind them.
Undo and redo, 50 steps either way.
And more: tap tempo, and both MPE zones on the wheels.

3.0.4 Your playing presses computer keysSeptember 2026

Hotkeys works the other way around to the typing keys: instead of your computer keyboard playing the app, your playing presses computer keys in any app that is in front. Notes and controllers each get their own list in the toolbar, a row is mapped in two clicks, and it only ever fires from your own hardware.

Hotkeys in the docs

Every earlier release is on the updates page.

Before you go

Want it on your screen?

MPE Keys is out for Windows and macOS, and on Steam. The list carries what is being built next, for this and the other tools.

One list for MPE Insight, MPE Drift, MPE Keys and what comes next. No spam, unsubscribe any time.

Every note you play,on screen.

One window.Just the keys.