MIDI is, in a word, a godsend. This unassuming data-transfer standard is the magic sauce that enables drastically different music technologies, developed decades apart, to tell each other what to do – ...

Step 1: The layout of black and white keys has been standard on most piano and keyboard instruments for centuries, but how do you find your way around it? With 88 keys, a full-size piano keyboard ...

Now that we are well in to 2017, we thought it was a good time to re-assess the MIDI keyboard situation for Mac users. We have some new contenders on the block that have pushed some old favorites to ...

We’ve seen plenty of synths with built-in speakers, but how about a speaker that has a built-in synth? That’s the seemingly ...

The iRig Keys Mini is an electronic MIDI music keyboard that connects to iPhone and iPad with a Lightning cable. Although it isn’t regularly advertised, iPhones and iPads have had great support for ...

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission. First things first: not all keyboards are MIDI ...

Pianos traditionally had keys made out of ivory, but there’s a great way to avoid that if you want to save the elephants. You can build a keyboard using spoons, as demonstrated by [JCo Audio]. The ...

Atom is a “piano roll” sequencer for making music on iOS. A piano roll is named for the software used to run olde worlde player pianos. It’s a roll of paper with holes punched in it. As the roll moves ...

There’s a scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where a little flap in the wall flips down to reveal a small organ embedded there. Gene Wilder plays a bit of Rachmaninoff on the organ, and ...