miniKeys

Computers are here to stay probably forever, so the variety of tools and activities in real live have all adapted to be in the form of an application. This includes both leisure and business, including music making. For instance, miniKeys comes as a cool little piano you can keep on your desktop to practice playing whenever you feel like it.

One advantage in particular is the lack of a setup process to take time and effort on your behalf. More than that, it’s good to go from the moment it reaches your computer, and it’s possible to carry it around on a thumb drive to use on other computers, without leaving any traces because registry entries are not altered in the process.

As far as the visual design is concerned, all features are wrapped around a classic window frame, but what’s inside is what counts. In other words, it’s fitted with custom, high-quality textures for the background, as well as the keys. There’s also a volume slider in case you don’t want to use it at maximum decibels capacity.

Interaction is done in one of two ways. On the one hand, you can use the mouse to click keys, but this is rather inconvenient and difficult. On the other hand, the application supports your regular keyboard as a method of input, and it even shows the keys you need to press for each piano tile in an organized info field.

Sound is only mapped for piano, but audio chimes used in the process are of high-quality. Feedback is instantly delivered, and there’s no delay or inconsistencies when pressing, or even holding down multiple keys at a time.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that miniKeys might not come with a great deal of sounds or effects, but it does manage to properly deliver a slim, lightweight, and high-quality option of practicing the piano, even on other computers without going through setup.