This is the portable edition of Synthesia, a feature-rich and free application that integrates tools for practicing your piano playing skills.
You can drop the program files somewhere on the disk and click the executable to run, as well as run Synthesia from a USB flash drive or similar device on any workstation seamlessly.
It doesn't add new entries to the Windows registry or the start menu, and doesn't leave traces on the HDD after removing it from the system.
The interface is based on a full-screen window that's clean and user-friendly. You can get started by specifying custom locations with MID files to play, and selecting the music input and output device.
Practicing songs on the piano is done through a game whose play-mode is similar to the one of Guitar Hero, at the end of which you get a progress breakdown, score chart and table. You can just watch the game and listen to the song, practice the melody or rhythm with the left hand, right hand or both, as well as play a song recital at full speed and try to not make mistakes.
As far as gameplay settings are concerned, it is possible to change the way you play notes (all, or only the ones correctly matching), adjust the note loudness, show MIDI markers as bookmarks, set rainbow key labels, and more.
You can reconfigure hotkeys for menu and song navigation, play controls, bookmarks, loops, and finger hints, as well as alter the color theme. Advanced users may tinker with settings related to the title screen news, melody practice data, particle effects, never-ending notes, MIDI track channels, instrument change messages, and others.
Synthesia is surprisingly light on the system resources. It is very responsive to commands and works smoothly. No error dialogs have been shown in our tests, and the app did not hang or crash. Thanks to its modern layout, standard and advanced settings, Synthesia should please all types of users.
What's New in This Release:
· Lots of new metadata support for the upcoming song store.
· Add your own background image using the configuration tool.
· Click the score box to hide it.
· The "Scale Number" label mode is back.
· Over a dozen more bug fixes and improvements.