Hi, I’m new and discovering Ardour. Everything is fine but one thing i couldnt cover yet . I open virtual keyboard and i want it to follow my MIDI keyboard when i play it. I mean when i play my MIDI keyboard let the virtual keyboard show the keys which i play (I want the keys to light up) . I want it because im a piano teacher and when i record videos i get the screen record of the virtual keyboard and add it main video with the audio i exported from Ardour for my students .
Thank you.
Thank you very much , i guess thats exactly what i want. I downloaded the zip file for linux from gibhub.
Zip file consists files named dexed and dexed.clap in root , and theres a folder named Dexed.vst3. This folder has a sub folder named Contents. Again two subfolders named Resources and x86_64-linux . First one contains moduleinfo.json, second one has Dexed. so I guess i will need the dexed.so file for plugin. I have read the ardour info about installing plugin . (The Ardour Manual - Getting More Plugins) I did the instructions for lxvst, i copied the dexed.so file to the folder named “lxvst” i newly created in usr/lib . Restarted Ardour but couldnt see the plugin in plugin list . Would you give a hand to install the plugin , i will appreciated indeed .
You have to create a .vst3 folder in your home directory.
Then put the Dexed.vst3 folder in that directory.
In Ardour Plugin Manager do a rescan.
That’s all.
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I will try this thank you very much!
Yes It works like a charm ! And virtual keyboard works like i want . But i need only piano sound , i used the calf flusynth till now with sound fonts . How can i get the piano sound with it? It doesnt support sound fonts i guess . Sorry im fully newbie 
Excellent , thank you ! I tried all the piano sounds but none of them is realistic as well as a soundfont does . Maybe i need to find a syx file for a fully real piano sound. But you helped me enough a lot dude , thank you, appreciated . I better do some more search, and need to learn some more about synths . Have great life!
Personally, I use Pianoteq Stage. Paid, excellent quality. Rhodes simulation on the screenshot below, but it has regular piano too.
You can also use something like sfizz as a sampler and a free piano sample in SFZ. There’s a few of them around, like the Salamander piano.
I figured out that i can use dexed with calf fluesynth in Ardour. All i need was using my soundfonts with a virtual keyboard in Ardour. Now i can do it . Thank you for suggestion. I will try the sfizz later also.
You can use the “sfizz” plugin by loading the SalamanderGrandPianoV3.sfz. The sound seems pretty good to me.
For the virtual keyboard, if you use Windows you can try VMPK (Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard), just set it as output in Ardour. To set VMPK as output: start VMPK, then in Ardour right-click on the track head, click “outputs…”, select VMPK.
On Linux I use the VMPK or even better “Jack Keyboard”.
This way the virtual keyboard lowers the keys while you play the real keyboard.
Bye,
a.
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If you are on Linux you can use ACE Fluid Synth that comes with Ardour and load up the General User soundfont then load up jack keyboard and output the track ACE Fluid is on to the jack keyboard, video demo below:
Sorry for delayed thanks . Yes i use linux ubuntu, VMPK is my main VK for record session. And i use just Qsynth w,th soundfonts. For recording i use simple screen recorder. I record the sound (pulseaudio) and VK with it. They are all pretty good to me. But i tried Qtractor first to record MIDI data too as backup for sound . Because sometimes i forget to preview simple screen recorder’s sound recording so my long session work goes to trash. So I used Qtractor for awhile . Then because of it requires Jack server and i’m not good on this stuff decided to try Ardour. I wanted to use its virtual keyboard instead of VMPK because of im lazy to start couple of seperate software for a session . But its VK doesnt response to my key presses as visual . so @axra suggested Dexed plugin and helped me a lot . Dexed worked fine . I used Dexed’s VK for virtual keyboard and Calf Fluidsynth for soundfonts togather . I still work on it for some minimal issues. One of them is that i still cant get good sound as qsynth and VMPK couple give already . Its my bad i know so i need to work on it.
Second one is that when i press the C4 on my keyboard Dexed VK shows C3 .
Thank you very much for suggestion. I will try sfizz and VMPK today. And i had checked Jack Keyboard once but because of its short keyboard i had gave up 
i didnt know it changes while playing . Bye.
Sorry for delayed thank. I watched your demo video thank you for your time. One question is when you play the real keyboard does jack keybord responses as visual? . In your video it responses while you playback i guess. I will try this.
If you manage to build it there is also XKeyboard, being a plugin you don’t need to route your midi externally.
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You are missing out on a very powerful tool, with PipeWire on Ubuntu you can connect software to each other (note that Jack has been replaced by PipeWire). I believe working with software in parallel is the best strategy for those who make music on the pc.
There are excellent tutorials that tell you exactly how to install pipewire and how to set it.
a.
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I use Mamba for this purpose:
Debateable. Very debateable.
Seablade
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Why? PipeWire on Ubuntu 22.04 works great for me. Into the pipewire.conf file I can set the various parameters as desired, in the qjackctl panel I connect everyng to everything…and everything works fine.
a.
Pipewire is an alternative, it has not completely replaced.
You can use Pipewire and get a lot of the reasons people used Jack, but other things like netjack, maybe not as much. Add on to it there seem to still be regressions on a decent enough basis I see people have with Pipewire, there is still reason to stick with Jack for some people.
Don’t get me wrong, I think there is an argument that most people should probably be looking at pipewire at least, but a lot of this is going to depend on their distribution, people like Glen (For instance) are going to care much more about Pipewire for our usage and pay attention to regressions than a standard desktop might.
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