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Frequently Asked Questions
About the Game
Technical and Support
Community Synthesia is a game that teaches you to play the piano using falling notes. No sheet music reading is required. With it, you can:
It's not done yet, but I'm working hard to finish it. Don't let that stop you though. You can always download the latest version and try it out. Synthesia is completely free. There is an optional add-on pack that unlocks several educational features in the game. Visit the Synthesia Learning Pack page to learn more. 
To use Synthesia you need a real piano or synthesizer, a Windows PC or Macintosh computer, and MIDI music files. (Check this forum post for discussion on where to find MIDI songs on the Internet.) If your piano is connected to your computer (via USB, MIDI cables, or an adapter) then Synthesia reads from it and scores your playing. If not, Synthesia lets you follow along on your own without scoring. Synthesia also lets you choose which instruments you play in a MIDI song and which are played in the background for you as back-up. If you don't have a musical keyboard, check out some that I recommend. Q: What kind of music is included? A: The game includes music from a couple sources. First are several great piano arrangements from classic video games courtesy of Game Music Themes. Next, there are more than one hundred songs included from Gilbert DeBenedetti's excellent G Major Music Theory site. All of them are organized by difficulty so it is easy to find something at your own level of difficulty. Most important, the game can play any MIDI song readily available on the Internet. This forum post is a good starting point to find thousands and thousands of MIDI songs. Q: Do I need a musical keyboard? Can I just use my computer keyboard? A: The game includes a "software keyboard" that uses your computer's (typing) keyboard. That will let you try out the game if you're still on the fence about getting a musical keyboard. However, you'll have the most fun and get the most benefit out of Synthesia with a real USB or MIDI keyboard. The Keyboard Recommendations page suggests a few musical keyboards that have plenty of features at low prices, but the game should work with any keyboard compatible with your system. Q: Do I need to know how to read sheet music? A: No. In the game, piano-roll style notes fall from the top of the screen and travel towards a piano displayed at the bottom. All you have to do is hit the same note just as it crosses the keyboard. If you prefer to read sheet music or would like to learn how, you can unlock the sheet music display in the Synthesia Learning Pack. Q: How can I figure out which fingers to use during a song? A: Right now there isn't a way to show fingering suggestions. There is an upcoming feature on the voting page called "Manual Note Fingerings", but it's not done yet. In the meantime, there has been some excellent support in the community to help with the problem. In particular, the HDPiano.com website uses video of a real pianist playing along with Synthesia tracks. Sean, the creator, adds new video lessons every week and even accepts song requests. Check it out here. A: Synthesia used to be named "Piano Hero". For those wondering where it went, I received a cease and desist letter from Activision requesting the name be changed. The cease and desist page lists all the communication. I decided to comply, choose a new name for the project, and update the website/game. I held a name contest to come up with suggestions. Daniel Lawrence from vgmusic.com suggested Synthesia and won. Thanks again Daniel! Q: Is the source code available? A: Synthesia used to be an open source project. The last available open source version was 0.6.1. That version has the complete Win/Mac cross-platform MIDI library in C++ and it is reasonably bug-free. You can get the 0.6.1 source at the project's old SourceForge download page. Q: Which operating systems are supported? A: The game should work in Windows 2K/XP/Vista and Mac OS 10.4+. (A Linux version isn't planned. See this forum post for the discussion.) Q: Is my computer fast enough to play it? A: It should be. The most important thing you need is hardware accelerated 3D support. (Both OpenGL and DirectX are supported in Windows. OpenGL on the Mac.) Otherwise, the game only uses about 20 MB of RAM and should run on anything about 1 GHz or faster. If you are having trouble with speed, you might try lowering your display resolution. Right now the game uses your desktop resolution directly. Going as low as 800x600 can speed things way up. It's a little inconvenient for now, but I plan on adding resolution options in the future. Q: I found a bug. What do I do? A: Please report it! I try to keep the game as bug free as possible. Actively resolving bug reports is a large part of that. There is a section on the forum just for bug reports or you can email me directly (nicholas@synthesiagame.com). Even if you email, there is a nice set of reporting guidelines on the forum to follow. Q: Do you take feature suggestions? A: Yes. Because the game isn't finished yet, I'll still listen to good ideas from others. Many suggested features have made it into the game and I suspect many more will. I've even built a user feature voting system into this website so everyone has a chance to influence the development direction. If your idea isn't already on that list, there is a section on the forum just for new feature requests or you can email me directly (nicholas@synthesiagame.com). A: Yes, but since I started selling Learning Pack unlock keys, they're naturally less frequent. But, if you already have a key and would still like to help the project even more, feel free to visit the donors page. Q: Where can I go to discuss the game? A: The forum is a great place. |
