Support

Answers to the questions that come up most, and how to reach a human if yours is not here.

Get in touch. The fastest way to reach us is to open an issue on GitHub. Please include your macOS version, your LumaKeys version, and what you were doing at the time.

We aim to reply within two business days.

Getting started

Opening your first file

Click Upload MIDI in the toolbar and choose a .mid or .midi file, then press Play. The notes fall onto the keyboard and a sampled grand piano plays them back. Your file is added to the Catalog so you can load it again later.

Changing how the notes look

Use the Falling Notes menu in the right-hand panel to pick a material, and the Note Colour swatch beside it to set a colour. Rainbow, By Track and Custom are all available from the colour mode buttons.

Common questions

I can't hear anything

Audio starts on your first interaction with the app, so press Play at least once rather than expecting sound immediately after loading. If it is still silent, check that LumaKeys is not muted in System Settings › Sound › Volume mixer, and that your output device is the one you expect.

My MIDI file will not load

LumaKeys reads standard MIDI files (.mid and .midi). Karaoke files (.kar), compressed MIDI, and proprietary formats from notation software need to be exported as a standard MIDI file first. If a file that should work is refused, please send it to us with a bug report.

Playback stutters or drops frames

Set Visual Pack to Studio Balanced or Performance in the right-hand panel. Performance turns off the most expensive glow and blur work and is the right choice on older hardware. Lowering Note Glow and Trail Length also helps.

Exporting takes a long time

Export renders every frame, so a five-minute piece is a real encode rather than a screen recording. The progress panel shows the current stage and a live estimate of the time remaining. To make it quicker, lower the resolution or frame rate before you start.

Where do my exported videos go?

Finished exports are saved to your downloads location and also appear in the Catalog tab, where you can play, download or delete them.

The exported video looks different from the preview

Export uses the settings that are active when you press the export button. If you change a material or colour partway through a render, restart the export so the whole video is consistent.

Can I use LumaKeys videos on YouTube?

Yes. Videos you render are yours. Bear in mind that the underlying musical work may still be in copyright depending on the piece and the arrangement, which is between you and the rights holder.

Reporting a bug

A good report gets a fix much faster. Please include:

Your macOS version and Mac model
The LumaKeys version, shown in the About panel
What you expected to happen, and what happened instead
The MIDI file, if the problem only happens with one file
A screenshot or screen recording where it helps

Open a bug report →