another helpful use of them, is when you are sending notes from your DAW's own keyboard or your external controller is to see what keys are actually being triggered on the plugin synth. Say for example, you have an external controller or synth connected which has octave up and down buttons. Maybe you are using a Transposer plugin like in Logic that can shift Midi Note On messages up and down the span of 4 octaves. Or you use Transpose values in your Midi Region Inspector menus. You could even be playing in keys on a Midi channel that is triggering a drum kit in Kontakt or something, and quickly switch to another channel that contains a synth plugin playing notes again.

The "C1" you think you are sending from your midi controller can be hitting the plugin synth with Note On messages which are anything but a real C1, and all you have to do is look at the plugin's virtual keyboard to see where those messages are actually landing.

 

Sometimes I play the MIDI keyboard with a software synthesizer in the DAW, but no sound comes out. The first thing I do is click the mouse on the virtual synthesizer keyboard. If the software synthesizer outputs a sound, I know where the problem might be.

The Melohman Octave is likely to be a novelty for many users, proving extremely practical during gameplay. It allows for the easy creation of numerous individually desired sound manipulations, which can be triggered with a finger press or MIDI command.

 

sometimes when i am testing out a brand new (to me) soft synth on my laptop, and i just want to try out a few presets to see whether i even want to keep said soft synth, and i don't want to go through the trouble of connecting and firing up my controller and/or load my daw i like having the ability to click on a few keys on the gui to see how it sounds. yeah, sometimes i get lazy.

 

i cant believe nobody has brought up the fact that keyboards are an important part of the modeling process. Keybeds have components, diodes, resistors, etc. They are arguably just as important, if not more important than a synth's filter, envelops, or oscillators.

 

0.2% more of 0.0001% is almost 0.000102%!

 

Useful feedback, can spot & resolve issues.

 

Oh wow, the screenshot of FM7 instantly brought back memories for me. I couldn't remember the different soft synths I had back in the day, but that was one of them. I don't think I ever had the Waldorf one though. I am certain I had something that looked kinda like it, but that might have just been DreamStation (DXi), which doesn't really look that much like the Waldorf, I suppose (nor emulate it, as DreamStation was an FM synth).

Anyways, I had forgotten about that FM7.. I'm not a big fan of the DX7 today, but back in the day, that thing sounded amazing for a computer musician!

 

Last edited: Jan 19, 2026

Then, there are the ones with parameters so tiny, it requires a Magnifying Glass.

 

a more serious answer to the original question now.

one reason why so many synthesizers come with an own keyboard GUI is the lack of a generic keyboard GUI and/or the impossibility to route it (or them?) in most host programs.

about 400 years back i made the first MIDI plug-ins for mac, and one of them was a "master keyboard", which can be quite useful for all those synthesizers which do not have a built-in GUI keyboard.



so one could as well ask why are there still plug-ins without keyboard - or host programs...

 

delete - lots of lag and timeout today

 

Last edited: Jan 21, 2026

delete - lots of lag and timeout today

 

Last edited: Jan 21, 2026