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PianoForge Docs

Getting started

Choose your installer

The download page offers separate Mac installers for Apple Silicon and Intel. To check your Mac, open the Apple menu and choose About This Mac: an Apple M-series chip uses Apple Silicon; an Intel processor uses Intel. Both require macOS 13 or later. Windows uses the Windows x64 installer.

Open your first project

The start screen offers three quick paths: open the demo loop, start with a band template, or start blank. Producer Demo is the fastest route to an existing note you can edit; a blank project does not start with a note.

You can also open a project from disk or return to a recent project. Recent projects can be searched, pinned, unpinned, or removed from the list. PianoForge labels missing and recovered recent files instead of pretending they opened normally.

Project templates

PianoForge currently includes Empty Project, Producer Demo, Solo Piano, Studio Band, 808 Beat, Ambient Bed, and Podcast Score templates. Empty Project starts with a four-bar, 120 BPM project and one MIDI track. Producer Demo is an eight-bar arrangement with drums, bass, chords, lead, and audio.

Make your first edit

  1. Choose Producer Demo on the start screen.
  2. Press Play and then Stop to hear the arrangement.
  3. In the arranger, select a MIDI pattern clip and double-click it to open the piano roll.
  4. Select a note and drag it to a new pitch or time. Press Play again to hear the change.
  5. Save with Command+S / Ctrl+S.
  6. Open Export with Command+E / Ctrl+E, choose WAV, select a destination, and export the project.

See Transport and playback, Piano roll, Arranger and clips, and Exporting for the complete controls and limitations.

Essential file shortcuts

  • New project: Command+N / Ctrl+N
  • Open: Command+O / Ctrl+O
  • Save: Command+S / Ctrl+S
  • Save As: Shift+Command+S / Shift+Ctrl+S
  • Export: Command+E / Ctrl+E
  • Undo: Command+Z / Ctrl+Z

Redo is Shift+Command+Z on macOS and Ctrl+Y on Windows.

Saving and recovery

Save keeps an intentional project file. Recovery snapshots provide an additional safety net. On close, PianoForge pauses playback and temporarily locks project editing while the latest recovery write completes. A failed write offers Keep Working, Retry Close, or Close Without Recovery. The last option may lose unsaved changes. Opening a different project starts a fresh undo history.