Expresseur for Mac

Expresseur for Mac lets you record music as well as play several prerecorded musical scores by pressing a single button on the keyboard. While the premise of playing music with your computer keyboard and not having to worry about notes does sound liberating, the app features an overly cumbersome interface that makes it hard to use.

After a quick setup during which you choose performance preferences, such as latency and piano quality, Expresseur for Mac gives you a list of several songs to play. The process of playing music is straightforward: You press a button that's not preset a shortcut and you play the next chord in the sequence. While this sort of interaction does feel inviting, the rest of the app is in stark contrast to it, in that it's overly complicated. You have a staggering amount of options with intricate hierarchies, some of which go down to seven levels deep. All of this creates a steep learning curve, which might turn some users off. One feature that does stand out, however, is the full support for MIDI controllers.

If you have a MIDI-enabled device and happen to be a fan of classical music, you may find Expresseur for Mac interesting. Most users, however, will probably feel confused and frustrated due to the overwhelming number of options.