When we first introduced 1on1 Piano, the goal was simple: make online piano lessons feel like you and your student are in the same room sharing the same piano. Version 3.6.1 builds on that vision by enabling you to easily capture that experience in your session recording and lesson content with one question in mind: what is still getting between you and making great content from your lessons?
For most teachers, the answer isn’t the playing. It’s everything around it: the OBS setup before a lesson, the audio interface that never sounds quite right, the PDFs you need to email afterward, the student inquiry that sat unread until they booked someone else, and the video editing after the lesson. This update is about taking those jobs off your plate. Here’s what 3.6.1 means for your studio.
Look professional on video without a production setup
You’ve probably seen teachers with beautifully framed lesson videos and felt discouraged because they had a complex OBS or ManyCam setup, an audio mixer, and an afternoon of editing behind them. Now you can get that look straight from your lesson with no extra software, no audio interface, and no post-editing.
Formatted Session Recording captures your session exactly the way you’ve arranged it: keyboard view, virtual keyboard, pinned windows and gallery. What you see is what gets recorded. That means your lesson archive looks polished for students, and it doubles as ready-to-share content. Demonstrations, performances, teaching clips for social media: record them in a session and they’re done. No editing afterward. And you can record in vertical or horizontal format, depending on the content destination.
You’ve probably seen teachers with beautifully framed lesson videos and assumed they had OBS, an audio mixer and an afternoon of editing behind them. Now you get that look straight from your lesson. Formatted Session Recording captures the session exactly as you arranged it, keyboard view, virtual keyboard, pinned windows and gallery, in vertical or horizontal format and ready to share with no editing.
Streaming takes that same layout live. Send a session to a private, unlisted or public link, or straight to YouTube and Twitch (Meta is coming soon). Recitals, masterclasses, webinars and open lessons all look like a produced broadcast, and because the stream captures MIDI through our high-definition synthesizer, your audience hears clean piano sound even if your room is noisy.
Your student hears real piano, in real time
Great online piano teaching shouldn’t require a studio’s worth of audio gear. With a data cable that costs under $10, your student hears your playing with lossless clarity, even if they don’t have a digital piano connected. The MIDI Synth recreates your keystrokes on their device, and in 3.6.1 it sounds better than ever. 1on1 Piano loads a standard-definition synth for speed, and you can switch to a high-definition synth for recording and local playback.
Your device’s microphone handles your voice, with voice isolation to cut room noise, so there’s no mixer to buy or set up. Teaching from a shared space or late at night? Use the synth locally with headphones and just a data connection to your piano.
Real-time MIDI Passthrough protects the part of the lesson that matters most: rhythm. 1on1 Piano listens to the quality of your internet connection. When the connection wobbles, it keeps the timing between pianos intact. When the connection is strong, latency is low enough to play duets. (New to piano-to-piano? Here’s why it matters.)
With a data cable that costs under $10, your student hears your playing with lossless clarity, even without a digital piano connected. The MIDI Synth recreates your keystrokes on their device, and in 3.6.1 you can switch to a high-definition synth for recording. Your device’s mic handles your voice with voice isolation, so there’s no mixer to buy, and Real-time MIDI Passthrough keeps the timing between pianos intact when your connection wobbles.
And when you press M for the metronome, you’re not just getting a click in the room. The metronome is synced to the MIDI connection, so it lines up precisely with what your student plays, and you can hear whether they’re really with the beat.
Press M for the metronome. It’s synced to the MIDI connection, so it lines up with what your student plays and you can hear whether they’re really with the beat.
Want to hear it for yourself? Email Paul@1on1piano.com for a demo.
Everyone can see what the hands are doing
Fingering, pedaling and posture are hard to teach from one fixed webcam. Press C to open the Camera Switcher. It shows a sample from every connected camera and lets you stream them one at a time or all together. Most Macs handle up to six cameras, and even basic Windows machines handle three, so a few $20 webcams give you the angles of a professional setup. See camera recommendations.
Press V for the Virtual Keyboard, connected to MIDI, which lights up every note both you and your student play. Students can see exactly what you meant, you can see exactly what they did, and a student without a piano nearby can even play by touch.
Nothing to send after the lesson
The lesson ends, and the admin begins: exporting annotations, emailing PDFs, writing up practice notes. With 3.6.1, all of that is already done by the time you close the window.
Whiteboard and Collaborative Annotations let you upload PDFs and images to the 1on1 Piano Library and mark them up together in real time. Snap a photo of a page in your student’s method book with your phone, work on it during the lesson, and the markings are saved. Students can annotate too, during the session and after, which makes theory worksheets a shared activity instead of homework that gets lost. You can also share annotated documents with other classrooms.
Window Capture saves any video window, including a screen share you’ve drawn on, to the Library. Click the three dots in the top-right corner of the window, choose “Drawing Panel,” then click the capture button.
The lesson ends and the admin begins: exporting annotations, emailing PDFs, writing up practice notes. In 3.6.1 it’s already done by the time you close the window. Whiteboard and Collaborative Annotations let you upload PDFs and images to the 1on1 Piano Library and mark them up together in real time, and students can annotate too, during the lesson and after. Window Capture saves any video window, including a screen share you’ve drawn on.
Press R to start or stop a Session Recording. Recordings are kept in the Library for two weeks, with extra storage available if you’d like to keep them indefinitely.
Automatic Lesson Notes summarize the lesson for you. Many apps charge extra for this; we include it for everyone, because it’s become one of the most useful ways to keep follow-up organized.
Everything lands in the student’s Classroom: recordings, chats, scores, notes and whiteboard captures, together in one place. Your students can find their materials after the lesson, and you don’t need a separate app to manage any of it.
Press R to start or stop a Session Recording; recordings stay in the Library for two weeks. Automatic Lesson Notes summarize the lesson for you, included for everyone. Everything lands in the student’s Classroom: recordings, chats, scores, notes and whiteboard captures, together in one place.
Interested students actually get booked
A student who reaches out is at their most motivated right then. If they wait a day for a reply, they may find another teacher. Notifications for chats, lesson offers and lesson requests now reach phones in seconds. When you accept a request or send an offer through Match, the student knows right away.
Then the Match Calendar Booking Link closes the loop. Add the booking link of your choice to your profile, and it’s revealed to the student as soon as a request or offer is accepted, so they can book straight onto your calendar. Keep using the scheduling tool you already like; no new calendar integration required.
A student who reaches out is at their most motivated right then. Notifications for chats, lesson offers and lesson requests now reach phones in seconds, so when you accept a request through Match, the student knows right away. The Match Calendar Booking Link closes the loop: add your own booking link to your profile and it’s revealed as soon as a request or offer is accepted.
Teach a whole room, anywhere in the world
Rooms now hold up to 100 people and sync up to 100 MIDI instruments in real time, up from 50 participants. When one person plays, 99 other pianos can reproduce it live. That opens the door to artist-level lessons, masterclasses, ensemble classes and virtual concerts that simply weren’t possible on a video call.
Language integration lets you and your students work in the language each of you prefers, and Hand Raise lets participants signal they’re ready to play or ask a question without talking over the lesson, so a full room still runs smoothly.
Rooms now hold up to 100 people and sync up to 100 MIDI instruments in real time, up from 50 participants. When one person plays, 99 other pianos can reproduce it live, which opens the door to masterclasses, ensemble classes and virtual concerts. Hand Raise lets participants signal without talking over the lesson, and language integration lets everyone work in the language they prefer.
The software stays out of the lesson
Every wrong click costs time while a student waits. The session’s features menu is now a hamburger menu in the top right, so it’s no longer confused with the three-dot menu on each video window.
And to clear the screen fast, drag to minimize: pull the green bar that controls gallery width all the way to the right, and every gallery window collapses at once.
Still free, and built to stay affordable
1on1 Piano is still free. Our payment system is coming soon, and it’s designed around how teachers actually work: you’ll pay only for the hours you use, with full features available to every user. No subscription hanging over a slow month, and most teachers should pay less than they do for Zoom while getting tools built specifically for online music lessons.
Your 3.6.1 hotkeys at a glance
| Key | What it does for you |
|---|---|
| M | Metronome synced to your student’s playing |
| C | Camera switcher for every angle |
| V | Virtual keyboard showing every note |
| R | Start or stop a session recording |
Try 1on1 Piano 3.6.1 today
Everything in this update is available now. Head to the online piano lessons sign up page to create your free account, or see how to use our online piano lessons app to get your studio set up. Questions or want a live demo? Email Paul@1on1piano.com. We can’t wait to see how you use it for teaching, performing and sharing your music.