Show HN: Play MIDI music files from a folder or ".m3u" play list for Windows
Mood
informative
Sentiment
positive
Category
startup_launch
Key topics
Midi Playback
Windows Software
Music Software
Open Source
Brief Background - Used midi playback way back in the days of Windows 95 for some fun and entertaining apps, but as Windows progressed, it seemed their midi support (for Win32 anyway) regressed in both startup speed and reliability. Midi playback used to be near instant on Windows 95, but on later versions of Windows this was delayed to about 5-7 seconds. And reliability became somewhat patchy. This made working with midi a real headache.
Cynthia was built to test and enjoy midi music once again. It's taken over a year of solid coding, recoding, testing, re-testing, and a lot more testing, and some hair pulling along the way, but finally Cynthia works pretty solidly on Windows now.
Some of Cynthia's Key Features: * 25 built-in sample midis on a virtual disk - play right out-of-the box * Play Modes: Once, Repeat One, Repeat All, All Once, Random * Play ".mid", ".midi" and ".rmi" midi files in 0 and 1 formats * Realtime track data indicators, channel output volume indicators with peak hold, 128 note usage indicators * Volume Bars to display realtime average volume and bass volume levels * Use an Xbox Controller to control Cynthia's main functions * Large list capacity for handling thousands of midi files * Switch between up to 10 midi playback devices in realtime * Playback through a single midi device, or multiple simultaneous midi devices with lag and channel output support * Custom built midi playback engine for high playback stability * Custom built codebase for low-level work to GUI level * Also runs on Linux/Mac (including apple silicon) via Wine * Smart Source Code - compiles in Borland Delphi 3 and Lazarus 2 * MIT License
YouTube Video of Cynthia playing a midi: https://youtu.be/IDEOQUboTvQ
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/blaiz2023/Cynthia
Discussion Activity
Light discussionFirst comment
16m
Peak period
1
Hour 1
Avg / period
1
Based on 1 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Nov 24, 2025 at 8:58 AM EST
24m ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Nov 24, 2025 at 9:14 AM EST
16m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
1 comments in Hour 1
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Nov 24, 2025 at 9:14 AM EST
8m ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
Discussion hasn't started yet.
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.