Progress on DIY isomorphic layout
Mike Battaglia
Mike Battaglia
Red Davies
I can confirm that I now have the first midi output of the keyboard. It's now at a point where the brave or foolhardy could possibly join me in a second build.
I'm planning on making some modifications and additions to the design as follows:
0) Changing the PCB design from 6x4 to 5x4. Only when it came time to put the standard cherry keycaps on did I realize that I places the keys too close together. Not only is it ergonomically uncomfortable but I need to modify the keycaps to fit. Not acceptable.
1) Changing the "off the shelf" microcontroller from the GG board to either the widely available Prop Quickstart board (available at every Radio Shack as of last month) or a custom board.
2) Building the LED driver board to light up the keys and write the supporting software.
I'm strongly considering making a custom board which contains the micro-controller and all the supporting keyboard and driver logic. Doing so will save a fortune in build costs and mechanicals.
Lastly,
In all seriousness, if there really are people who are watching this project I'm more than happy to put more work into it. It's been my pet challenge project, if others will find it useful then I'll try and get people's requirements and start to develop it.
So Mike - where do the microtonal people hang out? I'd be happy to join your group and help with specific designs for that domain.
Thanks,
Red
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Mike Battaglia
swamped with work lately. Some comments below -
On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Red Davies <noid...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Greetings!
>
> I can confirm that I now have the first midi output of the keyboard. It's
> now at a point where the brave or foolhardy could possibly join me in a
> second build.
Just so I can get my head wrapped around this - what exactly is the
scope of the project right now? Are you just custom-ordering PCBs and
self-assembling things? Does it have to integrate with a computer, or
is it a standalone MIDI controller? Does it use USB?
Sorry if you've gone over this before, I just want to be sure I know
what the state of the project is at the current point in time.
> I'm strongly considering making a custom board which contains the
> micro-controller and all the supporting keyboard and driver logic. Doing so
> will save a fortune in build costs and mechanicals.
So one PCB for the switches, and a separate one for the microcontroller?
If I might ask, what language is the microcontroller programmed in? I
know you went over this before, but now I also see you're changing it
above.
> Lastly,
>
> In all seriousness, if there really are people who are watching this project
> I'm more than happy to put more work into it. It's been my pet challenge
> project, if others will find it useful then I'll try and get people's
> requirements and start to develop it.
>
> So Mike - where do the microtonal people hang out? I'd be happy to join
> your group and help with specific designs for that domain.
The situation in the microtonal community is pretty interesting. We
have all of this theory out there to start making use of these other
tuning systems, but we don't have a lot of instruments to play them.
This has put a pretty harsh damper on the amount of music we've been
able to play, with most progress on that front revolving around
guitars: it's pretty easy to just refret a guitar to 22 tones to the
octave instead of 12, for example. For us keyboard players, or even
worse - improvisational keyboard players like me - it hasn't been too
good. That partially changed with the AXiS coming out, which is
actually affordable and something that with custom software we can
retune, but it still has a few problems:
1) The small version is... really small
2) The keys are stuck in this weird coloring scheme which makes it
difficult to find your place on the keyboard sometimes
3) I personally worry about how long the AXiS will be around in the
commercial market
There are some other problem too which make it difficult to play as an
actual musician - no pedal input, no mod wheel or pitch bend, etc. I
don't know if every one of these concerns will be allayed with what
you're doing here, but to have an open source design for something
like this is a huge and monumental step in the right direction for
what we want to do. There are also quite a few people on the forums
who have previously contributed to open source software too, so you
might get some help too.
The two most active sites in the community now are
The Yahoo! Tuning list - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tuning
The Xenharmonic Alliance Facebook group -
http://www.facebook.com/groups/2229924481/
I currently administrate both groups. The tuning list tends to be a
bit more formal, but the people on there also tend to be more into
theory (and more into coding), so you'll get a lot of good feedback
there. XA is kind of a part-theorist, part-composer community, and a
lot of people on there have used generalized keyboards before, so
you'll get some good feedback there too. It's really up to you which
one you want to go for first, but as a first pass, I'd say XA might be
a good place to go. (I know John Moriarty lurks here too so maybe he
can give some other options too.)
-Mike
