Converting a non-MIDI keyboard

[ShaqueNova]

I appreciate your concern for any financial woes I may face, but I really want to build it... simply for something to occupy me, even if it costs me over $100. I know it sounds silly to spend money on something I could simply buy, but then I will never learn anything that way and I enjoy woodworking as well as electronics. though I'm not an expert in the latter.

[tubelab.com]

I know it sounds silly to spend money on something I could simply buy

Not at all silly. Anyone here could simply buy the things that we choose to build, and then this forum would cease to exist. I like making things too. I have been doing it since I was a teenager, and I hope to be building stuff till I die. I have built things just to see if my idea was stupid or not, then taken them apart. I take an evening woodworking class at a local high school to learn how to make wooden things......like guitars. So far I have tossed most of my creations in the trash, but thats how you learn.

My problem is that I have too many ideas for things I want to build, and not enough time to make them all. For me the keyboard / controller was an easy choice. It would take too long for me to learn what I needed to know to make something I would likely never make again, so I got the Oxygen. I already had my daughters Roland JV1000 that she left behind when she moved out, but it takes up far too much space. Space is another thing that is in short supply, and a full size keyboard doesn't make sense for someone who can barely play one.

If you choose to build this, think about whatever extra knobs, slide pots, trigger pads, and wheels you could use with FL studio, and add them. The Oxygen that I have is an older model and it doesn't have as many knobs and buttons as the current O25. Those would be handy when recording or mixing with Sonar.

[ShaqueNova]

Firstly, I like your attitude, it's realistic and essential. I am a man with many ideas and not enough time to do things as well, but space however, I have plenty of. Mainly because I'm not one of those types of people who like to horde little inanimate things of wonderment. If I've owned something for years when I do a clean out of old things, I don't ever think to myself "No, I better keep this in case I need it one day". Especially if it wasn't hard to come by in the first place.

About this project, when I designed the enclosure, I left so much space for future possibilities that I can add literally a hundred knobs or sliders. I already considered this when someone mentioned that my project was a good candidate for a synth design. I am still researching methods and electronics because I am not up to speed and I've never attempted a project of such scale. It will be a while before I can begin, but I'm glad this site and you guys are all here to assist me, that way I can start sooner.

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by ShaqueNova

Firstly, I like your attitude, it's realistic and essential. I am a man with many ideas and not enough time to do things as well, but space however, I have plenty of. Mainly because I'm not one of those types of people who like to horde little inanimate things of wonderment. If I've owned something for years when I do a clean out of old things, I don't ever think to myself "No, I better keep this in case I need it one day". Especially if it wasn't hard to come by in the first place.

About this project, when I designed the enclosure, I left so much space for future possibilities that I can add literally a hundred knobs or sliders. I already considered this when someone mentioned that my project was a good candidate for a synth design. I am still researching methods and electronics because I am not up to speed and I've never attempted a project of such scale. It will be a while before I can begin, but I'm glad this site and you guys are all here to assist me, that way I can start sooner.

The hardest part of this project will be adding the key switches to all those keys. It will be a lot of mechanical work. I thnk the best plan is to NOT use mechanical switches. It is very, very hard to make a switch that uses so little force to trip that you can't feel it while playing. The betterplan would be optical sensors. These are basically an LED that shines on a phototransistor. There is a slot between where a slider can go. You make a small hole in the slider and when the hole lines up the transistor conducts "on". You need two of these for every key. But if the controler is "smart" you can use two holes in the same slider.

For piano sounds, many keyboards use three sensors per key. You need three if you want realistic emulation of the escapement in a grand piano (where a single note can be replayed without being "damped".) For this you might (maybe) be able to use three holes. The lower two are used to determine the key velocity and the top causes the damper to stop the note.

One more thing, what matters to a piano player is the key velocity near the bottom on the range of motion, just before the hammer is released. So those velocity sensing switches should be low so as to measure the final velocity and not the average velocity.

Also be sure and write the software inside the controller so you can calibrate this. I doubt the switches will all be exactly identical. You will need a table the has adjustments for each key