Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Attempt to create a midi controller for the mechanics of the

Some time ago, Kawai and Yamaha released electronic grand pianos with the same mechanics as a real grand piano. I am very impressed with this! I have a good Kawai VPC1 tool. This is a decent instrument, but as practice shows, there are no simplified alternatives to the real mechanics of the piano. This mechanic has been developed and improved over many decades. It is difficult to add or remove anything to it without violating the convenience and comfort of performance. Digital instrument keyboards have a lot of problems compared to a real keyboard. This:
- the weight of the key is the same, but the acceleration gradient when pressed is radically different.
-there is no catching of the hammer by the fenger and this requires holding down the pressed key with force. You must support the weight of the malleus with your finger, keeping it close to the bottom. In a live instrument, holding down a key does not require much effort. From this you can get problems with your hands, your fingers get tired more. Lost "ease" of the game.
- there is no mechanism of double rehearsal. It facilitates and speeds up repeated pressing. Allows you to very "creatively" control the position of the hammer, "play" with it.
- in digital instruments, the hammer most often strikes rubber contacts at the end of the path (like contacts in remote controls from a television), this makes the sensations cottony.
- on the axis, rotation occurs most often between plastic in silicone and metal, unlike felt and metal in real.
In general, numeric keyboards do not allow you to play thinly and easily. But Kawai and Yamaha impressed with their models! But the price!! Completely unbearable for me.
Subsequently, the Cybrid DIY project arose, which showed that it was possible to do something similar on your own. And I also decided to try to do something similar. I started learning programming, started learning microcontrollers and a bit of electronics. Now I was able to build a test sample on a breadboard. As a controller, I chose an inexpensive STM32F411 microcontroller. I use the same optical sensors to get information from the hammer. I use shift registers to "multiply" the number of inputs. I was able to achieve scanning speed of the whole keyboard in the range of 3-6us. So far, there are only sensors for the midi-on event, but midi-off will be added soon. I have ordered some test pcb with smd parts and they are on the way. A test "almost" working sample will soon be assembled. It's very exciting and a lot of fun! I hope everything works out!

Several people on here, and on other forums are doing similar things. The original from here by user CyberGene has details on GitHub.. You can contact him on this forum and join the discussion on your and the other projects too.

Yes, thanks, I follow the news in these threads.

Moreover, Jay and I are also planning to use the STM32 boards, and particularly their decently good ADCs. Make sure you check my posts on both forums, there is quite a lot about it (not just from myself, but from people who dissected what I said, helping and suggesting alternatives).

Looking forward to seeing what you're doing and possibly collaborate.

Nice progress! And I enjoyed the video. Also, the videos on your channel with the soundboard and modes are interesting.

Several test boards arrived the other day. Optical sensors are on the way...

Looks great. It will be exciting to see real-world results once the optical sensors are in.

Gradually progressing...

If suddenly it turns out to improve the computer, then I would continue some research in modeling the movement of strings. It is very interesting. But calculations require a computer to run at maximum performance for a long time. My old mac can't stand it...

Yes, I follow the news on these forms..