Audynus: The MIDI Control Keyboard
Custom PMC Keyboard
The Audynus
A project for the completion of both interdisciplinary engineering and music degrees
What is it:
PMC MIDI control keyboard
PMC:
Polyphonic Multidimensional Controller, such as a Seaboard
How it differs:
Tactile feedback very closely resembles that of a standard keyboard, while allowing additional natural control.
Three-dimensional Details/Features
This shows the side view of the keys. On the left, where the black and white "tongues" meet the hammer (purple), contact is made between the key and the hammer, and pressure is measured. To the left of that (the white "tongue") merely protects the inner mechanisms. The loops at the top of this "tongue" are for connections of elastic. Similar loops exist at the opposite end of each key (seen on the right).
In the center, where the gear (green) meets the key (white or black), a pattern is essentially carved out of the key, causing the gear to rotate whenever the key slides forward or backward. A hole is located in the center of the gear, and another in the center of the hammer, for a pole, used as a fulcrum.
Lastly, the hammer includes not only a location for the wires to be connected to the back of the instrument (left to right), but it also has an area (bottom right) for more elastic to pull on, creating a sufficient amount of force to "counterweight" the key, which is being pulled down by elastic at the loops (seen at the top left and right).
Features:
• Improves of expressivity in live and recorded music
• Senses the force placed on each key, and to be able to transmit that force reading into a MIDI signal
• Keys slide forward and backward, sense this movement, and transmit a numerical representation of this movement as a MIDI signal
• Parameters easily alterable
• Current parameters for sliding and pressure are easily visible
• Can be used as standard piano
• Maintains likeness of a piano, in terms of touch and key weight
• Transmits MIDI signals to a computer
The gears are hollow, and contain both enough leeway for the hammer to strike partially into the gear, and also a compartment (seen at the top center of the image) to hold hole potentiometers, variable resistors that change value with the amount the gear has rotated. The wires from both this, and the wires of the force-sensitive resistor located on the thicker side of the hammer, have a clear pathway up the end of the hammer, seen clearly in this image.
For more information, view the pdf to the left. For this instrument's music, scroll down.
Keyboard Schematic
Main Components: Analog multiplexors, Arduino, Potentiometers, LCD
The Audynus Suite
On Audynus
On Standard Keyboard
I. Prelude
II. Vibrato
III. Panning
IV. Reverb
V. Canonette