Re: [MMM] Making an inexpensive Microtonal keyboard from availablecomercial keyboard(s)

Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> Wrote
I wonder if one can program the midi stream to use this idea with a
traditional keyboard.

Does anyone know?
One can, but with only 2 neighbouring notes, one can't get much in the way of extra notes, while in a 2-D array each note has more neighbours, giving more combinations.

Can I illustrate the idea in text for a simple row?

Imagine a row of keys, labeled W, X, Y and Z, mapped to notes 1, 2, 3, and 4. Normally, pressing W or notes 1 or note 2, while pressing them both gives note 1 and 2 sounding together - a rule we have lived with all our lives. But, with programming, one could have the keyboard wait a little bit to see if the note to the right has been pressed, and if it is also pressed, produce a special sound, e.g. keys W&X => note1.5, X&Y=> 2.5, Y&Z =>3.5.
Of course, the abilty to play common intervals is lost, so a lot is lost.

With a hex array, lots of combinations are possible, I think, but to demo this, I'd need to spend time drawing, which I will only do if there is interest.

Ken.

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>
> I wonder if one can program the midi stream to use this idea with a
> traditional keyboard.
>
> Does anyone know?
> One can, but with only 2 neighbouring notes, one can't get much in the way
> of extra notes, while in a 2-D array each note has more neighbours, giving
> more combinations.
>
> Can I illustrate the idea in text for a simple row?
>
> Imagine a row of keys, labeled W, X, Y and Z, mapped to notes 1, 2, 3, and
> 4. Normally, pressing W or notes 1 or note 2, while pressing them both gives
> note 1 and 2 sounding together - a rule we have lived with all our lives.
> But, with programming, one could have the keyboard wait a little bit to see
> if the note to the right has been pressed, and if it is also pressed,
> produce a special sound, e.g. keys W&X => note1.5, X&Y=> 2.5, Y&Z =>3.5.
> Of course, the abilty to play common intervals is lost, so a lot is lost.
>
> With a hex array, lots of combinations are possible, I think, but to demo
> this, I'd need to spend time drawing, which I will only do if there is
> interest.

I don't see this idea beeing succesfull.
I think there are 2 things make a good microtonal keyboard.
1st thing is to make it easyer to see which notes to hit for which ratios.
2nd thing is to bring more notes together to allow to hit chords and play
melodies easily even when there are for instance 53 notes in the octave.

For these requirements one could possibly add a thin small lcd strip above
the keys of a normal keyboard that indicates the ratios etc of every key,
and a way of switching the fundamental (1/1 point) or ratios of the keys to
another set, possibly by another keyboard or even footboard.
Such a scheme would work for most scales it seems to me, from ji to 53tet
(use preprogrammed subsets) on a normal keyboard.
Though if you really want many many keys available at once a 2d array seems
better, though it'll be harder to dislpay ratios for all keys, possibly have
to make the keys tiny lcd displays themselves.
And for the people who work only in 1 and thesame scale all the time a
custom keyboard for that scale seems best, and they can simply memorize all
the ratios of all the keys.

-Marcel

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