Cheap Xen Keyboard (was Bucking the System]

[CCed to the list, as I think it may of some general interest]

World Harmony Project Inc. writes:
> I must have missed the posts leading up to your announcement of creating a
> 22 tone MIDI keyboard.

There really weren't any, only the "Bucking the System" post, and the
brief errata. It was, quite literally, a spur of the moment thing.

> I am very interested though. It sounds like a project
> I have thought of for just intonation, but not yet produced. Would you tell
> me about it, please?
>

Gladly. :-)

To get a mental picture of the key layout, see Paul Erlichs post in
digest 1234. [Thank you Paul, for enduring the tedium of ASCII
painting. :-)] This is essentially 'it', with the exception of a gapped
tooth effect between every second set of concecutive white keys.

Note that I intended this keyboard to fit Pauls theories of 22TET,
which I've been exploring. Other arrangements of the parts may well
be possible, but I didn't try to work any out, as I got what I was
after.

Like Paul said, it doesn't help much in terms of stretching
the fingers, but it does "break the thought mold", which was my
primary goal. Not being a keyboard player, I'm not used to finding
arbitrary patterns on the digitals, and need all the help I can
get to break the 7 of 12 mental conditioning.

As to the details:

I'm using a cheap chinese import "keyboard for computer music" MK4902.
They are currently being sold as "Kay Sound" around here, but the
box is brandless.

Upon dismantling the beast(s), I found it to be constructed of three
different configurations of all-white or all-black keys tied to a
strip of plastic at the back, used for mounting. All of the strips
will have some obvious point at which the strip can be "snapped"
apart. I snappend 'em all, and it is also necessary to trim off
the little alignment pins on the underside, since they won't be
reassembled in the same order.

The white subassemblies that would be the C and E keys aren't used at
all. The white keys are constucted from the remaining singletons,
and other keys, and form subgroups of 3 white keys, with gaps for
the black ones. I've forgotten the exact nature of the pieces at
the moment, but it'll be pretty obvious once you start playing with
the parts. The stacking order is important if you want the thing
to fit together correctly.

The black key pieces require some additional modification. The two
key subassemblies have to be trimmed on the right so that the mounting
tab stops at the key boundary. Then they will fit next to the three
key asssemblies.

The next step (which I haven't finished yet) involves the guide
fingers and the lubricated pads which fit up into the plastic key, and
which come in several sizes. The first thing to do is snip apart the
strip with scissors and rearrange them so that you have a continous
strip with the fingers in the same order as they keys. This is the
easy part.

The harder part is to trim the metal tabs on the base of the keyboard
with tin snips so that all of the fingers fit correctly vertically.
This is necessary as the tabs for the black keys are taller and will
interfere with white key movement. I don't yet know if the horizontal
size will make a big difference, but I have a tube of silicone
adhesive handy for just such emergencies.

That pretty much covers it. I've worked out the tuning table
necessary, and only await the motivation to sit in front of the
synth and "push and twirl" the front panel to load it up.

I suppose that other "generic" keyboards are made in a similar manner,
so this should be useful as a general guideline. Ones made where
there are seperate keys that pivot on a rod should be easy enough
to do, though if there are weighting mechanisms under the keys, that
may cause some complications. Caveat tinkerer!

Steve


SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
From: mr88cet@texas.net (Gary Morrison)
Subject: Re: Bucking the system
PostedDate: 14-11-97 11:00:38
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