6-6 or 7-5?

I am new member
This is my forst post.
I am making a new, two dimensional MIDI keyboard,
with anywhere from 196 to 294 keys.
I will be composed of 4 to 6 49 key keyboards.
I have limited choices in key arrangements.
6-6 or 7-5 are the to most likely possbilities.
I will be doing mostly iprovosational, experimental
and texures, trance, new age music.
For the time being I will stay with current tunings
but wiil expirement with various key arrangemets.
I otherwords will re-map the keys in various arrngements
to facilitate the style of music I will be playing.
What are the advantages of 6-6 or Janko keyboard?
Also need suggesstions for color coding the keys.
I will be re-mapping some or all of the keys so
color coding will be important.
Will like to get some not too technical
feedback from the members.
thanks
Vas

Vas wrote...

>I am new member

Welcome!

>I am making a new, two dimensional MIDI keyboard,
>with anywhere from 196 to 294 keys.

Great!

>I have limited choices in key arrangements.
>6-6 or 7-5 are the to most likely possbilities.
>I will be doing mostly iprovosational, experimental
>and texures, trance, new age music.
>For the time being I will stay with current tunings
>but wiil expirement with various key arrangemets.

A very fertile field, indeed. Hopefully, we can
convince you to try different tunings, also. If
this just isn't your thing, you can at least pick
up a few customers for your keyboard here...
provided you do a few things to make it microtuning
friendly, and deliver it for a reasonable price.

>I otherwords will re-map the keys in various
>arrngements to facilitate the style of music I
>will be playing.

You may be interested in: http://www.daskin.com/.

>What are the advantages of 6-6 or Janko keyboard?

In short, the Janko has the property that any
musical pattern will be fingered the same anywhere
on the keyboard. This is not true of the 7x5 (a.k.a.
Halberstadt) arrangement (a C-major scale is not
fingered quite the same as an Ab-major scale on a
Halberstadt). But the Janko also makes any fingering
pattern sound the same, while the Halberstadt allows
you to play the chords of a diatonic scale with very
nearly the same fingering pattern (major and minor
triads are both 1-3-5), and no Janko keyboard can
do that.

So the question is: do you want to play diatonic
music? If so, 7x5 may be (but maybe not!) better.
If, on the other hand, you want just to fire out
cool rhythms, arpegios, and such, then Janko is
almost certainly the better choice.

>Also need suggesstions for color coding the keys.

One thing we're all likely to agree on is the
desire for removable keycaps, which would come in
different colors (and maybe even textures), so
that we could make our own patterns.

-Carl

Hi, Vas and Carl; welcome, and farewell...

There was some discussion of symmetrical, 6x6 keyboards here I think in
August. Graham Breed and Troubledoor described some of the
idiosyncracies playing with these arrangements. Theirs are interleaved
(actually, both are "based" on the Halberstadt at least in materials)
but like to Janko's, transpositions finger the same. Check
<http://x31eq.com/instrum.htm> and
<http://home.earthlink.net/~troubledoor/> for pictures.

Paul Vandervoort has made some improvements to the Janko keyboard, which
Carl brought to my attention; at least in 3-d, more mechanically coupled
implementations there are some serious drawbacks to the historical
model, most of which Vandervoort seems to have designed out. Non-coupled
2-d keyboards won't have these troubles, but if you're modifying
existing stuff, have a look at John Allen's pages which adress many
ergonomic concerns: <http://www.bikexprt.com/music/introduc.htm>

Allen has a large section on generalized keyboards, also which are
mentioned in a current thread ("Requirements of a microtonal
synthesizer"); I'm not sure of the connection, but Janko's is quite
similar to R.H.M. Bosanquet's 19th century arrangement for his
enharmonic harmonium. Erv Wilson has done a lot of work with this type
of key arrangement for extended tuning systems, some of which is up at
<http://www.anaphoria.com>, and a commercial implementation is at
<http://www.starrlabs.com/>. His hexagonal keys help to condense the
vertical scale of the array, also to permit more adjacent notes in an
otherwise fairly diatonically aligned system.

>Also need suggesstions for color coding the keys.

Adriaan Fokker used rectangular-key generalized keyboards in his 31-tone
organs, tiered and color coded light and dark to emphasise the diatonic
patterns, but something like Lego would work great for switchable
patterns!

Clark

--- In tuning@egroups.com, Carl Lumma <CLUMMA@N...> wrote:

Carl,

This is my first response.

I assume that your comments are
deleted in the reply?

thanks for the info.

I may consider marketing my keyboard.

I had been hopping that someone else had
develped and markedted a two-dimentional
keyboard at a rasonable price. This did not
happen and hense I am making my own.

Once i have mastered the various key
mapping arrangements will try some
microtuninds if my sound card can hanle it.

I am starting a new studio from scratch.
I may be using Ego/Sys Wave Terminal 24/96
along with SoundBlaster Live.
Cube 5 0r Logic or Nuendo as the sequencer.

went to http://www.daskin.com/ and saw the Daskin
page and then went to http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html
and got a "page cannot be Displayed"
Too bad. I would really would like to see
wht they are up to.

In any case What Daskin is doing will not be
ready tillend of 2001. Hopefully I would heave
my 2D keyaboard by then.

I am leeaning very strong to the 6-6 arrangements.
The key mapping will allow me to expeiment with
varouous octave groupings.

I am not sure how well the sequencers handle key
mapping. If you know of a plug-in that can easily
do key mapping let me know. I beleive that Infinty
by Sound Quest will accomplish key mapping.

Vas

--- In tuning@egroups.com, Clark <CACCOLA@N...> wrote:

Hello Clark,

I just learned one thing.
Do not compose my reply in the form provided.
I lost the original response and now I am re-writing
I hope a better reply.

Thanks for the very interesting links. I had done what I
Thought was a thorough response on the web and
I certainly did not find most of these links. I am certainly
Glad I joined the Tuning List.

I do not have the option of making an interleaved keyboard.
I seems however like an interesting option.

I looked at the Starrlabs keyboard but is something I cannot afford
It seem that their keys are too small and the vertical action very
tiny. Saying all that if it was more reasonably priced I would have
Bought one instead of making my own.

One main concern is key mapping in Cubase or Logic.

I am building a small music studio from scratch and the decision on
What audio card to use is holding up completing my specifications.

Vas