DIY Isomorphic Keyboard project

This is a velocity sensitive MIDI isomorphic keyboard. 192 total keys. The project came out of Louisville Soundbuilders, a fortnightly meeting of circuitbenders, synth engineers and experimental musicians. After seeing a couple of my failed variations of a single-bus isomorphic keyboard, Tim was intrigued enough to design one even better. He designed multiple PCBs that sandwich together with multiple switch types for velocity sensitive keypresses.

More development on the way! We're working on molds/methods for making hexagonal keycaps. And I'm working on an Arduino-based controller as an alternative to the midibox controller Tim has working already.

Watch the progress at http://soundbuilders.lvl1.org

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• isomorphic keyboard
• midi
• diy
• soundbuilders

[analogstatic]

Responding to the last two questions. Yes this project is active. Currently we're working on software, keycaps and.board redesign. We're doing this in our spare time, so it progresses in fits and starts. Are we selling this? Well manufacturing this is way beyond the scope of what we're doing... We will certainly be releasing all the schematics under an open source hardware license. Kits? Maybe. Right now, we're fixing errors and simplifying the design before releasing anything.

[analogstatic]

@analogstatic Continuing... The board designs you see in this video were the first run which have lots of errors. It would be a mistake to release these layouts to people, knowing that they will not work without some advanced troubleshooting. Keep watching though! Once we can release some designs that won't drive people crazy, we'll do so. Thank you for all the interest! We love isomorphic designs and want as many people as possible to be able to experiment with them!

[KojiroGanryuSasaki]

There is latency when you play. Is that an inherent flaw in your construction or is it simply because of the laptop drivers?

[analogstatic]

@KojiroGanryuSasaki There's no latency. The volume was low so as to not blow out the audio on the video and you are hearing the slight click of the travel in Cherry switches. The MIDI is triggered when the bottom tactile switches are pushed on the full extension of the travel, i.e. the full extension of the key and when you 'feel' it has been struck.

[Swenglish]

Is this project still alive? Will these be for sale? The Axis is very expensive, and if you guys are working on a cheaper alternative, I can only applaud the initiative (and ask if there's any chance of a Swede eventually buying one).

[AtheistDavid]

I want one! Planning on selling?

[TheClonazepam]

Too early to judge until playing a chord with a single finger... You need to get prototypes out to those mentally challenged musical savants... I'm serious... like that one guy I saw in a documentary, who could take the entire piece from an orchestra, and condense all those sounds together onto a single piano... it'd be amazing to see what your product can do in those capable hands.

[KojiroGanryuSasaki]

@KojiroGanryuSasaki

Aha. Might also be a problem with youtube for me. It seems the audio is out of synch with a lot of videos here... Thanks for confirming that there's no latency.

[modman1234567]

Wish i could get my hands on one of these!!

[TheVarnster]

Looks brilliant! Well done :)