[sdiy] Piezo keyboard

[Tim Parkhurst]

Zzzz...hmph, what! Huh? Oh! I'm awake...really!

Sorry Peter, it's just well, you know, late Friday afternoon and nobody's
getting any real work / thinking done anyway. ;)

Here's a couple of things I thought: It sounds almost like you're going to
have you're going to have a sequencer, but each "stage" is a pressure pad
(instead of a regular clocked sequencer stage). How about making it even
more like a sequencer, where the pads are scanned by a clock, but the clock
and/or output does different things depending on whether you're pressing a
pad and/or the amount of pressure on the pad. If you scanned the pads at an
audio rate, you could actually have a waveform that you would control by the
pressure on the pads. That sounds kinda fun to me (but then again, I'm a
silly sausage). Scan the pads at a lower rate and you would have an LFO or
EG with direct 'pressure control' of the output waveform.

Also, would these pads work well for a drum style trigger? They sound a
little like a hybrid between standard piezos and FSRs. Or how about
integrating them into the handle of the joystick? Get one of the arcade game
controller style sticks and build them into the grip. The tighter you grab,
the more... well, this is starting to sound kinky. Is there a tele-dildonics
discussion group? ;)

Just a couple o' thoughts.


Tim (I hate it when I wake up face down on my PC keyboard) Servo

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein

*************************************************************
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Grenader [mailto:peter at buzzclick-music.com]
> Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 4:50 PM
> To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> Subject: Re: [sdiy] Piezo keyboard
> 
> Jeez ...don't all you guys answer at once or anything...
> 
> wimper wimper.
> 
> 
> - P
> 
> 
> Peter Grenader wrote:
> 
> > All,
> >
> > I was poking around looking for some parts yesterday and came upon ten
> > sample piezo switches from a place called PIEZO Development I had and
forgot
> > all about (goto http://www.piezoswitch.com/about_switches.html).  The
ones I
> > have are really slick - they don't have a ridge around the perimeter
like
> > the ones in the photograph on their site -- they're basically these flat
> > polished clear anodized aluminum disks, about the diameter and height of
a
> > quarter and not only pass a signal that's put through them, they do so
with
> > pressure sensitivity.
> >
> > These are designed for underwater use.
> >
> > So I've got some faceplate space coming up and I thought I'd do
something
> > with these.  I've laid out a ten position keyboard, which is also going
to
> > house my Smokin' Joe (joystick) and so far I've included:
> >
> > a tunable voltage level per key and an output for that
> > a pressure sensitive output per key
> > and a trigger/gate output per key (switch selectable between the two).
> >
> > As far as the ganged outputs, I was thinking of a MSB output of:
> >
> > the tuned voltages
> > an output of linear preset voltages (each key increments  X volts)
> > a ganged pressure out (with sensitivity pot)
> > a lag output (with glide time pot)
> > a gate out
> > a separate trigger out (with pulse eidth pot).
> >
> > Anything else I should consider while I'm at this critical 'put it on
the
> > faceplate or you're screwed' stage?
> >
> > My only complaint is it takes a bit more pressure than I would like
before
> > they short, but these things are so cool and I can forgive this.  But I
> > won't be able to simple run my hand across and get a reaction like I
would
> > with touch keyboard.  Possibly however in time I could use these just as
> > contact plates and not incorporate their internal switch at all -
there's a
> > possibility this will work.  But if not, I'm OK with it.
> >
> > So, any feature creep you guys can think of?
> >
> > - P
> >
> >
> >
> 
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