[sdiy] Synth. Keyboards (was: Death of DIY?)

[R. D. Davis]

Quothe Barry Klein, from writings of Mon, Jul 18, 2005 at 04:16:32PM -0700:
> One area that remains of great interest, especially to beginners, is guitar
> effects.  Is there an equivelant GuitarEffects-DIY list by chance?  Or are
> they stuck debating the eccentricities of germanium diode vs LED vs tube
> distortion etc.?

Let's see... there's a mailing list for building guitars (guitar
makers forum)... there's The Bottom Line list for bass guitars,
amps and effects, etc... ok, looking a bit further, there's the
analog music zone list devoted to electronics and guitar effects;
see www.muzique.com for more info. about that.

By the way, for really cool distortion effects, beyond those of a
germanium diode, you've got to try incorporating a cat's whisker in
the circuitry.  ;-) Ok, let's see how many people who are somewhat new
to electronics and under 40 figure that one out without using a search
engine on the 'net.

> I suppose the majority of people here want to keep the topics limited to
> synthesizer design, but... well....  we haven't had much of that.

Getting this back to being more on-topic: how many people here who
were interested in electronics as kids or college students ran into a
roadblock called "where can I find an affordable bare keyboard to use
with my synth?"  I could design various circuits to make sounds, but
never found an affordable bare keyboard back then, so I was left to do
things like take an old Estes organ and create makeshift switches for
its cheesy keyboard ... lots of annoying popping noises at first with
each key-press with my first design, which wasn't even polyphonic.

Also, a curiosity: why do so many keyboards have far less than 88
keys?

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