[sdiy] Accordion-style controller

[Johannes Öberg]

There are actually MIDI accordions available. It's also possible to
retrofit an accordion. However this is either expensive, difficult, or
both :) I want a flat desktop/lap controller and ripping apart an
existing accordion seems complicated. Anything involving alot of
mechanical work will likely never get done...

The concertina project would be perfect if I could find the proper
switches since it should only take a weekend to finish.

I should probably mention that (AFAIK, never played a concertina)
accordion and concertina buttons work in a different way. Accordion
buttons are attached to spring loaded L-shaped levers. Therefore they
have very little initial intertia, and this is an essential part of
why accordions can be played very fast, as well as enabling a lot of
tricks accordion players use.

Are there any switches like that? I guess most switches are designed
to give the end user a firm tactical feedback, which is exactly the
opposite of what I'm looking for.

/J

On 2/12/07, Amos <controlvoltage at gmail.com> wrote:
> Could you use, perhaps, something that is physically like a concertina-button
> and instead of worrying about a "real" push-button switch that does
> not feel right,
> install a simple contact that is broken  when the switch is depressed?
>  Reverse your logic so that breaking the switch causes a positive
> trigger to the key-scanning/MIDI-handling part of the device.
> This is a late-night thought, I hope it makes sense.  Seems to me that
> the physical construction might be easier this way.
>
> Good luck!
>
> -Amos
>
> (supposing you know about the Roland MIDI accordion already... they
> don't make a little concertina model though; they should!)