[sdiy] Real piano keyboards: any use?

[Matthew Smith]

Quoth David G. Dixon at 2009-01-29 12:26...
> This might sound kinda crazy, but my kid's school is throwing out an old
> piano (on Friday), and I was wondering whether one could make profitable use
> of its innards for synth purposes.  Any ideas?  Has anyone out there ever
> pressed a real piano keyboard into electronic service?  What about whacking
> piezos with the hammers instead of strings for some velocity-controlled
> analog mojo?

Simple answer: if you've got the space to store/work on it, grab it!

Then you can study the mechanism and see what is/is not feasible.

If I were getting destructive/constructive on a piano, I might consider 
putting magnetic pickups on each course of strings (rather than each 
string).  You could then either mix the whole lot and process it of do 
per-course processing - I'm thinking here of something like a guitar 
synth controller, but with a whole load of extra strings.

Cheers

M



-- 
Matthew Smith
Smiffytech - Technology Consulting & Web Application Development
Business: http://www.smiffytech.com/
Personal: http://www.smiffysplace.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/smiffy