[sdiy] Minimoog clone

[Tom Wiltshire]

I'd recommend the "cannibalize an organ" route to get a Minimoog keyboard. There are *loads* of cheap organs around (you'll get two 44-note keyboards for £10) and a lot of them are far better quality than modern ones. I have two that came out of one of those nasty post-tonewheel 1970's hammonds that are very substantial and easily wired as either a busbar contact or a matrix.
The ones in the Yamaha organ that I still play have multiple contacts and busbars on the upper manual, and (IIRC) two contacts on the lower manual.
The final point in favour of organ keyboards for me is that the action is an organ-style action - very light and fast, ideal for playing rapid synth riffs and cool moogy slides.

Grab a a dead organ from your local Freecycle/Craigslist, and see what you can do with it. If it's no good, junk it and *then* buy a Fatar keybed!

T.


>>> The keyboard is also giving me a bit of trouble. I have an old organ I
>>> could cannibalize, but I 'm also considering cannibilizing a cheap
>>> midi keyboard and using a microcontroller to interface it to the
>>> original keyboard circuitry.
>>> 
>> 
>> I took apart a Roland pc200mk2 to clean out cat pee and found what I guess
>> is a Fatar keybed.  As a quick and sloppy look, I think a metal bar could be
>> laid across the PCB to get a bussed wiring scheme.
>> 
>> --
>> David Griffith
>> dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
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