Phillicordia

[Tony Hardie-Bick]

On 18/05/12 13:19, Marc Nostromo [M-.-n] wrote:
>
> Back to that phillips organ....
>
> Is there any chance to convert the keyboard of an old organ like to communicate
> with the digital world ? I mean I guess it's completely feasible, so I guess my
> question "is how hard would it be ?"

i did this once with a weighted keyboard i got from a yamaha repair shop - 
really awesome kb, made an absolutely solid wooden case for it. way stronger 
than anything you can buy.

the contact pcbs under the keys included a scanner chip, which had an output for 
internal connection to a yamaha digital piano. i attached a 5v psu (it said 5v 
on the connector) and analysed the output pins when i played or released notes.

turned out it had a velocity resolution of 256, rather than midi's 128, which 
was pretty cool. i built an 8051-based mcu circuit, which listened to the 
scanner chip, implemented a transfer function for the velocity, which i tweaked 
to precisely the right feel, and generated midi.

each keyboard will be different, and older keyboards won't have such a 
convenient on/off/velocity output, so you may have to create a scanner for it, 
or interface with existing scan circuitry at a lower level.

it's kinda fun, though :)

Tony (HB)