Total dumb noobie question

[fupersly]

I built an atari punk console for a friend's wedding and he loved it. He likes to DJ and is into music.

Encouraged, I've been researching analog synths and I have a really basic question: How does the keyboard fit into all of this? Ya probably stupid question. I'm not a musician.

I understand in general the various keys on the keyboard generate set [control] voltages which are used to drive VCO, VCF etc and so forth.

Can any decent keyboard be used? Does one have to use some sort of adapter to get the control voltages out of it? I cannot imagine just grabbing a modern synthesizer keyboard off the rack and having it work with your custom analog PCB. I'm missing something!

Cheers!

[Blue Hell]

fupersly

You'll either need a special keyboard made to generate a control voltage directly (and some trigger/gate signal for making envolopes start), or you could use some cheap keyboard with a MIDI output. The MIDI one will need a MIDI to CV converter, which can either be bought or made (it doesn't need to be very complicated, but it will usually use a processor and so it needs to be programmed with something).

A CV keyboard usually is a long chain of say 100 Ohm resistors driven by a constant current where each key contact goes to the the point where two resistors meet. Then some extra circuitry is used to detect changes for the trigger/gate generation, such that each time you press a key a pulse will be generated.

[frijitz]

There are two basic choices. You can buy a keyboard with electrical contacts on the keys and use it with an analog interface that produces the CV and timing signals. Or you can use any available keyboard that sends MIDI data and put the data through a MIDI to CV converter.



Ian

[fupersly]

Thanks guys! I now know what to google for. I'll go dig around the flea markets this weekend and hopefully come up with something good [as in cheap!].

Thanks again!

FuperSly

[droffset]

This would be fun to build:

http://musicfromouterspace.com/analogsynth/MFOSMINICONTROLLER/MFOSMINICONTROLLER.php