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geekhack Community => Input Devices => Topic started by: Enlin on Tue, 11 April 2023, 00:45:59

Title: Piano Switches
Post by: Enlin on Tue, 11 April 2023, 00:45:59

Hi, I'm willing to buy an ergonomic keyboard.
I say this cause I'm even looking for Piano switches, i.e: switches with pressure sensitivity, or something like that.
So I'm not interested in switches that can be used on particular keyboards, like omnipoint etc.

Can you suggest me something?
I heard people would use two actuation point switches, but it seems I can't find 'em anywhere.

Title: Re: Piano Switches
Post by: madrone on Sun, 14 May 2023, 00:30:55

I haven't seen any keyboard like this but I do have a friend who's making expressive musical instruments with analog pressure sensitivity.  Might be interesting to you?
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/28/a-more-expressive-synth-via-flexure/

What do you have in mind for how the pressure sensitivity and/or multiple actuation points would be used?

Title: Re: Piano Switches
Post by: mathisart on Tue, 13 June 2023, 07:28:50

You might be interested in analog keyboards, eg. Hall Effect keyboards.

Title: Re: Piano Switches
Post by: Findecanor on Tue, 13 June 2023, 07:38:47

Omnipoint are Hall Effect switches.  Regular mechanical keyboards don't support multiple actuations, and you can't retrofit them to do so either.

Electric pianos and musical keyboards do have two actuations and measure the time difference between them to determine how hard you pressed them.

There are a few vintage keyboards with a limited number of keys that supported multiple actuations for things such as cursor keys: press lightly to step once, and to the bottom to repeat. But those work differently from piano keys.
These types of features have been mimicked with analogue switches.