Piano DIY

[4am]

interesting idea

but there are pretty good weighted master keyboards that would possibly have better response on velocity that the dyi piano solution. there are midi microphones for guitar that convert the audio signal into midi, but a microphone is needed for every string. and for piano?

i would, personally, be more interested in installing contact microphones and transforming the piano in an electric piano, with the same principle of an electric guitar. then route the signal thru a guitar effects chain...

[lem]

How the synth/instrument would react to the mechanics like velocity and stuff is ofc up to what kind of insturment you decide to put this thing together with. But if you build a new instrument for it it could ofc be built to respond in alot of different ways depending on how the user plays the keys.

What do you propose to convert the mechanical action to midi?

i think the fun part of cheap pianos is finding one that isn't perfect soundwise or technically speaking, but has a certain feel to it. if you mic up these pianos you can get very nice sounds out off them, even if most notes are out of tune. alot of fun to experiment with

can be very hard tho to record a piano in a nice way

We had several piano's in the studio, a well looked after grand, a couple of uprights. One of which was this Yamaha thing. It sounded like complete gash in the room. It had an out of tune 'Wild West' thing going on and it was very very bright.
But it sounded so good recorded, nothing like it did in the room.

I have always found them fairly easy to record, much harder to play!!

[hydrogen]

just did some google searching.... this seems pretty interesting... i don't know where you would get one of these though

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar05/a ... anobar.htm

On the piano tunings... you are totally right they can sometimes be pretty bad especially for one that wasn't kept up very well they can be totally trashed.

its good that you've got some experience playing on a real one, i wanted to see where you were at. Sometimes having a really cool idea isn't enough if you don't have the experience with those types of tools because you might not have a good foundation to build from. I know from my own experience, I burned through a couple weighted keyboards because i didn't have enough experience playing one. Now that I'm taking lessons for a year, I have a much better understanding. I still downgraded to a shitty 88key semi-weighted because the hammer weighted one that I bought used was pretty garbage.

It would be great to have a piano that had that exact same feel that my teacher has. But i think its also a combination that the sound it makes that makes it feel and sound so amazing. It changes your emotion when striking different chords, you can feel the vibrations echo in the piano and in the room... So to remove part of that and replace it with a machine just seems kind of weird to me. cyborg piano!

on a related note... this is kind of the reverse implementation...
Gameleste gamelan-celeste hybrid with midi controlling an otherwise entirely acoustic instrument.
http://vimeo.com/25631738

[Hades]

Think of it like this, what a lot of midikeyboards lack is the actual mechanics. This would be a way of acually getting that. Like an old electric piano that hits metal instead of strings, this could be something simliar. As for size if you actually build you'r synth into the piano it wouldnt have to take up more space then your average modular system or bigger size synth (ofc it would prolly would be less moveable then other systems).

How the synth/instrument would react to the mechanics like velocity and stuff is ofc up to what kind of insturment you decide to put this thing together with. But if you build a new instrument for it it could ofc be built to respond in alot of different ways depending on how the user plays the keys.

My piano experience is I've taken lessons in classic-piano, never got to a ok level though, played a few things by Bach, Jan Johansson, Beethoven and Mozart. The usual stuff. My intrest in this idea is not actually as a player more as an instrumentbuilder/developer.

PS. When it comes to the sound of pianos this, saying they sound great is just wrong. I've played/heard people play on standup pianos that sound sh!t. There are a ton of cheap ones around that have not gotten the care they deserve and getting them to sound good as pianos again is alot of times very expensive.

I've been playing piano for about 25 years now, and synths for about 15 years (most of those years through a hammerweighted set of keys)
and I honestly think you'll never be able to get a better result than if you'd get yourself a good hammerweighted synth or controller.
for me, having hammerweighted action was a must. In fact, many years ago, I wanted to buy a real piano, but lacked the cash and space back then to do so, so I walked into a music store to buy a stage piano, and walked out with a roland XV88, which was the huge "restart" of my whole synth-love I abandoned few years earlier.

I think your project would be far better of if you'd make something interesting soundwise with a cheap piano.
You know, make a prepared piano out of it, stuff like that.

But to think that you'd actually get a technically better controller than if you buy a good hammerweighted set of keys is just a bit naïve if you ask me. (though be it of the beautiful naïve kind)

I've been using my XV88 almost every day, to play synths and to play piano. I've done all my daily technical Hanon exercises to keep my hands in shape, so the keys have seen a lot of active hitting, and it still works like a breeze.
The only thing I could say is that the middle part makes a tiny bit more noise if you hit the keys because it's seen my fingers pass more often than the top and bottom parts, but it's nothing really bothering.
Anyways, I'm trying to say : if you get a good set of hammerweighted keys, they will last you a long time.
Especially if you're not gonna play heavy classical every day.
Chances are if you get an old and cheap piano the keys will probably play worse than with a good controller.

I never quite understood this "you don't need hammerweighted if you make techno"-statement.
it's not necessary, true, but that's usually because the people who say this don't have the technical skills to play hammerweighted keys anyway and usually put in a lot of melodies with their mouse (no offence intended, to each his own).
it's a fact that hammerweighted action is the most dynamic set of keys you can have, and what on earth is wrong with having the best dynamics available for playing ? (it's kind of like having more headroom on a channel, no ?)
I have semi-weighted and keyboard action too in the studio, and sometimes I prefer those to hammerweighted, but that's maybe 5% of the times, all the rest of the time I prefer hammerweighted.

An important thing to consider when you get a piano or a set of hammerweighted keys, is how the keys play and feel like.
Honestly, many people overlook this very vital aspect. There's a huge difference between piano's.
I just had this conversation with my sister because she was renting a piano for her oldest that just started taking lessons.
I said : "don't take these piano's with very wide keys that need 3 kilo's just to press down one key, defenitely not for a kid"
It's already hard enough when you start with this to train your fingers to press down the keys accurately and fast enough, don't make it even harder by getting yourself one of those hard-to-play piano's.
My XV-88 came with 3 different playing positions, and I like that extra option. I leave it to "light" myself, but that's just personal taste.
Plus I like the fact that if one of my kids decides to learn how to play piano, they can use headphones so they don't drive the rest of us crazy.

In a year or two I'm getting myself a real piano again (finally), and I love to have one that looks great, but most important to how it sounds will defenitely be how easy it feels to play it.
And I do agree with whoever it was above that said something about how old piano's can sound like a charm too.
I once wanted to buy my old training piano that I rented 15 years ago when I was at univ. The guy didn't want to sell it, but I loved the warm "grandma" sound it had.
But yeah, some piano's can sound like utter crap when they haven't been looked after well.
One of the most "not played" instruments people like to have around in their living because it looks good.
Such a shame...