A New Music Keyboard with

Continuous Key-position Sensing and High-speed Communication

Adrian Freed and Rimas Avizienis
[email protected],, [email protected]
CNMAT, UC Berkeley
1750 Arch St., Berkeley, CA 94709
http://www.cnmat.berkeley.edu
Abstract
We describe a new music keyboard with independent, continuous position
sensing capable of communicating gestural nuance available on manual tracker
organs, harpsichords and pianos. We explain how the additional functionality can
be obtained at a lower cost than existing keyboard controllers and demonstrate a
prototype to illustrate this analysis. Our new keyboard uses optical interruption
sensing for each key and hybrid space and time multiplexing to achieve the
requisite scan rates. Scanned data is assembled into packets using a single FPGA
and formatted for a variety of readily available communication methods
including embedded in SPDIF and ADAT audio streams and as Ethernet UDP
packets.
1. Introduction and Motivation
Most electronic keyboards sense key-down velocity
and a single instant at which the key is considered
released. A few models support pressure or
displacement sensing over the final few millimeters
of key travel for "polyphonic aftertouch".
Although key-down velocity is the defining
parameter for the initial loudness and timbre of a
piano tone, release timbre is controlled by position.
This is because the dampers are (unlike the
hammers) directly and continuously coupled to the
key. Articulation on manual tracker organs depends
on continuous control of the air-jet velocity profile
during the beginning and ending of each note. As
with the piano the relevant gestures involve key
position as well as velocity.
Since these facts about keyboard instruments have
been widely known for decades, why has the
electronic keyboard not evolved for 25 years? The
primary reason is that the electronic keyboard is a
victim of the general success of MIDI, which
imposes a narrow velocity-based model of the
keyboard (Moore, 1988). Another important factor
is a consolidation of the industry producing
electronic keyboards to a very small number of high
volume manufacturers who are focusing on cost at
the expense of functionality.
2. Keyboard Evolution
Although the basic design of the keyboard has not
changed for a long time, networking, processing
and sensing technologies haveto the stage that a
highly responsive, position-sensing keyboard can be
built at the same or lower cost than current
keyboards.
2.1. Networking
Many viable alternatives to MIDI now exist for
communicating gestural information. A continuous,
position sensing keyboard controller requires a
much higher bandwidth connection to other devices
than MIDI allows. USB and Firewire comfortably
handle this requirement and offer the cost and
convenience advantage over MIDI of supplying
power to the controller. Remote power is also
possible using extensions of existing audio industry
protocols such as AES/EBU (Freed, 1999).
2.2. Sensing and Processing
Advances in processing power allow for cheap,
reliable, non-mechanical RF-based position sensing
as typified by Wacom graphics tablets, already
being applied to musical applications (Wright, et al.,
1997). Such systems can be self-calibrating because
the rest and depressed positions of each key are
easily determined as the keyboard is played. This
lowers manufacturing costs and maintains quality
for the user over a long product life.
Traditional approaches to implementing keyboard
controllers involve embedding a microprocessor to
handle the complex subtleties of the MIDI standard.
By adopting a much more straightforward gesture
based representation (Freed and Wessel, 1998) we
have shown how the processing can be integrated
into very small, cheap ASIC.
3. Demonstration System
We describe here a prototype keyboard we have
developed to illustrate the potential of new
technologies to expand the gestural vocabulary of
the keyboard player.
We have adapted a patented keyboard-position-
sensing technology developed by Gulbranson. The
system uses a spring-loaded lever for each key. The
lever operates a specially shaped vane that
progressively obscures light being transmitted
between an led source and phototransistor sensor.
To simplify wiring the Gulbranson engineers
ingeniously connect all the phototransistors together
in parallel (2 wires) and scan each key's sensor by
sequentially illuminating each light source in turn
using a set of serially connected shift registers
(another wire). Simplifying the wiring of 88 sensors
is a key issue but response time limitations of the
sensors result in a low sample rate which in turn
results in unacceptably high jitter in the gesture
timing. We have solved this problem by breaking
the keyboard into smaller 17-note segments that are
concurrently time-multiplexed. The moderate
increase in wiring costs (6 wires) is a small price to
pay for a more temporally accurate sensing system.
The sensed output from each scan group is
converted from analog to digital by a multi-channel
A/ D convertor. The results are serially
communicated to an FPGA which generates the
timing for the entire system and formats the data in
any of a a variety of readily available
communication methods including: SPDIF, ADAT
audio streams and as Ethernet UDP packets. This
FPGA is part of a scalable connectivity processor
described more fully in another paper in these
proceedings (Freed, et al., 2000).
4. Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the
O'Neill organ fund, Gibson Guitar Inc, Gulbranson
Inc., Richard Felciano, Ren Causs and the DIMI
program of the State of California.
5. References
A. Freed (1999), Bidirectional AES/EBU Digital
Audio and Remote Power over a Single Cable,
proceedings of the Audio Engineering Society
107th Convention.
A. Freed, R. Avizienis, T. Suzuki, and D. Wessel
(2000), Scalable Connectivity Processor for
Computer Music Performance Systems,
proceedings of the International Computer Music
Conference, Berlin, Germany.
A. Freed and D. Wessel (1998), Communication of
Musical Gesture using the AES/EBU Digital Audio
Standard, proceedings of the International
Computer Music Conference, Ann Arbor,
Michigan.
F. R. Moore (1988), The Dysfunctions of MIDI,
Computer Music Journal, vol. 12, num. 1, pp. 19-
28.
M. Wright, D. Wessel, and A. Freed (1997), New
Musical Control Structures from Standard Gestural
Controllers, proceedings of the International
Computer Music Conference, Thessaloniki, Hellas.