Alternative keyboard layout

The Lounge
#10

As for wind interfaces:

The Aodyo Sylphyo – Recorder like fingering, no internal sounds, nice packaging and radio midi plus battery operation makes this thing mobile.

The Roland Aerophone AE-10 – The best sax feel in the wind synths short of the Synthophone. It also is configurable to have multiple different fingering options, recorder, trumpet, left hand only, right hand only, and an Electronic Wind Instument mode – that is a mongrel that fingers something like a sax but lets the ‘extra’ keys raise and lower the notes one or two semitones. The sax has built-in sounds using Rolands SUPERNatural sounds (lots of choices that sounds good imo) and a USB midi out port. (Added: It’s two way – you can play the synth via external midi, but no local-off!) There is also a mini-joystick control under your right thumb, that you can configure in a variety of ways. You can get it in gray, or pearl. They also have a cheaper stripped down version, the GO.

The AKAI EWI Series – These have been around for a while and hence is a standard for many pro-players. Quite a range of choice between models. AKAI seems determined to support this line.

The eCorder from Cantux Research – New startup that makes an instrument specifically to provide a midi recorder, in both feel and sound. Kind of a niche thing, but all the power to 'em, for pursuing something so devotedly. ADDED: An unbelievably good review of this. I want one!

The Yamaha WX5 – discontinued. You can still buy them used though, quite a few were made.

#11

Playable surfaces:

ROLI
ROLI%20Products

Haken Continuum series of keyboards. Very nice but expensive.
Full size: $5290; Half size: $3390
There is also the new ContiuuMini currently priced at $550.

#12

The Dodeka Keyboard

I had forgotten about this one.

Unfortunately it got cancelled from kickstarter. Such a promising start but perhaps too radically good, with the new simplified notation system, and key layout.

#13

The Lippens Keyboard

This is on an actual piano. I don’t think you can get these.

ADDED: This is a variation on the Jankó layout, see that below.

1 Like
#14

the best non-piano layout, IMO.
using it myself with Launchpad Pro. (for DAWless kind of rig, Axoloti patching involved, since LP Pro can’t do this layout itself)

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#15

Starr Labs Hex Keyboard

These can also be done with microtuning.

They make all sorts of variations.

Starr%20Lab%20Keyboards
Starr Lab Keyboards.png807×283 207 KB

https://www.starrlabs.com/product-category/midi-keyboards/

I think these are available (not positive) – i think they make them per order one at a time.

#16

Anyone mentioned the Deluge?

1 Like
#17

Forgot the link…

2 Likes
#19

I think it had some crucial drawbacks. There was a kind of music notation theory to this keyboard too and my impression was that the developer tried to make things more easy but made it harder than the standard notation/keyboard requires. It was a good intention, but not convincing solution.

On the other side the Axis keyboard concept is very good and overcomes the problem of the typical black/white standard keyboard to have for each key a different fingering. Additionally there are tone intervalls possible with one hand, which are impossible with the standard keyboard (eg. more than one octave).

There might be a reason, why Jordan Rudess is using it …

1 Like
#20
#21

Here’s a guy that has made a 3-D printed model for (a version of an) isomorphic keyboard, that sits over top of a standard sized keyboard.

A little clunky, but could be tuned up and would probably work really nicely.

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I want to learn how to play keyboard
#22

H%20Pi%20Instruments

Tonal Plexus Keyboard from H Pi Instruments

This is a microtonal keyboard, and hence gives you a much wider choice of harmonics, and chord sounds. No more settling for equal temperament tunings. The voice choice in the video above is atrocious but that shouldn’t be to hard to change.

The main website is here.

Overview of the keyboard layout.

As far as i can tell this is also not available – which seems to be a theme with alternate keyboards.

#23

There’s a Jankó Piano youtube channel.

Mostly just someone playing a very nice 6 row Jankó accoustic piano. After watching a few vids i really got the feel sense of how once you get a finger pattern down, it doesn’t matter if the keys are black or white, you can just play it – which is one way to define isomorphic.

#24

As far as makers of Jankó keyboards that you can buy, i found two, there must be more though.

There is a piano maker who does Janko keyboards: Reinert in Germany They make upright pianos. There is also a video with some good playing.

ADDED: I love the ‘vertical slides’ at just past 1 minute in this video. there is a vertical chordal slide to the right and one to the left, different but similar. I think this would be unplayable (certainly at this speed) on a standard keyboard.

Then there is Daskin Manufacturing in Reno Nevada, who makes a Jankó midi controller (or he did fairly recently). The company is run by Paul Vandervoort.

As the video shows this thing is really nice. (I really like the four rotary knobs, i’ve never seen anything like it before, almost like a rotary slider. Very nice!) Lots of controls on this thing besides the keyboard. No idea on the price.

You can also see a guy, Noel Cragg, perform on this controller. The player is very good but the sound quality of this video isn’t.

#25

Dolores Catherino is both a player and an authority on polychromatic music aka microtonal music.

This is her youtube channel. The first video there shows her playing various alternative keyboards, including the ROLI, the Haken Continuum, the H Pi Tonal Plexus, and the Starr Lab Microzone U648 hex keyboards – all polychromatically !! She comments on and compares the various controllers. I found it very interesting her comment on the ROLI’s failure with polychromatic performance – in sound generation. I don’t know if ROLI has fixed this or improved upon it.

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#26

Whoa that Haken Mini looks promising. Same software and everything.

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#27

Fluid Piano – an acoustic piano with an microtonal interface

This has been a labor of love for the inventor/developer Geoff Smith. It is pure genius (imo), and while very narrowly focused in it’s use, it exclusively fills a needed position in microtonal performance pianos. There are other videos showing it in performance.

The Piano Thread
#28

Magnetic Resonance Piano by Andrew McPherson

This is absolutely brilliant but largely unexplored and lays open to a larger musical application. For one it calls out to classical composers, but could also be used brilliantly in experimental jazz, or in the studio. This is an acoustic instrument but has the ambiance of something beyond the usual acoustic experience. There are multiple methods for the use of magnetically induced vibrations, with many musical effects. There is both a version using a regular grand piano, with additional magnetic resonance features added, and a version where a more standard midi keyboard runs the magnetic resonance hardware on a standard piano.

More details:
http://instrumentslab.org/research/mrp.html

A very nice modern classical performance, i believe this was written by the inventor as well.

A Show of Shows - Superbooth, SFF, NAMM - Spring 23
#29

McPherson also makes a (affordable) kit that can be applied to a standard midi keyboard to add x and y sensing similar in some ways to the ROLI keyboard but without the spongy feel.

http://touchkeys.co.uk/

ADDED: February 2021, they are shipping the kit form of this, this month.

#30

TheoryBoard – MIDI Controller by Irijule

image
This photo is of a close to done but not completed unit.
Developed using Kickstarter and is probably a few months yet to delivery.
The panel in the middle is an OLED display and backlit dead panel buttons for setup and control.

The keys (velocity and aftertouch) on the right hand side are four octaves of whatever scale and key you choose. The keys to the left are chords based on the scale, with the chord degree matching in color the keys to the right. There are many versions of each degree of chord on the left, arrange simplest to most complex. (So a major triad is simple, a Major-minor augmented ninth or whatever might be the most complex.) I believe the chords can be played in a variety of ways, including arpeggiation.

There is another mode they have implemented – which allows the keys on the left to be individual notes for a different scale and key than the keys to the right. This in music theory is called bitonality used in modern classical music and jazz. They implemented this mode in response to the suggestion of a backer.

The TheoryBoard thread here on Elektronauts.