[Sebastian Steppeler] has been hard at work on his optical sensors for an electric piano. When we looked in on the project back in October he was testing reflective sensors to increase responsiveness and MIDI data resolution for his electric keyboard. considering that then he’s finalized the sensor circuits and produced enough boards to monitor all 88 keys on this full keyboard. You can see the string of PCBs just above the ivories, waiting to be installed. Not only are then in, but he also added sensors for the pedals.
Because the boards were installed by hand, there are some variances in the physical placement. This can have a rather dramatic effect on the readings from the reflective sensors so he has been working out a method of balancing the calibration. part of this is already being taken care of by the C# interface that he wrote for a PC. Take a few minutes to check out all of his blog posts, then jump down after the break and hear how great it sounds.