Wednesday, August 9, 2006
Guitar neck keyboard
I took some days’ time off from hacking but tonight I wanted to do something, so I assembled the one octave of buttons the guitar neck is going to have.
In the last post, I had the image of the inside of the headstock of the plastic guitar where I fixed six pots (knobs you can turn) in the holes of the tuning pegs. The upper neck area will be fitted with four touch switches (so you can trigger them by just touching them). The lower neck area now has twelve small pushbuttons arranged like piano keys, seven white and five black keys.
To drill the holes at the proper places I first measured the plastic neck case and drew a stencil in Photoshop which I printed, cut out and taped to the case:
I pierced the surface at the twelve hole centers with a screw and a hammer, peeled of the paper stencil and drilled the holes (with a drill bit suitable for wood). I had to dremel away some of the plastic frets around the holes so the buttons would mount flush to the case. I fixed the buttons et voilą:
I’ll still have to connect them, though. They are playable with the left hand reaching around the bottom side of the neck, just like when playing a higher chord on a real guitar. Their purpose will most likely be transposing some kind of musical loop or sequence into other keys or playing chords.
Keytar Project:
Part 5: My desk is covered in cables and stuff
Part 7: Lots of pots
