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Aftertouch Keyboard

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:06 am
by Rarecomponentadsr
I'm not too happy with my Axiom midi aftertouch keyboard. Maybe I'm doing something wrong perhaps but after much trial and error I'm not getting a smooth response...in fact the aftertouch effect sort of kicks in with big noticeable glitch and a lot of pressure needs to be applied ....too much for normal playing. Might be okay for vibrato ..that's all.

I'm going to try analogue aftertouch using FSR strip underneath a keyboard ...there's various examples of this on You Tube where it's been applied to cheap keyboards and it seems to work fine. (You Tube..Building a Velocity sensitive keyboard ..https://youtu.be/yIBBxDHOa0g )
But here they are converting it to midi whereas I would only want control voltage out. (maybe combined with Midi Note on/off and pitch and perhaps velocity) I don't know until I try the idea out. I think a variable voltage divider should suffice. Maybe a range of -4 to +4 v cv should be enough for the low pass filter ?
Not sure about VCA ..again it will all be trial and error.

Re: Aftertouch Keyboard

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 9:59 pm
by EMwhite
This won't help your quest for CV aftertouch but I can tell you that modern keyboard/controllers leave a bit to be desired.

I own a Max49 which is of course CV but only for pitch and gate; but the Midi Aftertouch is really stiff and it's difficult to play in any expressive way, consistently.

I had a Roland A500 for a while (before returning it). The key travel/length of keys was all wrong.

The Novation MKII was actually pretty good; not sure what they are up to these days.

Going backwards, the Oberheim Matrix 6 was exceptional (from a feel perspective).

Ironically, the Voyager Old School with the VX-351 was exceptional. And I recently stumbled upon the fact that the Moog Liberation is about the best controller for the Model 15. It is ironic that I could probably sell the Liberation for about $1600 and only have enough $$ to buy a 953 keyboard and maybe a 3rd party slew and vibrato module.

Interested to see what you come up with.

Re: Aftertouch Keyboard

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 7:29 am
by Rarecomponentadsr
Thanks for this info..I suspected the Axiom being too clumsy and its put me off buying any other aftertouch keyboard. As that was all I bought it for I wasted my money .
When I was a lad (and all of this area were fields ) they told me, never buy an instrument until you've placed your fingers on it.
There used to be a couple of dozen music shops I grew up with. Down to about 2 now mostly selling conveyer belt guitars.

Re: Aftertouch Keyboard

Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2017 9:22 am
by sunny pedaal
i had my voyager aftertouch responds upgraded by rudi linnhard some years ago. since then the aftertouch works oke for me . only being surpassed by the multimoogs :-)