[sdiy] hoe to build a cv keyboard

[Scott Stites]

Hello,

As it happens, I'm in the process of building a 37 note
analog keyboard that puts out V/Oct CV, Gate and Trig. 
I've wired up a mini keyboard for the switch matrix and
breadboarded the circuit, and it works wonderfully.  It
uses digital logic to determine which key is pressed
and for generating the gate and the trigger, and uses a
DAC to produce the CV.

It has portamento and a three position octave switch,
which really allows it to cover quite a range.  I have
an old copy of Thomas Henry's "Build a Better Music
Synthesizer" that I got the schematic from. 
Apparently, it originally showed up in Electronotes
#138.

A different approach is freely available here:

http://atlas.csd.net/~rjwsoft/synthesizer.html

Click on "Single Bus Keyboard to 1V/Oct CV, Gate,
Trigger".  He's got photos of the keyboard that he
built and everything.  Pretty interesting!

I've got really nice piano keyboard manual that I plan
to use with this circuit.

This is Ray Wilson's synth site and is a great place to
start if you're first getting into this.  I've
breadboarded most of his circuits and they work great. 
He's got everything here for building an entire synth,
and the parts are all very accessable (at least here in
the States).

Having said all of this, you may just want to go with
an inexpensive MIDI keyboard and a MIDI to CV
converter.  I have yet to do this, so I will leave that
to anyone else on the list to discuss.

Good luck and have fun,
Scott






On Thu, 12 September 2002, "s.matik" wrote:

> hi,
> 
> i´ve loved the sound of an analog synths from the day
i
> first heard
> kraftwerk play. (and thats a long time ago). but with
> no money, it´s been
> impossible to buy one..or two or three ;) but a month
> ago i realized that
> it´s more than possible to build one myself! so.. i´m
> all new to this synth
> diy stuff, but from what i understand i need a cv
> keyboard to generate the
> "voltage"-part for the VCO. i´ve tried to
find even a
> piece of  schematics
> or other info from the internet with no results. could
> someone help me out
> here a bit.
> 
> sakke

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