Isn’t that cool looking? That’s the keyboard and action mechanism of a grand piano. As a piano player, I really love the feel of an acoustic piano’s keys. Synthesizers and midi keyboards are very different. The keys are usually made of plastic; the fulcrum of the key is usually at the end (cantilevered) instead of in the middle; and whereas the heaviness of the keys on an acoustic piano (both pressing them down and how they lift back up) makes them feel dynamic and substantial, synthesizers’ ‘action’ is lackluster. 

But I love the way synthesizers sound. I am influenced by electronic music of all varieties. Many digital pianos try to replicate the “weighted” feel of real keys, but it’s just not the same. So here’s the idea:

Wouldn’t it be cool to have the best of both worlds? Imagine isolating the whole action mechanism like pictured above and attaching sensors to each hammer and release, making it a digitized acoustic piano keyboard. Now control those inputs and feed them to a midi synthesizer of your choice. Put it in a pretty housing that combines classical and contemporary aesthetics and you have the coolest digital piano in the world!

How much would it weigh? The action mechanism of a grand weighs approximately 35-40 pounds. The sensors and wires and controller would weigh anywhere from three to ten pounds. The midi synthesizer would be another five or ten pounds. And the intricate dense wood casing would weigh anywhere between ten and twenty pounds. So that puts the whole thing (not including stand or pedals) at 53-80 pounds! 

How much would this thing cost to make? Well…the action mechanism probably could be found in poor condition, but it is so complex that refurbishing it would be a beast of a job (not like this whole project isn’t). If a grand piano is in disrepair, the action almost certainly is to blame. The rest of the piano is the case, the frame and the strings, none of which we care about and not much can go wrong with these parts except the strings breaking or coming out of tune. I’m sure you’d be lucky to get a grand for parts for around $200-400. 

The sensors I would use would be something like an FSR (https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/269) and those are ~$7 each * 88 keys = $616

Woah so this is already getting waay expensive. I’m sure you can just hack some other cheapo electronic for a sensor you could use, but wouldn’t it be nice to have all the ADSR sound attributes of other midi keyboards? I’m going to sit on this idea for a while.