Guest av Posted September 12, 2004 Report Share Posted September 12, 2004 HiI want to MIDIfy a marimba. YOu know: a tuned percusion instruments. It have 4 octaves (45 notes).I need a device that converts one hits on a lamina of the marimba in a note number, with velocity sense and fixed note duration.Could you help me? What I will need?Thank you in advanceAV Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Screaming_Rabbit Posted September 12, 2004 Report Share Posted September 12, 2004 Hi AVSince you propably don't wanna change the sound of your instrument (...looks pretty expensive, a Marimba :P), I wouldn't go for piezos, because they add weight and change the way the sounding bars vibrate as well they'll propably shorten the sustain. There are pretty cheap condenser microphone capsules available (just about 1 or 2 Bucks). You could mount one into each of the individual resonant bodies and trigger MIDI with the signal. (How this works, somebody else has to tell you, since I'm not much into this approach. I saw some posts, so just search the archives). Propably you have to equalize the trigger signals (at least with Low-Cut)Greets, Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest av Posted September 13, 2004 Report Share Posted September 13, 2004 Thank you for your comments Roger.I will search the forum to locate how to trigger MIDI notes, that is the problem that I can not solve.RegardsAV ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey_Sadler Posted September 14, 2004 Report Share Posted September 14, 2004 Take a look at AMERICAN THEATRE ORGAN SOCIETY MISSISSIPPI CHAPTER at http://atos.stirlingprop.com/ and click on the knowledge base button. There are a couple of items that may be of use, Diagram for 2 amp solenoid driver (chime relay) and Applying electric solenoids to tuned percussions. Also take a look at Mechanical Music Digest article on building a pneumatic beater for a xylophone at http://mmd.foxtail.com/Tech/chimes.html . These could be driven by MIDI also, by using small solenoids to valve the air to the pneumatic.Mickey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrBunsen Posted October 28, 2004 Report Share Posted October 28, 2004 Stumbled upon this:http://tomscarff.tripod.com/vibraphone/midi_vibraphone.htmThe kit is no longer available, but the schematics etc are still there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
urbanovibe Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Hi all,I'm new to this board and actually what brought me into it was MIDIficating my vibraphone. As a matter of fact Piezos don't affect the sound of the bars when installed properly in the nodal point of the bar (thats the line to be drawn where the suspension cord of the bar passes through). I made my own pickup system with piezos and sounds awesome (just like a 1,000 dollar system but it cost 40). I glued one piezo for each bar. Each piezo is pluged into a colector rail which has simple mono plugs, the signal is colected thru a single cable (signal and ground) that then goes into an amplifier. Sounds killin' but i'd like to build an interface to send MIDI info... Aguy toldme to put 470k ohm resistors across each pickup jack and using pin connectors to go into a K&K vibraphone interface that costs about 1,000 dollars but was recently discontinued so i don't know what should i do...  will probably making a MIDIbox work? using the piezos as switches?? also, i was thinking of getting a cheap Midiman 4 octave piano-like controller, removing the keys and somehow wiring the switches to the pickups, and also modifiyng a sustain pedal so that it can work along with the sustain pedal of the vibraphone. (more info about vibraphone AKA vibes at http://www.thevibe.net/vn/ )Thanks a lot,Diego Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sd2000 Posted June 8, 2005 Report Share Posted June 8, 2005 Hello allHave you looked at this? http://www2.netdoor.com/~rlang/xylotron/xylotron.htmHave had dealings with Tom Scarff before, he is a great guy, think all his projects are now Public Domain, so drop him a polite email and he is bound to respond with PCB layouts. (He has done many MIDI projects but NOT the above!)Hope thats of use to someone.SD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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