touch keys and bela are both from a kind of “initiative” (Augmented Instruments Lab) at Queen Mary Uni with Andrew McPherson. some kind of post-grad initiative / incubator program.
so a research program that could spin off products / companies - its pretty cool.
Bela has done well - and they have diversified quite a bit recently.
I was very interested in touch keys, very nearly bought it, for my virus.
but it was always a bit too ‘fiddly’, highly dependent on keys, and results varied quite a bit. e.g some found the ‘skin’ they put on the keys a bit uncomfortable.
so whilst I think cheap(ish) to manufacture, I dont think they sold many, so couldn’t scale, reduce costs etc.
this looks more interesting.
there was also the other company (?) that was creating mpe keybeds for other synth makers.
so some interesting ideas out there…
its an interesting area this one…
Haken’s implementation is awesome, and indeed for piano keys is a very novel idea.
however… I did experiment with a very similar idea on the Eigenharp, that was a glide based on pressure - though I used a weighting glide based on pitch tilt axis of the eigenharp keys.
for me, that was a very natural extension of what the eigenharp was already doing since there was a pitch axis to play with.
and it occurred to me at the time, that as well as pitch, I perhaps could use pressure as some indication of the strength/importance of the two notes.
however, unlike Haken’s wonderfully natural feel.
my initial experimentation didn’t feel that natural - possibly because of the much more limited physical movement of keys - so I put it on the back burner.
would that idea violate Haken’s - possibly not, perhaps its different enough.
but, it does highlight if your expressive device doesn’t have a continuous surface, its quite natural/ logical to look for a ‘solution’ for glide ?!
