Nothing exciting yet, but the general layout of the keytar's motherboard has been figured out.

Most of the usual audio and MIDI I/Os. There's a 13-pin mini DIN, similar to the one used on the Roland Guitar Synth, to use as my "omni" cable. I'm hoping to have it break out all of the jacks next to it to a guitar pedal looking hub. That way the keytar can be powered from a single cable that also handles all the audio and midi stuff.

The last of the major boards that make up the keytar (I think). This one has all the analog sensors that track the positions of the velocity sensitive keys. There will be four of these boards, daisy-chained with the connectors on the back, to make up the full 160 note isomorphic keybed.

Still cleaning up and revising these, but I think I can finally get everything into CAD to start the industrial design process.

#kicad #pcb #diy #midi #keytar

Finally getting into the CAD portion of the keytar project.

I guess this can be considered the guts of the "guitar body" for the keytar. The LED board will respond to the capacitive touch panel above it – hopefully indicating fader positions, which buttons are toggled on, virtual string strumming, etc. The beige looking panel on top is a cork gasket to protect the touch panel from the aluminum enclosure.

(Obviously the pins of the cartridge slot will be trimmed down and not magically colliding with the stuff above it. 😅 Still have to decide on the final location when I design the body.)

#freecadfriday #freecad #kicad #pcb #diy #midi #keytar

About two and a half octaves of velocity sensitive keytar goodness. There will be four of these modules that can either operate together, as a single keybed, or divided into separate MIDI channels.

#freecad #kicad #pcb #maker #diy #midi #keytar

Working out the enclosure for my metal slab of a keytar. 😅 Very much inspired by early analog synths.

Also my first time using the sheet metal workbench in FreeCAD. The tabs for the wood panel mounts didn't work like I initially expected, but everything went smoothly after figuring that out.

#freecad #cad #maker #diy #midi #keytar

Heh, keytar has SynthCarts now.

This is probably the coolest dumb/pointless feature I've ever added to a project.

I (eventually) want to make some digital synths and stuff them into cartridges so they're swappable with the keytar. Excited to make a few and slap some retro cart labels on them.

#freecadfriday #freecad #cad #maker #diy #midi #keytar #synth

Tada. A fully assembled keytar.

This should be enough to start ordering parts and building, but I want to try my hand at making some photo-realistic renders in Blender now. 😅

#freecadfriday #freecad #cad #maker #diy #midi #keytar #synth

The boards for the keytar are finally here. This may be the one I'm most excited about. 576 blinky LEDs that will serve as the main display for the faders, buttons, and XY pad.

#diy #maker #pcbdesign #midi #keytar #synth

Why are these hall effect sensors so freaking small? Did I set myself up for failure by choosing these? 😆

#diy #maker #pcb #soldering