Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards CyberGene's DIY hybrid MIDI controller is finally here!

Wonderful playing CyberGene. I also like the artistic video work.

This is a good case both for the Garritan CFX and the Cybrid piano. It sounds inspiring to play.

Garritan CFX is THICK and SICK! 💪🏻 I spent quite some time calibrating the velocity touch response on a per key basis (through the trimpots) exactly to the CFX (it’s still with the default linear curve) and it’s really even better than what I remember. I think Garritan CFX is an exquisite piano once the touch response is good enough. To people who hasn’t liked it: it’s really worth it to try to improve the touch curves either in the software and/or in the controller.

Congrats, I never thought you'd finish. Nice playing too, I've been meaning to learn that Scriabin Valse.

I actually think your proximity sensor is just fine. The optical gate thingy Yamaha uses is very regulation sensitive as well, I don't really see the advantage.

Thanks! TBH, I had no big expectations I’d be able to finish it either 🤣 For some reason I had a boost of energy and desire to finish it in the last month or so. I love that Scriabin Valse, can already play it entirely from memory but still struggle with the middle part and can’t go through it without multiple errors 😕 Besides, it has Bb7 and C8 in the score and I miss these keys...

I used my logic analyzer yesterday to do some measurements. I scan the entire keyboard in 36 microseconds. This is 2 microseconds per group which is made of 1 microsecond delay that I have in order for the pull-up resistors to bring the voltage up and 1 microsecond for the program execution. It’s pretty good IMO. To put things in perspective, the hammer travels for 300 microseconds between my two measuring points when having MIDI velocity of 127; 1300 microseconds for MIDI 64.

Well, I know it's the least interesting thing in the world nowadays and even I started losing interest in my own creation 🤣

Anyway, the last time I wrote I measured the scanning speed through a logic analyzer and it was 36 microseconds. I couldn't live with that because it meant I was losing accuracy at high velocities. More precisely, it meant that if I played a note with a MIDI velocity of 110, it will be measured with anything between 110 and 113 which isn't very cool. Things were a bit better around MIDI velocity of 64 where the error was around 1.

I realized I used the smallest possible programmatic delay of 1 microseconds to wait for the pull-up resistor (because without a delay all was messed up and the controller would act weird with ghost notes being played all over the keyboard). But I actually calculated the RC-delay of the resistors and it was well below 0.1us, so waiting for 1us at every group was a huge waste of time! And so, I just replaced this wait with a single redundant digitalReadFast (that takes around 0.1us) and voila! I almost halved the entire keyboard scanning cycle to 19.5us! This means that the error around MIDI velocity of 110 is now slightly less than 1 which is acceptable and the error around MIDI velocity of 64 is 0.3. Much better! Not sure if I can really feel the difference but my imagination says the Cybrid is now even more responsive!

That is nearly a 2x boost in scanning performance!

If you play big chords now, is there much delay among the sound output of the notes by Garritan CFX? Is the USB scheme the biggest bottleneck? I thought there was a lot of forum chatter on USB timing from the competitive gamer community like 5 years ago.

I haven't heard any audible chord note differences. BTW, the Teensy MIDI library supports MIDI stacking, which is to group multiple note ON messages in a single USB MIDI package and I use it. Whether it's understood by Garritan CFX I don't know though. Maybe it splits them in single events and executes them one by one, which is the more probable case anyway since it replays samples underneath. But in any case I don't believe I can hear any problems. Not sure how to test it too, maybe artificially with a code that would send a chord in the grouping manner, record the WAV and then analyze it somehow to see if I can notice separate notes being played in succession rather than simultaneously.

Playing experience is all that counts. The new Yamaha N1x nearby is a helpful benchmark.
I don't see much multi-core activity on Garritan CFX with any of my computers, and second core activity was limited and principally from OS and drivers, with the other cores in deep c-states (sleeping). This is supported by the general advice for pro audio engineers at GS forums (single VIs played live benefit from fast CPU speeds but not number of cores. Big multi-track productions can benefit from more cores).
That is a good idea. You could use a big extruded aluminum bar or one of CyberDaughter's toys to press a lot of keys simultaneously.

Alternatively, I suppose you could inject parallel signals near the sensors and see the results. There are a lot of delicate electronics waiting to be destroyed so take care.

CG, your Cybrid is being ‘featured’ at the Pianoteq forum (by a member).
I wonder if they know how much you love Pianoteq!

Oh! The humanity!

The irony Well, regardless of my attitude towards Pianoteq, the controller is a good one and is certainly one of the better ones for people who use Pianoteq (or any VST)

Congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. Also I enjoyed hearing the Scriabin poem. I played the opus 32 in a recital in my teens and never played them since and I'm now 65.

Thank you for sharing such an amazing creation.

The results speak for themselves. Wonderful playing CG

I don't why, but whenever I hear this piece, I keep waiting for it to turn into Radiohead...

^ Ando, hmm, there's certianly something in common indeed I love "Everything in its Right Place" in all possible arrangements, and of course the original which gives me instant comfort, same with the Serenade for the Renegade. Wondering what is the common stuff in these modern pop/jazz tunes that are often interchangeable between artists as varied as Radiohead, Brad Mehldau, E.S.T., etc.

Fantastic! Given some of the fundamental skills you had to develop along the way, it is impressive even to have it work at all, much less to have such a good result. Well done.

Cybergene,


Great project! Sounds great too with the Garritan CFX Samples.
What configuration are you using: Full/Compact > Classic/Contemporary/Player > ?

To what extend does your approach differ from that of Lachnit (MK23) who also works with optical sensors?

This is the full version of Garritan CFX. Full -> Classic -> default. I reverse the stereo image to performer, enable partial-pedaling and re-pedaling and turn down pedal noises to be as low as possible without being completely turned off. I also use a “fix” on the re-pedaling timing that’s been described here.

I don’t know how Lachnit solution works but it uses a Fatar action, so the feel should be different.

Thanks for your response.

Is your DIY project now ready to be build by others who would like to get their hands dirty or do you have to finalize and prepare it first?