Crazy dream concertina

[fred v]

I dreamed that someone showed me a digital concertina. There was no bellows but just a rocking hinge to simulate bellows action. The finger board was a glass rectangle with touch area buttons. They could be turned 90 degrees to change it from an English to an Anglo. I actually think it could be done albeit a little weird. How about that??!!

 

[Ken_Coles]

Your brain must have been subconsciously recalling a look at the products of Michael Eskin here.  😎

 

Ken

[GPKarl]

Ken, That is some crazy modern world stuff right there.

 

[Clive Thorne]

Many years ago(approx 40) I had a dream where I had "Invented" and built a "Dobro" concertina. Basically I think it was like normal except that it had thin metal baffles, attached in one palce,centrally, so they would resonate with the reeds.

 

Probably a good job I woke up.

 

 

 

[Luke Hillman]

16 hours ago, fred v said:

[...] There was no bellows but just a rocking hinge to simulate bellows action. [...]

 

 

This part sounds like the "Striso" duet prototype (I think its manuals are fixed, but it's easy to see how the design could accommodate a rocking hinge for Anglo players):

 

 

[Steve Schulteis]

Funny thing, I finally ordered the custom PCBs for my next iteration of MIDI concertina this week.

[fred v]

Wow the I pad melodian was great and so was the other one.

[Howard Mitchell]

Something like this? https://youtu.be/pAvdKVcUVAs

No hinge but a strain gauge between the two ends. 

[fred v]

What if it had something like a rubber hose connecting the two sides? That would give you the feeling of a bellows plus the strain gauge detecting the bending of the hose!!

[Richard Mellish]

On 5/20/2023 at 1:39 PM, fred v said:

What if it had something like a rubber hose connecting the two sides? That would give you the feeling of a bellows plus the strain gauge detecting the bending of the hose!!

On my (still essentially proof-of-concept rather than a mature design) MIDI concertina, I have tried several arrangements in seeking the right amount of flexibility between the ends. Real bellows give a fair amount of flexibility about axes through the plane of each end but very little about an axis from one end to the other. The best arrangement that I have found so far uses a short piece from a wire coat hanger, bent into a U shape.

[Don Taylor]

1 hour ago, Richard Mellish said:

The best arrangement that I have found so far uses a short piece from a wire coat hanger, bent into a U shape.

What are you using for a sensor?

[Richard Mellish]

4 hours ago, Don Taylor said:

What are you using for a sensor?

I'm not sure whether it should be called a strain gauge or a load cell. Anyway one of these  https://tinyurl.com/2t6txzpd . Then a quad op-amp and a few transistors to provide polarity output (needed for a Anglo keyboard) and an analogue voltage to control amplitude. I can provide more info if desired, but perhaps on a different thread.