A Little Concertina Trainer. (project For Those With Soldering Irons A

[Simon H]

One of the most frustrating things about being a learning concertina player is not being able always to practice. Causing disturbance to others, not being able to take the concertina on journeys. Or simply not having it when the mood strikes. These are common problems. I've read threads here that express that frustration and decided to try to do something about it.

 

My problem is my electronics knowledge starts and ends wiith simle switches, electromechanical stuff, so anything I made would have to be simple and not be based around midi or microcontrollers or the like.

 

What I wanted was to have a small simulated English Concertina keyboard which would connect to a small kids type keyboard instrument. This turned out not to be as easy as I thought. The keyboard contacts of even very cheap kids keyboards are not easily hackable to allow the soldering in of wired contacts out to the simulated concertina keyboard.

 

Then I realised the ideal instrument is out there, if you can stand the sound it makes - the Stylophone. Simple electronics and a keyboard of metal made to solder onto. The stylus wire would act as a common ground for all the pushbuttons. also headphone and rudimentary mp3 mixing facilities all for £15 quid on ebay. Believe it or not, they've rereleased the stylophone so there is no shortage.

 

I emptied Maplins of suitable pushbutton switches (7mm dia push-to-make) then found a source on E-bay. So no shortage of pushbuttons I have about 90 ! Next I constructed the keyboards with button spacings measured directly off my Wheatstone. Clear platic and a felt tipped pen does the trick to create the correct spacings to transfer to the wood to drill the holes. I've bought a couple of thumbstraps to fit too when all is complete.Then I got to grips with the soldering iron.

 

And that's where it all went a bit pear-shaped After I got the first side just about finished I started testing and found that some of the switches simply weren't working. Instead of using thin wire to wire it up, I'd used a plug and socket wire from PC world that would allow me to separate the Stylophone end from the keyboard end. Problem was it was heavy wire and the soldering damaged a few of the switches. They are so wired in that i'll have to take the whole thing to bits to fix it.

 

So before I commence Mark 2 I thought, has anyone tried this or similar? I'm talking cheap keyboard trainer here, not midi, not something costing hundreds, simply something with buttons that activates a separate small instrument. Have you any learnings to share, anything out there better than a Stylophone to solder wires onto? (that's the easy bit)

 

To do this for Anglo layouts would require a bit of jiggery pockery around microswitches to detect push/pull but it is possible.

 

Anyway, I thought I'd share this at this stage before I plunge into mark 2. I've a feeling a few people would like something to sit in front of the TV with, earphone in place, picking out the melody of that new tune you heard. I hope this is inspiration enough to get started.

 

Attached also a picture of where things got to with Mark 1. I shall strip it down and rebuild for Mark 2 with proper thin connecting wires. If I achieve anything like success I will report back, either that or we could get a few like-minded people to work the designs into something manufacturable, as long as its inexpensive. I've no wish to profit from the concept.

 

My original concept, it has to be said was not much bigger than a cigarette packet with the exact layout of buttons and a headphone socket and little speaker !

 

Simon

 

Edited April 24, 2008 by Simon H

[ragtimer]

One of the most frustrating things about being a learning concertina player is not being able always to practice. Causing disturbance to others, not being able to take the concertina on journeys. Or simply not having it when the mood strikes. These are common problems. I've read threads here that express that frustration and decided to try to do something about it.

Thanks for doing this, and posting about it! I have seriously considered building such a simulator for the Hayden Duet, for all the reasons you mentioend, plus I get to add more buttons than on the real concertina (just as you could take your EC layout down to Tenor C and make a Tenor/Treble).

My problem is my electronics knowledge starts and ends wiith simle switches, electromechanical stuff, so anything I made would have to be simple and not be based around midi or microcontrollers or the like.

I intended to use a small MIDI enocder card, and send MIDI to a portable battery-op MIDI synth box.

This vastly reduces the tangle of wires.

Then I realised the ideal instrument is out there, if you can stand the sound it makes - the Stylophone. Simple electronics and a keyboard of metal made to solder onto. The stylus wire would act as a common ground for all the pushbuttons. also headphone and rudimentary mp3 mixing facilities all for £15 quid on ebay. Believe it or not, they've rereleased the stylophone so there is no shortage.

Haven't heard of the Stylophone here in teh States. I take it there's a metal stylus on a wire lead, and you touch it to the metal buttons to play a note?

 

I'll bet it won't play but one note at a time, so you can't practice chords on your simulated EC? MIDI encoding gets around that limitation.

And that's where it all went a bit pear-shaped After I got the first side just about finished I started testing and found that some of the switches simply weren't working. Instead of using thin wire to wire it up, I'd used a plug and socket wire from PC world that would allow me to separate the Stylophone end from the keyboard end. Problem was it was heavy wire and the soldering damaged a few of the switches. They are so wired in that i'll have to take the whole thing to bits to fix it.

You did the right thing, to connectorize it. Finer wire should not be required. I'd guess that you just need to hone up your soldering technique so as not to heat up the switch terminals so much.

 

Anyway, thanks for sharing! --Mike K.

[David Barnert]

Haven't heard of the Stylophone here in teh States. I take it there's a metal stylus on a wire lead, and you touch it to the metal buttons to play a note?

Exactly. I hadn't heard of it either, but I just googled it and there's a wealth of information about it out there, including this homage page with pictures, history and mp3 "nostalgia demos," a wikipedia article, and a

video.

 

Here's a passage from the homage page:

 

Marketed as a 'pocket electronic organ' that anyone could play with no musical training, it used a stylus to play the notes - you touched the metal 'keyboard' with the stylus to complete a circut and a note was triggered.

 

It sounded truly awful! A horrible, buzzy pulse wave through a small cheap speaker that sounded like a very butch wasp on steroids!

[david watkins]

Hi Simon

 

I think this is a great idea, I started playing recently and am recently enjoying it, but it would be great to have a small gizmo to practice on. I occasionally take mine in the car and have a practice on a lunchbreak in the car where no-one can hear, this would be even better and less bulky. I dont know why you havent had more response. Sorry i cant contribute but i know less about electronics than i do about playing the concertina ( at the moment ), good luck!

 

Cheers

 

David

 

 

One of the most frustrating things about being a learning concertina player is not being able always to practice. Causing disturbance to others, not being able to take the concertina on journeys. Or simply not having it when the mood strikes. These are common problems. I've read threads here that express that frustration and decided to try to do something about it.

 

My problem is my electronics knowledge starts and ends wiith simle switches, electromechanical stuff, so anything I made would have to be simple and not be based around midi or microcontrollers or the like.

 

What I wanted was to have a small simulated English Concertina keyboard which would connect to a small kids type keyboard instrument. This turned out not to be as easy as I thought. The keyboard contacts of even very cheap kids keyboards are not easily hackable to allow the soldering in of wired contacts out to the simulated concertina keyboard.

 

Then I realised the ideal instrument is out there, if you can stand the sound it makes - the Stylophone. Simple electronics and a keyboard of metal made to solder onto. The stylus wire would act as a common ground for all the pushbuttons. also headphone and rudimentary mp3 mixing facilities all for £15 quid on ebay. Believe it or not, they've rereleased the stylophone so there is no shortage.

 

I emptied Maplins of suitable pushbutton switches (7mm dia push-to-make) then found a source on E-bay. So no shortage of pushbuttons I have about 90 ! Next I constructed the keyboards with button spacings measured directly off my Wheatstone. Clear platic and a felt tipped pen does the trick to create the correct spacings to transfer to the wood to drill the holes. I've bought a couple of thumbstraps to fit too when all is complete.Then I got to grips with the soldering iron.

 

And that's where it all went a bit pear-shaped After I got the first side just about finished I started testing and found that some of the switches simply weren't working. Instead of using thin wire to wire it up, I'd used a plug and socket wire from PC world that would allow me to separate the Stylophone end from the keyboard end. Problem was it was heavy wire and the soldering damaged a few of the switches. They are so wired in that i'll have to take the whole thing to bits to fix it.

 

So before I commence Mark 2 I thought, has anyone tried this or similar? I'm talking cheap keyboard trainer here, not midi, not something costing hundreds, simply something with buttons that activates a separate small instrument. Have you any learnings to share, anything out there better than a Stylophone to solder wires onto? (that's the easy bit)

 

To do this for Anglo layouts would require a bit of jiggery pockery around microswitches to detect push/pull but it is possible.

 

Anyway, I thought I'd share this at this stage before I plunge into mark 2. I've a feeling a few people would like something to sit in front of the TV with, earphone in place, picking out the melody of that new tune you heard. I hope this is inspiration enough to get started.

 

Attached also a picture of where things got to with Mark 1. I shall strip it down and rebuild for Mark 2 with proper thin connecting wires. If I achieve anything like success I will report back, either that or we could get a few like-minded people to work the designs into something manufacturable, as long as its inexpensive. I've no wish to profit from the concept.

 

My original concept, it has to be said was not much bigger than a cigarette packet with the exact layout of buttons and a headphone socket and little speaker !

 

Simon

 

[Simon H]

I had expected a bit more response to this too David, given the threads I've read to date, regarding practicing. Nonetheless Mark 2 is not far from finished, another hour or two work over the next few days, and it should be done. Perhaps the seeming complexity and spaghetti of wires looked daunting, conceptually it is very simple and once the wiring is all tidied up and wrapped it will be fine. I've got a little scissor mechanism to attach to give a semblance of "bellows" movement between the keypads - only an inch or two travel but enough to make the ends feel separate. More soon.