other than that, the proximity sensor looks awesome, and the price point is pretty incredible! not to mention the light-up stuff for people learning.
other than that, the proximity sensor looks awesome, and the price point is pretty incredible! not to mention the light-up stuff for people learning.
That's where the design initially came from, but I knew one of the most important things is that the keys had to be full size. Mini key designs always left something to be desired, and I would just use my laptop keyboard instead - which seemed to be more effective and in the long run more convenient too - since these controllers were really cumbersome.
So when I first gave the design to musicians I was scared that they would immediately reject it. The Keys were full size, but the interface was different than what they were used to. But they made zero mention of it, and you can see in later half the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guKRk3WPc40
I know no feedback sounds like bad feedback, but in this case it was really positive. These guys would immediately start wailing on keys like it was natural. These are guys that do this for a living, and I didn't hear one comment about the difference in the keys from a traditional piano.
So take it for what it is - We weren't ignorant of the fact that Keys isn't a traditional design, but all the same - this approach also makes it significantly more portable - and the great thing about AMON (the networking stuff) is we could always make a traditional version and it would still work and link with the non-traditional layout.
I'm not primarily a keyboardist, but I use them; in this case it would surely be tricky to play anything that uses the black keys much; your hands have patterns memorized that (I'd imagine) would be tough to adapt to having the black keys on a separate row.
But because it's MIDI, it really does depend on what you're building, and it might not matter. Recording simple snatches of melody would be fine if you keep away from chromatic lines -- e.g., if you want to add a line that's in C minor, just record it in A minor (all white keys except maybe the G#), then transpose it in a few seconds.
You wouldn't play the Flight of the Bumblebee on it, though.
I'll be honest, I'm not a keyboard player. I designed this to be truly mobile and portable without making compromises on the key size, which my theory is that having a full scale keyboard is more important than the traditional design of the keys. The former makes the device useful, and the later makes it familiar but also prevents it from being very portable without shrinking the keys or otherwise compromising on other dimensions.
I've seen people shred on Keys, it's pretty awesome to see, since I can barely play Yankee Doodle - but I'm getting a lot better!