Velocity = [4, 15, 30, 49, 72, 98, 127; 0, 5, 15, 30, 54, 86, 127]
There's a attack velocity slider on the front of the MIDIBOARD. I usually set it a little above the second line (about 1/3 of the way up) because that setting covers the lower velocities well but I can still reach 127 by thumping hard. That's the setting I used here.
out of interest, do you know which hardware revision of the Midiboard you have?
Mine is of the early ones, it has a pretty stiff keyboard action,
I gather at some point they switched to a gentler one.
I've never really been able to fins a curve I was completely happy with on mine - even with the Attack Velocity at minimum, it's far too keen to hit v=127! so my curves usually look a bit like y = e^x
Mine is a revision 2, I think (42 parameters listed on the front). Not the last and most-lusted-after revision 3. The action is made in USA--not the later Japan. That said, I like the action a lot though it's a bit heavier than on my upright.
It may be a silly question, but does your velocity slider work at all? I replaced all my sliders on purchase because some were bent and some worn out.
yeah, they work fine!
By the way, you can upgrade your MIDIboard OS to v3.0,
the original designer Hal Chamberlin still sells the EPROM you need...
By the way, you can upgrade your MIDIboard OS to v3.0,
the original designer Hal Chamberlin still sells the EPROM you need...
I tried to contact him a few years ago but got no reply...
Hi there,
I own a Kurzweil MIDIBOARD revision 2, and I am interested in upgrading ROM to 3.0. Do you know where can i look for the upgrade? Is it viable?
Another question: My MIDIBOARD does not have the button called "MIDI MERGE" which the manuals make reference, in fact, the button says MIDI IN and it blocks all MIDI output when pressed, is that part of the 2.0 software version? because that is the only reason I am asking this.
I need to be able to input MIDI to the system at the same time of output MIDI messages with the keyboard and controllers.
Thanks for reading.
Hi, actually my question is a little different but there seems to be a lot of MIDIBOARD users here under one roof.
I have two MIDIBOARDS and I want to cut the units up and create a new dual-MIDIBOARD console. I guess my questions are :
1) has anybody done this kind of thing before, if so - what tips do you have?
2) wondering if stacking the two keyboards inside an organ console would create any velocity problems (echo notes, etc)
feline1 wrote:By the way, you can upgrade your MIDIboard OS to v3.0,
the original designer Hal Chamberlin still sells the EPROM you need...I tried to contact him a few years ago but got no reply...
Here is the current email for Hal Chamberlin: halc@ycrdi.com
Lanny
Hi, everybody
I bought one midiboard in japan. keys are very loud banging. the sound is when the rubber hits the sensor...
it's normal for this keyboard? someone tried to fix it?
Yes - the banging is rather normal for these.
I've looked at, thought about, adding springs or more rubber.
My friend has recently bought two Kurzweil Midiboards, and I have created a three-manual master MIDI controller with those two on the bottom and a Kurzweil K-250 on top for a solo manual.
All three hook up to my MIDI Monster Mayhem Cabinet with various outboard rack modules and other goodies.
Sort of a cross between a Miditzer and a MIDI console.
ANYWAY, I digress. The main point of my reply has to do with the action of the MIDIboard.
I had a MIDIboard back in the day, some 20 years ago. Used it live in a rock band setting and I could never get the feel right. I started to think it was me.
No matter what I did with the MIDIboard setup, the action - or the response, just never felt right to me. So I sold my MIDIboard after we stopped gigging.
Zoom ahead to now, and I have been working the MIDIboard in a studio setting. Seems to be the same deal. As great as the MIDIboards are, they just don't ever seem to have the nuance, or wiggle, or dynamic control that I want in a keyboard.
Some things are fine - basic piano playing. But even then, there is no .... no grace between soft and loud. It's either soft OR loud ... not much in between.
Now I remember why I sold my Midiboard in the first place. Great keyboard in many ways .... but lacking in the nuance control of the action, in terms of dynamic control of MIDI modules.
Modern MIDI is better - and I think most good MIDI controller keyboards are better - will offer you a better dynamic control and feel.
But that is just me, maybe. Thing is to try before you buy, if you can.
Just that things have moved on since the Midiboard was released. And maybe even then the end result was not totally thought through 100%
My preference is for Yamaha keyboard action, followed by Kawai, then Korg and Roland.
Sometimes Korg keyboards are secretly made by Yamaha sub-suppliers anyway
http://www.flickr.com/photos/72435599@N02/8486496163/
fwiw - using latest version on Midiboards.
I have come to this realization:
Kurzweil keyboards playing other modules do not "feel" as good as going the other way around.
When I use Yamaha keyboards to play Kurzweil modules, I get better "feel" and tonal control.
Just my two bits.
These two Wikipedia entries explain why the Kurzweil Midiboard is not particularly graceful in the velocity curves, and why the Kurzweil K250 has no Aftertouch:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurzweil_Music_Systems
"The Midiboard had its virtues and its drawbacks. It was reasonable to manufacture and relatively inexpensive for the range of input forces, both presses and impulse inputs, it could transduce. One of its drawbacks was that it was not well damped in very light playing, making touch uncertain. At some point, working for Kurzweil, Hal Chamberlin debounced this burble. A hardware fix was possible - splitting the sensors."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurzweil_K250
The plastic hammers were initially a bit too stiff for lighter playing. the general design was to have a controllable collapsible hammer that would be able to produce both velocity and aftertouch data by analyzing the rate of change in the capacitance. The sensor is a flat copper plate with a thin layer of isolation - looks like Kapton but not sure. all the hammers (which are conductive) have a high frequency signal applied to them, so when they hit the plate, the surface of the hammer has a engineered shape to provide a controlled rate of change to the surface area which would give you different capacitance depending on the force and how fast it deforms. software strobes the keyboard notes at 100khz with an 8 bit resolution.
You can configure both the velocity and aftertouch, as well as the release velocity and retriggering threshold. The two main controls for the attack velocity is the first slider and the third slider - 'touch'.
But its not the best at controlling nuance - but added with Modartt's velocity control curves, will get you pretty well anywhere you want, but the initial setting in the midiboard should be as linear as possible, I found that attack velocity should be around 50% with touch being off or 0.
The light touch double hit issues which is a problem that they never sorted out before the release. Hal - who was mainly responsibility in getting the unit into production found that splitting the hammers along the axis of the extrusion - effectively creating two hammers with the same shape, effectively soften the stiffness and reduced the double hit issues.
The sensor design was by Key Concepts, which had a previous design that had poly pitch bend on every note as well. But nobody thought that was marketable product. Kurzweil ended up buying the rights for the poly aftertouch sensor technology. And that's when Hal came into the picture. He wrote the software for the unit as well as a fair amount of the K150 synth, which was to be sold to Baldwin pianos who introduced a digital piano with basically the guts of the K150 in it. The K150 and the Midiboard work pretty seamlessly together, the K150 offers a lot of aftertouch options that the Midiboard offers. The only issue with the Midiboard besides its slightly Hal like control interface (k150 is about the same) is there is no filters for aftertouch like there is on the EPS, such that it's quite easy to overload the midi stream thru put with a lot of aftertouch info coming from 8 to 10 fingers. The EPS has some sort of filtering (lower scan frequency?) that prevents too much info from accumulating.
I haven't yet gone down the route of spitting the hammers yet, but I am going to try to use memory foam (stuff that ear plugs are made of) which fit nicely inside the hammers. I will be doing that to my potential parts Midiboard - it still works but it got hacked by an eccentric artist. and if that works then I will do the same with the other one.