source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 12:36:50 -0800 Subject: Generalized Keyboard From: "Fred Kohler" All, While searching the web with the phrase "MIDI controller" I came across the web page for Starr Labs. They appear to already make a generalized keyboard. Here is something I cut from their pages to paste here: "Uath-72 , Generalized Keyboard Specifications: (documentation under construction) The Uath-72 is the design of Erv Wilson who makes his home in Los Angeles, California. Mr. Wilson has made a forty-year study in the area of musical temperament which follows an ongoing thread of research and experimentation, really from the dawn of Western Music. The Uath-72 is a 1990's rendition of the Bosanquet Generalized Keyboard built in the late 19th century. Bosanquet's original design was a takeoff on the standard mechanical piano action, modified to present several ranks of keys organized in levels or tiers. Generally speaking, deviations in pitch from the standard 12-tone Equal Temepered pitches were organized into the successive ranks of black and white keys. A full discussion of the background of this instrument and the study of tunigs and temperament is beyond the scope of this paper. The modern electronic version of the keyboard configures the ranks into a flat 2-dimensional planar array of keys. The onboard computer, the MIDI interface and the availability of programmable synth engines all conspire to yield a truly programmable instrument which may be retuned with a button press or two rather than a week with a piano technician's tuning hammer!" Their web address is http://www.catalog.com/starrlab/ for more information. The information on this keyboard, also called the MicroZone can be found at http://www.catalog.com/starrlab/uzone.htm I could never have found this and other valuable microtonal information without the web and the search engines therein. ---Fred -------------------------------------------------------- Fred Kohler, #7-240 Burnside Rd E, Victoria, BC, Canada phone:(250)388-7918 email:Fred_Kohler@bc.sympatico.ca --------------------------------------------------------- Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 19 Nov 1996 23:47 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA18340; Tue, 19 Nov 1996 23:48:59 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA18182 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id OAA23758; Tue, 19 Nov 1996 14:48:56 -0800 Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 14:48:56 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu