Aboutcleggsan Expertise All technical areas of Electronics Engineering.
Experience BSEE, MBA, Design, R&D, University Research.
Senior Life Member of IEEE. Life Fellow of AES.
Organizations IEEE, Consumer Electronics Society, Audio Engineering Society.
Broad teaching experience; work experience mostly in consumer electronics and conversion from analog to digital technologies. Pioneer in digital audio at all levels.
Question I'm looking to invenst with an electrical engineer in designing a keyboard synth about 7 inches in length that comes equipped with its own synth sounds and can be used as a controller for audio software. I would like the keys to be textured so that one can feel the white and black keys, given it would be small it should still have the feel of a keyboard. How would I go about reaching an electrical engineer that would be willing to create such a piece?
Answer Design and development of keys with tactile touch is no small task.
Yamaha and Casio are leaders in the electronic area. But, the small keyboard of 7" length is really unusual.
How many keys are you expecting to put within this length? How much depth or length of the keys? And what kind of electrical connection from the movement of the keys to the electronics are you thinking? Are you also looking for volume level with increased depression force on the key?
I suppose you may have to find the suppliers of the keyboards to manufacturers of other keyboards to see if they would design a custom key profile for your needs. Have you any contacts within the toy industry or Casio or Yamaha? Those might be places to start looking.
You might, also, try sourcing keyboard designs from Hong Kong, Singapore and China suppliers. Here is a manufacturer that makes many types of devices; none are a small as you are looking for but they may have other offerings or, as I have found with so many Chinese firms, they are anxious to make new products with their in-house techniques.
