POSITION AND FORCE SENSORS

AND
THEIR APPLICATION TO KEYBOARDS
AND RELATED CONTROL DEVICES
ROBERT A. MOOG
VICE PRESIDENT,
NEW PRODUCT
RESEARCH
KURZWEIL
MUSIC SYSTEMS,
INC.

ABSTRACT
With the advent of MIDI, attention is being focussed on the design of touch-sensitive control
interfaces for electronic music performances. Some recent MIDI keyboard designs employ position
and/or force sensors on each key. The sensors are sensitive and repeatable, yet relatively simple
and inexpensive. Keyboards equipped with these sensors enable the musician to impart continuous
expressive variations to each tone that s/he is producing. Keyboards to be described include the
Kurzweil MIDIBOARD, which enables the musician to continuously control one musical parameter
per key, the Key Concepts Notebender, on which two parameters per key can be continuously
controlled, and an experimental multiply-touch-sensitive keyboard on which three parameters per
key can be continuously controlled.

BACKGROUND
The notion of using a clavier (music keyboard) to control musical parameters other than
timing of note onset and ending, is not new. Tracker-action organs date back to the 14th century. In
these instruments, the keys are connected directly to the pipe air valves through elaborate,
carefully-constructed mechanical linkages, a design feature that enables the musician to control the
character of each note's attack. The clavichord, another venerable instrument, enables the musician
to stretch a string by pressing harder on the key which is exciting that string. Clavichord players
regularly use this feature to impart pitch bend and vibrato to individual notes. And, of course, the
piano's complex action enables a musician to deliver precisely-metered amounts of kinetic energy to
each string at the onset of each note.
More recently, electric and electronic keyboard instruments have been developed with a
variety of touch-sensitive features. The reproducing pianos of the 1920's and 1930's incorporated
mechanisms that recorded, then played back the velocities of each key depression. Early Baldwin
organs circumvented the problem of key contact clicks by incorporating a rheostat in each key
assembly, a design feature that enabled players to determine the attack times of the notes, just as a
tracker-organ player would do. The SynKet, developed in the early sixties by Paul Ketoff, is a
performance-oriented
synthesizer with three small keyboards, each of which has a key bed that

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moves up and down as well as sideways. Motion sensors attached to the Synket's key assemblies
are used to produce pitch and loudness inflections. Finally, many of today's popular electronic
keyboards incorporate force sensors under the keys to register the total key force exerted by the
player, and dual contacts on each key to register the key's velocity as it is depressed.
The keyboards that are described in this paper (the Kurzweil MIDIBOARD, the KeY
Concepts Notebender, and the Big Briar multiply-touch-sensitive keyboard) provide keyboard
players with new types of touch sensitivity. Their sensor designs are matched to the mechanical
characteristics of the keys themselves. They all incorporate microprocessor-based sensor scanning
and signal processing systems which enable the designers tO program a variety of response
characteristics (keyboard 'feels') to cover a range of musical applications.

THE

MIDIBOARD

The Kurzweil MIDIBOARD is an 88-key master MIDI controller. The keys themselves are
wooden key levers of conventional design. A lead weight is placed at the back of each key lever.
This mechanical inertia of the key/weight assembly provides the keyboardist with the tactile
feedback necessary to determine the key's attack velocity during rapid playing.
A single variable-capacitance sensor per key measures the key's attack velocity, its release
velocity, and the downward force on it while it is depressed (sometimes called key afterpressure ).
The sensor consists of a half-cylinder-shaped conductive rubber element, and a conductive area on
a circuit board, covered with a thin layer of Kaptan. The rubber piece is attached to the key weight,
and is connected to a 100 kHz. drive signal buss by means of another piece of conductive rubber,
in the shape of a very thin strip (Figure 1). When the key is depressed, the semicylindrical rubber
piece bears against the circuit board, forming a capacitor. The harder the key is pressed, the more
the rubber spreads out across the circuit board, and the higher is the capacitance. The circuit board
pattern is shown in Figure 2, while Figure 3 shows how a key and sensor are positioned with
respect to the circuit board.
Once every 1-1/2 milliseconds, a scanning circuit on the board samples the 100 kHz voltage
from each key sensor. Typical sensor outputs are shown in Figure 4. When the key is depressed
and the rubber sensor element first strikes the circuit board, the weight's kinetic energy is rapidly
dissipated. This results in a brief peak in the sensor output. After ten milliseconds or so, the sensor
output returns to a low level. From there on until the key is released, the sensor output follows the
player's force on the key. As the player releases the key, the sensor output drops to zero. The
MIDIBOARD's operating system analyzes the sensor output in real time. It derives a value for
MIDI attack velocity from the height of the initial peak; if it does not detect a peak within a certain
time, it derives the velocity from the sensor's maximum output during that time. The MIDI release
velocity is calculated from the average slope of the release portion of the sensor output. By looking
for, and detecting, small peaks after the initial attack peak, the MIDIBOARD's operating system is
able to produce relrigger signals, thus enabling the player to retrigger notes rapidly without actually
lifting his finger from the key.
The operating system uses the settings of five 'keyboard response' sliders on the
instrument's front panel, plus the contents of several lookup tables stored in memory, to tailor the
transfer function that relates the raw sensor outputs to the MIDI velocity and pressure values.
Figure 5 shows the keyboard response sliders. The ATTACK VELOCITY slider determines how
fast a key must be depressed in order to produce the maximum MIDI attack velocity; the RELEASE
VELOCITY slider does the same for key release. The TOUCH slider determines the sensor's
threshold: the output value above which the note is on. The PRESSURE SENSITIVITY slider

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determines how hard the key must be pressed after it is down, to produce a given MIDI pressure
output value. Finally, the RETRIGGER THRESHOLD determines how large a peak in the
sensor's post-attack output is necessary to restart the note. The user perceives these five sliders as a
means of tailoring the keyboard's 'feel', even though none of them actually affects the keyboard's
mechanical parameters.
This particular sensor configuration has several desirable features. First, only one sensor is
needed to gather data from which MIDI note-on velocity, note-off velocity, polyphonic
afterpressure, and channel pressure messages may accurately be computed in real time. Second,
the design is inherently repeatable, and is stable over time. In fact, the biggest system variable is the
thickness of the Kaptan insulation on the sensor circuit board, and this can be compensated for by
varying the value of a gain-determining resistor on each of a keyboard's six sensor circuit boards.
Third, the sensor does not interfere at all with the key's travel, and contributes only a slight elastic
feel once the key is down. Fourth, the frequency at which the system operates (100kHz.) allows
the sensor to be rapidly scanned to produce outputs which, for musical purposes, are essentially
continuous. And finally, the sensor system is inherently inexpensive, and easy to work with in
typical electronic assembly environments.

THE

NOTEBENDER

The NOTEBENDER is an example of the integration of a sophisticated, carefully designed

mechanical system, working in conjunction with simple but appropriate sensors. The
NOTEBENDER is a keyboard on which the key top surfaces can move toward and away from the
player, as well as up and down. Figure 6, which is taken from U.S.Patent #4,498,365, is an
exploded schematic view of one key's mechanism. The key itself pivots on a rod (marked 'upper
pivot', which is attached to another pivot (the 'lower pivot'). This allows the key to move
horizontally as well as pivot from the rear. The key is also supported by the rocker, which itself
pivots on a leaf spring. When the player depresses the key, the leaf spring bears against a
conductive rubber sensor element, similar to that used in the MIDIBOARD. This is how the
player's downward force on the key is detected.
The actual key surface (not shown in the drawing) has a special molded matte surface so that
the player's finger tends to grip the surface rather than slide on it. As the player pushes the key
forward or backward, the rocker rotates, while the rocker pivot remains stationary. Thus, even
though the top of the key moves linearly, nothing actually slides or otherwise produces a
significant frictional force. When the player stops pushing the key surface, it returns to its normal
mid position because of the restoring force of the coil spring, and because of the shape of the
rocker.
Thus, the player can move the key surface in two independent dimensions: up and down,
and back and forth. There is little frictional force to interfere with smooth, natural motion in either
axis. Furthermore, the sensors are very nearly transparent to the player. The up-down force sensor
is perceived as a slight elasticity, once the player depresses a key all the way. The shape of the
curved surface of the rubber sensor determines exactly how elastic the key feels once it is fully
depressed. The in-out motion sensor is a small, centertapped coil. A ferfite core attached to the
pivot arm fides back and forth in the coil when the player moves the key surface back and forth.
100kHz excitation signals of equal amplitude and opposite phase are applied to the two ends of the
coil. The magnitude and phase of the signal appearing at the coirs center-tap tells, with a high
degree of linearity, where the slug is positioned.
Figure 7 shows how a performer moves the keys in and out as he plays. Figure 8 is an

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overall view of the Notebender.

The Notebender is currently configured to control some continuously-variable parameters of
the Rhodes Chroma synthesizer. The designers plan to expand the operating system to include
standard MIDI message outputs.

MULTIPLY-TOUCH-SENSITIVE

KEYBOARD

The multiply-touch-sensitive
keyboard, designed by Big Briar, enables the musician to
control three independent axes of motion per key. The keys themselves are conventional wood
organ keys. The top of each key is covered with an electrically resistive film which is coated with a
thin urethane insulating layer. The resistive f'tlm and urethane layer are on an exopy-glass substrate,
the underside of which carries a conductive guard pattern. Figure 9 shows the top and bottom sides
of the epoxy-glass substrate.
The four comers of each key's resistive film are all excited with the same 100kHz signal.
When the player places his finger on the key surface, the capacitive coupling between finger and
resistive film causes a small current to flow. The position of the player's finger determines the
relationships among the currents supplied by the four comers. These comer currents are scanned
about two hundred times per second. From these the keyboard's operating system computes the
left-right and front-back coordinates of the finger on the key. The urethane surface coating is
textured (by the addition of very fine sand) to enable the player to smoothly slide his fingers on the
keys while he is playing.
The up-down position of each key is also continuously measured. A portion of the underside
of each key forms a capacitor with the conductive areas on a series of circuit boards beneath the
keys. As a key is depressed, the capacitive coupling increases. The magnitude of the output of each
capacitor tells the vertical position of the corresponding key. The keyboard's operating system
linearizes the signal change. It also computes each key's attack and release velocity by examining
the rate at which the signal increases, then decreases. Figure 10 is a side view of an assembled
keyboard. Circuitry that scans the keytop resistive films is seen at the left of the photo, while the
circuit boards that detect the up-down key position are under the keys.
All three outputs from each active key,- left-to-right position of the finger, front-to-back
position of the finger, and up-down position of the key itself, - are scanned by a simple, dedicated
8-bit microcomputer internal to the keyboard, and delivered once every five milliseconds or so. The
raw key sensor data is available as a parallel data stream. Software to convert the data stream to
MIDI runs on a personal-size computer that is external to the keyboard. The musical parameters
under the control of a given multiply-touch-sensitive keyboard are determined by the capabilities of
the tone-producing devices to which it is connected, and the operating software that relates the
keyboard's ouput to the tone-producers' control inputs.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Development of the multiply-touch-sensitive
keyboards began in 1972, with a research
contract between the Indiana University School of Music, and Moog Music, Inc. The immediate
predecessor of the current design was described at the 1982 International Computer Music
Conference in Venice.

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Fig. 1: The MIDIBOARD sensor assembly. The semicylindrical

on a lead weight, which is fastened to the end of the key.

sensor sits

Fig. 2: The sensor circuit board pattern. The pattern itself is covered
thin insulating layer.

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177

Fig. 3: MIDIBOARD

sensor

board

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over the rubber sensors.

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Fig. 4: Typical sensor outputs for a) soft srriice and b) hard strike.

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179

Fig. 7: Side view of the Notebender Keyboard.

Fig. 8: Overall view of the Notebender (Courtesy of the Berklee School of

Music).

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Fig. 9: Epoxy-glass keytop substrates. From top to bottom: Guard side and
resistive side for black key; guard side and resistive side for a white key.

Fig. 10: Keyboard with keys and scanning electronics in place. Top surface
scanning circuitry is at the left. Vertical key position detection/scanning
circuitry is visible slightly right of center.

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