Ever heard of a heavy metal kalimba? Now you have.
Key Takeaways
- Kalimba has turned MIDI piano with a Raspberry Pi Pico.
- The metal keys help transmit signals via cables.
- Because it’s a MIDI piano, you can tweak how it sounds with different effects.
If you dive deep enough into the world of hobbyist tinkering, you’ll find a ton of Raspberry Pi projects that you never considered possible before. Just when you thought that Raspberry Pi hobbyists have managed to peak, someone finds a way to use the tech for even more incredible things. Such is the case of someone who figured out a way to wire up a kalimba through a Raspberry Pi Pico, turning the instrument into a cool MIDI piano.
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Turning a kalimba into a MIDI piano with Raspberry Pi
As spotted by Hackaday, YouTuber JCo Audio posted a video of them tweaking two kalimbas. The first was a test to see if the idea was sound, and involved tweaking a miniature kalimba. When his first test was a success, he moved on to a bigger model that also worked great. In the video, he muses that he might be the first person in the world to invent a MIDI piano kalimba.
The modified version works quite a bit differently from a regular kalimba. Because the kalimba’s keys are made of metal, JCo Audio could attach cables to the end of each one to transmit the signal. The end result was an instrument you play by touching each metal key, instead of flicking it like a normal kalimba.
Because the kalimba is hooked up as a MIDI piano, JCo Audio could tweak the noise it made when he touched each key. The end result was another potential world first: a heavy metal MIDI piano kalimba, which he shows off at the end of the video.
If you want to take the same route, you have to be comfortable with soldering wires and testing the connection to ensure the electrical signals are passing through properly. However, JCo Audio kindly linked all of the tools and code he used for his kalimba in the description of his YouTube video, so be sure to give it a shot yourself if you’re feeling confident.
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source: https://www.xda-developers.com/kalimba-midi-piano-raspberry-pi-pico/
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