Keyboard controller

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farmpaw

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Greeting from a newbie
I need to convert an old casio 61 note keyboard to a controller keyboard, either MIDI or USB. My old keyboard switches already is configured with a 6 x 11 matrix with diodes. My search for details by others who have made this conversion finds only one. This one uses an arduino UNO and a shift register, because the UNO has only 14 pins.
Since I aready have an unused Teensy ++2.0, could this Teensy be used to make the desired conversion without the use of a shift register?
Or would a Teensy 3.2 be a better choice?
Are details of this type keyboard conversion located anywhere in your archives?

Jerry
 
You'll need 17 pins to handle that 6 x 11 matrix. I guess that the 6 are octaves while the 11 are the half-tones within an octave. Thus your code just would drive the 6 octave lines HIGH, one after another in a quick cycling and then read each time the 11 half-tone pins and compare to the previous state which allows you to take a defined action in the code, sending note on or note off midi events. IMHO, this could be better done with a Teensy 3.2 which is waaaays quicker, leaving you more CPU cycles to generate and send nice midi information even when cycling very quickly through the octaves to keep the latency low.

I'd pack that octave cycling and half-tone reading into a separate function, triggered by an IntervalTimer, so that the loop() remains free for analyzing the readings and taking the appropriate midi action.
 
I'd recommend starting with the Keypad library.

Every Teensy has at least 17 pins. Your unused Teensy++ 2.0 should work fine.

Of course you could write you own code to scan the signals, but the Keypad lib already exists and works very nicely. Odds are good it will give you everything you need with minimal effort.
 
Thank you ALL for the quick response to my problem. It is greatly appreciated. Paul's suggestion(s) are exactly what I hoped to receive and therefore plan to follow. Since this project is new to me, it will no doubt be painfully long to build a workable sketch (is this the correct arduino terminology) and use the Loader to download the code into Teensy ++2.0. Yes, I will use an existing code to start with, modifing to adapt my key situation. The hardware and wiring should be no prolem, since I am familiar with that part.
There is no explaining why Casio made this keyboard matrix 6x11. No doubt it had to be the cheapest way for them. The keyboard is quite accetable to me and the learning experience will be invaluable. And as Teremingenieur suggest, with this successful completion of Teensy ++2 keyboard contoller, I hope to do it all again, using another keyboard and a more powerful Teensy 3.2.
Jerry
 
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