2012 End of Year Thoughts

December 31, 2012



Five years ago, I began selling Tonal Plexus keyboards online. I started doing this mainly just to bring the instruments into existence, so that musicians (including myself) could use them. As many of you know, all the circuit boards are manufactured in Bulgaria by my friend Jordan Petkov of MIDI Gadgets Boutique, and the finished products are constructed manually by me. Needless to say, if I hadn't decided to do all this, these keyboards would not exist.

For five years now, I've turned printed circuit boards into instruments, doing everything myself, building the enclosures from scratch by hand with raw materials - sheet metal, plywood, sheet plastic, screws, standoffs, adhesives, plastic key caps, etc. For every keyboard, I have hand-punched all the holes in every octave panel. That's a lot of hand-punching …





My original plan was to work this way for five years, and then to restructure my business so that I was not doing all the work myself. Now it's five years later. My designs have improved over this short time, and I've learned a lot, and have even been able to introduce a new velocity sensing keyboard. But, I'm not only building keyboards; I'm also building TBX1 units, as well as programming all kinds of software, and maintaining this website. I have wanted to collaborate on all of these things for years now, but that hasn't happened. It's quite a lot work for one person. According to my original plan, something needs to change at this point.

So, I've decided to take some some steps toward change. First, in 2013 I'd like to start sharing more about what I have learned, to help anyone who wants to do this kind of work. Toward this end, yesterday I had an idea to start something called the Open Source Microtonal Keyboard Initiative (OSMKI). I don't know exactly what this could be, but eventually what I would like to see is an online resource repository, organized and annotated in a user-friendly way, like a book, providing everything anyone would need to build a microtonal keyboard.

To kick things off, today I decided to make existing design documents for Tonal Plexus TPX and U-PLEX keyboards available for free download. My design documents are simple 2D drawings, nothing fancy. In fact, much of what I do is completely undocumented. It just seems wrong to me that nobody else knows how to make these keyboards, so I want to start sharing for anyone who is interested.

I admit that this initial offering is far from complete, and not exactly user-friendly; there are no assembly instructions, or even parts lists. But it's a start. Also, I'm not going to pretend here; generally because I need to spend time on my livelihood, I don't have much time to devote to this kind of thing. I'm taking the time to do all this now at the end of the year, and I want to follow through with it (like any new year resolution), but it's really hard to justify working on something like this without getting paid for it. In this particular case it's even harder, because part of my idea is to give away all my work essentially for free. I'm not sure, but it seems like that runs sort of counter to gaining income from my work. It also seems to me the right thing to do at this point. Anyway, if you are interested in seeing this project grow, donations would be welcome.

Happy New Year!

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