The kalimba instrument is a finger piano with tines which might be plucked to provide sounds. Primarily based on the mbira instrument from Zimbabwe, the kalimba first appeared within the late Fifties and was popularized within the subsequent many years. With the arrival of cheap on-line purchasing, one can now get hold of a model of this instrument for properly below $20.
After seeing a pair of those seem in my family, the concept was hatched so as to add capacitive sensing and MIDI interface by way of a Raspberry Pi Pico board. Thus was birthed (presumably) the world’s first capacitive contact MIDI kalimba (in addition to the second).
To perform this electro-musical hack, I milled out the within of a strong pocket-sized mini-kalimba, creating simply sufficient room for a Raspberry Pi Pico. To every of the tines, I soldered a 1Mohm resistor which was related to the bottom bus. Every tine was additionally related on to an IO pin by way of an additionally soldered-on jumper, and warmth shrink was added for isolation, creating the resistive {hardware} setup wanted for Pico capacitive sensing. The Pico then acted as a MIDI interface by way of code accessible right here.
Whereas a enjoyable diversion, this very small kalimba was considerably tough to play just because the tines are so small. Model two, seen simply after the five-minute mark within the video beneath, as a substitute employs the identical kind of capacitive sensing setup on a bigger (full-sized?) kalimba, full with a cat determine on the sound gap for some unknown motive.
On this case, I left the Kalimba largely intact however took out a number of tines for extra spacing. Jumpers have been soldered to every tine, however fairly than implement resistors straight I designed and carried out the Pico Contact 2 board that features 1Mohm resistors.
Each gadgets labored as MIDI controllers and have been enjoyable to play. On the similar time, you merely contact the tines with out plucking, so some would possibly view this as a unique instrument altogether, simply kalimba-shaped.
Nevertheless you view it, it was a enjoyable venture. On a private word, I’ll be posting extra of this kind of musical hacks on the JCo Audio YouTube channel. I’d be honored in the event you’d wish to subscribe!
