Recently I purchased an EMT-10E (Yamaha sound extender) which was meant for the Clavinova to increase the different sounds you could make. I bought it for the project I mentioned earlier on this blog, so I would have something to hook the toy piano with MIDI to once I was done. However, due to issues with the switches the toy piano still doesn't have MIDI, and I still wanted to play with the EMT-10E. So I decided to make a PS/2 keyboard to MIDI converter. Since a PS/2 keyboard already sends key press and release commands it would be just a matter of converting the protocol and assign a note value to each key.
As this didn't seem to difficult, I decided to give myself another requirement, which was that it had to look nice. As you can see on the picture, I think I succeeded. Initially I decided to use a wood box, but the PS/2 connector that I got from Jameco was too narrow for wood, so I needed something thinner, but still strong. After walking around in Lowes for a while I discovered that an light switch box with a blank plate would work very well. I also bought a 1/2" drill bit for the holes, and it turned out it was quite easy to put everything together.
I once made a servo controller for Brian Asman, and I already had converted that board for MIDI output. It turned out it had the right size for the box, and I therefore only had to add the PS/2 connector (I connected the data line to PORTB bit 4, and the clock line to PORTA bit 2. You also should connect +5V and ground. Wikipedia has a very clear diagram of the connector, but make sure you have the right mirror image (initially I connected it wrong, reversing the voltages. My keyboard was quite lenient, though). You'll know when you have the right connections if you see the keyboard's LED blink. To hook up the MIDI you need two 220 Ohm resistors for use in the data line and the +5V line. The data line should be hooked up to the TX pin of the PIC16F690 (you can also use a PIC16F688, if you want something smaller). The EMT-10E conveniently has a 9-12V output, which I use to power the box.
You can see and hear the box at work here:
The EMT-10E has a "split keyboard" mode and allows transposing up and down for several octaves, and it has a number of different instruments (no drums, unfortunately). The only problem remaining is that a PS/2 keyboard has auto-repeat on keys, which is undesirable if you want to play notes for a longer period of time (it also causes some notes to become "stuck", possibly because more press events are received than release events).
Here is the first version of the source code, which basically reads a key from the keyboard, converts it into a note value, and either plays it or stops playing it, depending on whether it is a key press or a key release.
If you're interested in this project you can always contact me and I can provide more details if needed.
