Latest conversion to Janko keyboard
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A simple and light-hearted YouTube video of my recent conversion of a 32 key Yamaha. When I learn to play it, I’ll be able to play it in any key with the same fingering. This one is cheap, simple, and did I say, cheap? Imagine it with a real player, and perhaps you’ll see the potential. Thanks!
By the way, I am about as skilled at YouTube as I am at the melodica…apologies in advance, and fingers crossed that it at least plays….
David
Thank you for the kind words, Daren. When I get some better, I’ll post another sample. Right now, I am taking comfort in the obvious (to me, anyway) truth that the Janko keyboard will cut to literally one twelfth (!) the time I need to play in all keys. It’s magic, for an old man who only plays “key of C” on a normal keyboard. I hope you do try one, but it would be perhaps redundant for you, since you have already mastered the standard keyboard, and then some! Thanks again.
Nice to see a Yamaha conversion.
Can you provide details about how you made the keys and affixed them to your P-32D?
Ultimately, I would like to do this for a P-37D.
Certainly, although I don’t have pictures of the phases of the build. But if you look at the YouTube video, you can pretty much see what I describe here. Please confirm your own dimensions!
Conceptually, there are two critical dimensions/size relationships:
1. All the new wood stick keytops, black or white keys, need to end up at the same height (a level playing field, as they say) before the new buttons are attached. This means that the difference in elevation between higher black and lower white keys must be carefully figured/measured. The new tops for the black keys are about 1/4″ thick (top-bottom) and the new tops for the white keys about 1/2″ thick. Could have been thinner, so perhaps even 1/8″ and 3/8″ or so. I don’t remember doing the math; I probably took two scraps that worked and then set the saw rip fence for those sizes. You can perhaps use craft/hobby sticks, which are nice hardwood and more square than my rather loose table-sawn pieces.
2. The buttons should be as wide as they can be, without mashing down the adjacent key(s) by accident. With that in mind, the thinner (left-to-right) the wooden key sticks can be, the larger the button. I ended up with slightly wider black keytops, and if I had it to do again, I’d try to get to 1/4″ wide, which allows for about 5/8″ buttons, which work fine to my way of thinking.
Prior to gluing anything to the plastic Yamaha keys, I covered parts of those keys with painter’s tape (paper with moderate adhesion and removable if I want) to protect the instrument from permanent glue. I used plain wood glue for the white keys, but the black keys posed a problem: They are curved, so it isn’t trivial to glue straight sticks to those curves. I have a rather rough method: I use very thick glue (E-6000 is one, GOOP is another, in the USA, anyway) and either prop the keys to level while it cures, or use some sort of modest weight accross them to keep them in position while it cures. Have not used hot-glue or epoxy, but might try them. The “slick” way will probably be to precisely machine the arcs into the bottoms of the wooden extenders, or to 3D print the whole business.
For buttons, I use the tapered wooden button-plugs used for filling in counter-sunk screw holes. I spray them glossy black and white, place them carefully, and use wood glue. The slick way, again, will be to 3D print them, either as plug-ins or all in one piece with the keytops.
The first 4 rows (front to back) work quite well, and the fith (back) row works OK if I reach behind it to pull it down. It’s harder because the lever-arm is so much shorter back there than towards the front.
It’s tricky to get all the sticks glued in the right places with nothing crooked, but one beauty of these melodicas is that the front-to-back centerlines of all keys are equidistant from their adjacent neighbors, so you might rig up a jig or fixture. I did all the white ones first, I think, and that made messing with the back keys easier.
If you have any more specific questions, I’ll try to answer them.
Thanks for your interest!
Corrections/additions to the above comments on “Jankolpitts” Yamaha conversion:
1. I think I probably put wooden extender sticks on the black key tops before the white, since they are all centered on their respective black black plastic siblings. The white keys shift slightly left and right, depending upon which note.
2. A typo: in the fourth line from the end, I said “back” when I meant “black.”
3. While I intended to use this with a foot pump so’s to be able to use both hands, I realized that I don’t do much with the left, anyway, so messing with the pump/bagpipe emulation was just adding bulk, mass, and complexity….but it did work, with a wine box plastic bag and a “clamshell” foot pump. But, as I said, myf left is good for little anyway, and I have since added a nice harmonium to the fleet, which plays like a gigantic, multi-voiced melodica with the right, while pumping with the left hand. A strange consistency….
4. Following from (3.) above, I realized that the little floppy air tubes are not for me, since every time I drop the mouth bit I have to start over with looping, twisting, positioning, which makes it harder. But, I still wanted some physical/visual separation so I could see the buttons better as I played, and envied the Hohner “rigid-but-flexible” pipes I saw on their site (or here?) so I went online, found such (look for “plastic coolant pipe)and went to the local plumbing shop to get a brass adapter which screws into the plastic of the Yamaha and accepts the threads on the plastic pipe. Now, I just leave it in the position I prefer, put it down and pick it up with no fuss. I like it!
David – Thank you very much for your detailed description of the process and your notes. This is highly valuable for those of us wanting to do the conversion – I appreciate it!
You are most welcome, Pal and others who may be interested. I must admit that I was very pleasantly surprised at how functional the “Jankolpitts” conversion is. And while not pertinent to this site, exactly, I might add that I have converted 3 small MIDI keyboards as well, and if you are interested in compact, quiet and versatile iPad or PC MIDI music, you might try converting one of those for Janko practice. Email if you’d like any more information on those. And, with all my conversions, reversible and non-destructive to the “donor” instrument.
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