I’m definitely going to consider that when/if this “big” version becomes a real project. On the macropad I didn’t go for them since there are “only” 12 keys and the solder helps keep it together structurally as well, but for a full keyboard it would make sense.
The biggest problem with this project in general is the lack of velocity sensing. It seems many people didn’t mind that with the grids, but according to the feedback I got showing this project to musicians it would make this a lot more interesting to many people. The problem is that there are no off-the-shelf velocity / 2channel switches on the market as far as I can tell, and designing and producing my own is far away from what I am capable of. There are some experiments like measuring the inductance of the spring in the switch, which increases when it is compressed, but that also sounds really complicated.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen the picture in the OP, in the typing configuration it essentially becomes a column-staggered keyboard like e.g. the Atreus. IMHO standard row-stagger and ortholinear are both rather unsuited to human hands.
I took a couple pictures and some video today to throw together the documentation video for the FabAcademy presentation on monday, here is one that shows off the scale preview: all the lime-green keys are part of the major scale starting on the root note highlighted in turquoise.
While the orange key on the very bottom right is held pressed, the scale can be selected: press any noteto choose it as the root note, and cycle through scale types using the other two orange keys (forward/backward). When the orange key is released, the two other keys are for moving up/down octaves.
