I've heard that the best practical recipe for Rabbit Stew begins "first catch your rabbit".

Looking for the wasscally wabbit

I take this as a warning that making rabbit stew, even if you are staring out the kitchen window looking at a forest or backyard apparrently just teeming with plump, juicy rabbits, entails rabbits that are in the habit of disappearing at the first gleam the stew-pot.

So it is, it seems, with keyboard stew. I am a modern, updated, nerdy version of Elmer Fudd; everytime it looks like the wascally wabbit is finally in my clutches, it elludes me. Mind you, the hunt has given me "wewy intewesting adwentures".

This will probably Jinx It for good, but I'm going to describe what I hope the AXiS-49 keyboard can do to become the core of the Ideal Jammer.

This little "wabbit tale" has three parts:

1) The simple (I hope) transformation of said AXiS units into a jammer. Not quite an ideal one, but a useable item none the less. Just a "little" bit of programming, and very probably no use of a hacksaw this time. Ah, I can smell the stew already.

2) A discussion of all the other things besides an actual jammer that are needed to make a jammer an staple, stable instrument like guitars now are.

3) Exotic new uses for the thing: want to be able to type at 300 WPM? in any language? With two Axis-49s and a NanoPad is may be possible to resurrect a nearly, but sadly forgotten invention.

But I digress.

One: "Be vewy, vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits" 

Axis-49

Here is a picture of the AXiS-49, soon to be in production. Normally it would be played in the orientation shown. The keys would play notes per the Harmonic table key layout.

This is a good, ergonomic layout, and may be better (or at least as good as the Wicki-Hayden layout. However, I'd like to try out the Wicki layout to see if it is better, or at least to compare them. How can I do that when the hexagonal key are arrayed differently between the two? 

It helps to start with a clear goal, as laid out in my ideal jammer posting, then add a pinch of thought and a dash of practicality. Re-programming the key's notes is easy for me; I have the tools (Max/MSP) to write the program and make it simple to run.

AXiS-49 rotated

Orientation is just a matter of turning the gadget. Alas if we do this, we get a tall keyboard. Not so good ... but the AXiS keyboard has really, 2 sections, or key-banks of 49 keys, each 7X7 buttons (that's why its called an ASiS-49); a left and a right side.

If we turn it, we get a top and bottom section, with the top section offset to the right one key. This is not bad at all. Each section is 7 keys wide, a quite playable set. Each section is a nominal 3 1/2 octaves high, which is good. 

Add a little coloring of the keys and you get: 

AXiS-49 played as a jammer

It appears quite decent. The arrangement might be a bit awkward as our arms don't stick straight out of our chests, but it could do. After all, we work happily with the PC's qwerty keyboard, which face towards our chests, instead of our arms.

Fortuitously, Korg has just started producing (Nov. 2008) the cute, little, and affordable ($50 US) NanoPad and NanoKey units, which should do nicely as special  effects finger control buttons and foot pedal units respectively (with the NanoKey trivially modified with a few wooden wedges and some double-sided duct tape).

"What's up Doc?"
So I must ask, when (and how) will the wascally critter  elude me this time? Well ... naturally, there's at least one catch: each of the key-banks sends out a single midi note value, 49 possible values, all under the "controller 1" header, so notes are duplicated between banks. (as noted before, that's why they call it an AXiS-49 when it has 98 actual keys - you can tell these people are most surely not in the advertising industry).  
So if I want to reassign the values, the pattern will be duplicated in the second bank, albeit shifted one key over.

Not quite a full, hearty stew, but it should work, with these reservations:

• We'll be stuck with both hands in the same range of notes.
  
• The 3 1/2 octave range then looks a lot more cramped - that's like a 44 key keyboard.
  
• Symmetry is lost, so the left hand will learn about (I estimate) 30% slower
• We can't play different instruments with each hand
• if one plugs in a second AXiS, then it will also be "controller '1'", and would confuse the computer it's plugged into.

That said, I believe we'll still have taken a big step towards a practical jammer.

Has the AXiS the potential to become 2 instruments?

The truly excellent thing about the two differnent orientations is to the fingers, that is ergonomically, the keyboard should feel totally different, like another kind of instrument in the other orientation.

Consider: studies have shown that the Dovorak PC keyboard is faster than the standard Qwerty layout. I have heard that, unfortunately, our fingers prefer to know just one pattern at a time, so Dvorak users often have confusion in  switching between the identical-feeling Qwerty and Dvorak keyboards. The converse is likely true: the brain should automatically load the right playing mode when the orientation, and consequently, the feel of the keyboard changes.  This will need to be verified, but it's a good bet.  

We may be able to have the best of both worlds: two musically novel and informative ways of playing and composing songs.

Eventually ...

I understand that C-Thru plans to reprogram the the AXiS-49 so each bank is under a separate controller. 

"T-t-t-t-that's all folks"

Next: setting up the the jammer "support system".

First. a separate keyboard for each hand

Rationale: key-to-note assignment can be made symmetrical, so one can transfer skills between hands, halving the number of fingerings to learn. Further:

• Each keyboard assignable to a unique instrument
• Each keyboard assignable to overlap the other to a variable degree, making "special" effects like contrapuntal motion simpler, even trivial
• One's hands won't run into each other
• Two keyboards make a smaller package than a single, long one
• They can be put on a table, on a stand in front of the player, on the chest, or held like a guitar
• Far more ergonomic, as they can be angled and positioned to suit
• Ends the tyranny of the right-handed keyboard on the left-handed

Second, an ergonomic key-to-note layout 

A consistent layout (isomorphic) layout is essential. This reduces the number of key combinations to learn.

Third, an efficient key shape

Fifth, compact keyboard dimensions

Wicki layout: minimum of 5 rows high 2 1/2 octaves, up to 8 rows (4 octaves)

    Width: Absolute minimum: 6 keys, better: 7- 10 best: 12-14

Axis layout: minimum of 6 rows high: 2 1/2 octaves, up to 8 rows (4 octaves)

    Width:  Absolute minimum: 7 keys,  best: 14

With my 4-row jammers I find 4 rows; 2 octaves is cramped, and sometimes must use the left hand.

I'm aiming for a unit that I can just pick up and start playing in the same key as my buddies, wider (~10 keys) is better for this, as you can guess the key, then adjust the hand position to the right key in seconds.

The net dimensions turn out well: each keypad is under 20 cm by 20 cm (10 inches square), making for a compact, portable keyboard.

Sixth, ergonomic foot pedals

Two pedals - normally for sustain, one for each keyboard

They should have a Velcro bad so they can be joined together, or separated, one for each foot.

Note that they don't have to be plugged into the keyboard, instead they should be plugged into the computer. 

Seventh, ergonomic special controls

What twit placed the pitch and special effects mod wheels way, way off to the left side? Clearly it was the keyboard engineer, and the dolt thought purely of his own convenience, not the musicians'.

Special effect controls should be put on the bottom to be reached quickly, using a joystick (2 dimensions of control at a finger's touch) instead of huge, clumsy wheels. I suggest either keyboard-mounted like on the Thummer as the ThumStik (patented BTW!), or as I suggest, mounted on the hand and attached to the thumb-tip

Ditto for the special controls like octave-shifting and key-modulation: put them near the fingers or thumb!

The "ideal" Jammer

So, how do we achieve this lofty "ideal"? Forthcoming ... 

Notes:

Future wish list

1. Jim Plamondon, of Thummer fame, did a extensive analysis on the optimum shape and patented his deductions: it turns out that if one leaves a gap between keys and makes them oval in shape, one can get a considerable reduction in spacing, to 15mm or less, permitting nearly twice the number of keys to be easily (and quickly reached). This would be the "sports car model" for keeners. Refinements like this can wait.

3. More features
Acceleration - on a piano the hammer-head's shaft bends, adding an quirky acceleration factor (it changes the string bounce) that allows the percussion and timbre of the notes to change. Try using the finger tip vs the flat of the finger (gives different acceleration profiles) on a piano key - you should be able to hear what I mean.
Aftertouch  - This gets mixed reviews; many new keyboards have dropped this feature.