My Piano project

[AVSMike]

My piano project. About 22 years ago I purchased a Kawai CA-40 grand piano with an early QRS Pianomation system. The way this system worked. You placed a QRS CD into a CD player and the left channel RCA out on the CD player connected to an RF transmitter, sending the signal to the RCA input on the front-end box on the piano. All this triggered the solenoids to play the keys and the sustain pedal. Worked fairly well, but disc selection was not good, since discontinued, so eBay was about the only choice.

The front-end box also has midi input and output. Years ago, I used a midi interface to send songs directly to the piano using one of my mac computers. The midi interface was hit and miss. This being an older system, it also did not play any accompaniment.

I decided to see if I can make the system more user friendly and add accompaniment. But I also did not want a bunch of wires everywhere. First, I played with using a cheap 2.4Ghz wireless transmitter and receiver and tested sending songs to the piano. Since I was still using the RCA input, I had to convert the midi to WAV to make everything work. Worked fairly well, but the piano still played a little better using hard wired midi input.

So, I purchased a Widi Master, Bluetooth midi adapter. Connected to the front-end box on the piano. The Widi Master is a small dongle that plugs into the midi input and output on the piano. Gets its power from the piano, so no wires. I then downloaded MidiPlayer X and the piano could now play direct midi songs requiring no conversion.  System worked very well. Satisfied with the results, I then started tackling the accompaniment problem.

Many of the free midi files available have accompaniment. I purchased a midi sound generator (Yamaha MU100) and another Widi Master so that I could send the midi signal wirelessly to the MU100. MidiPlayer X only allows one output, so had to use another program called MidiPipe to create a virtual port to send signal to both the piano and the sound generator. I used an old HEOS speaker for testing.

First problem I ran into was the sound generator was playing the piano part along with all of the other instruments. The piano only plays what is on channel 1. I could mute channel one in the sound generator, but it did not always stay muted. I then figured out how to mute channel one on the virtual port going to the sound generator, using MidiPipe. Next problem was syncing the piano with the accompaniment. All the processing in the piano to get the solenoids to play adds delay. MidiPipe allows set up of a delay to either or both Widi Masters. So, I played around with different delays and it appears I need to delay the accompaniment 40ms, to get the two to sync.

Once I had this working well, I ordered a studio monitor to play the accompaniment. I ordered a new Focal Alpha 8 Evo. The speaker arrived yesterday. Only problem is the grill for the woofer is missing. I have a technician scheduled to come tune the piano and then it will be complete.

My mother was an IU music major and taught piano and music for several years. She has a Steinway grand piano, that she has not been able to play in many years. She is 91. Now that I have the system working, I can bring her to my house and have the piano play for her.


Second picture shows the Focal Alpha 8 EVO and Yamaha MU100. I tried loading a video of the system working, but this site will not take mov and did not like the converted file either.   

[David Vaughn]

That's awesome Mike. I bet your mother will really appreciate it too!