Following a successful Kickstarter launch of its product to convert piano and synthesizer keyboards into sensitive devices that introduced audio effects at the touch of a finger, TouchKeys Instruments Ltd. was launched.

The TouchKeys are thin sensor overlays that attach to any standard-sized keyboard. Each key uses capacitive touch sensing — the same technology used in smartphones and trackpads — to precisely measure the location of each finger touching the keyboard. (Read more about the features of TouchKeys.)

Each TouchKeys sensor contains over two dozen conductive pads on the surface, covered by a white or black insulating layer. Each of the pads acts like a small capacitor (a circuit element that stores an electric charge). The pads are laid out so that when the finger touches the key, several pads increase in capacitance. A chip on the bottom of the sensor reads the capacitance of all the pads and arrives at a precise estimate of the contact location, with a precision of better than 0.1mm!

A major feature of TouchKeys is its flexibility. The TouchKeys software allows you to assign any aspect of touch to any control parameter for your synthesiser. For example, side-to-side motion on the keys can produce vibrato; up-and-down (Y-axis) motion could control a pitch bend, a filter effect, or anything else you like. The software can produce MIDI or OSC messages, making it compatible with a wide range of synthesis software and hardware.