Tranform an old harmonium in a midi organ

[milmai]

Hello,
I have an old church harmonium, is very spoiled, and would like to turn it into a midi organ: connecting the keyboard to a synthesizer chip (VS1053) with a microcontroller (arduino). I have experience in arduino.
Do you know any similar project?
Thank you

[bubzy]

while everything is possible, some things are more difficult
I didn't really know what a harmonium was so I looked them up, they look like manual "pump" organs. this will mean that there is nothing that you can already wire into or modify, so....you would be looking at making switches for each key and then multiplexing them back to the arduino and write a decoder for the keys to output the midi command. touch sensitivity would be difficult, although you could possibly wire up some kind of "expression" pedal for that with a potentiometer and a spring I suppose.

I would definitely be interested in seeing your results, keep posting

oh and to electro-music

[milmai]

Thank you very much for your help.
Yes, I need to place switches in all keys. It is not difficult for me multiplexing and to produce programming arduino midi code.
But one thing I do not know: where I can read an explanation of what "touch sensivity"?
greetings

[blue hell]

Touch sensitivity usually works with using two contacts.

One contact being closed when the key is pressed a little and another contact being closed with the key pressed down a bit further.

You then measure the time between the first and the second contact being closed, which is a measure for how fast the key was going down - which in turn depends on how hard you hit it.

With that information you can then control things, like how loud a note should be played.

Does that help?

[milmai]

I understood.
I will look at what type of sensor contact me should perhaps reed switching or hall effect sensors or optical sensor...
Thanks