My jazz band director was discussing something with me that I had never thought about (I'm the unofficial conultant for the band). He was complaining about the crappy "Beginner" mallet instruments the school used, and how they just couldn't cut it and would get drowned out in a full ensemble. One of the ideas he bounced off me was this. It may sound crazy, and that's what I thought at first, but bear with me:
He was thinking about the "Projector keyboards" they use for computers. You know, the ones where you shine the light on a flat surface and you can type on it. Well he was thinking about whether they had one of those with MIDI keyboards instead of a QWERTY keyboard. His idea was that instead of the cheesy vibes, marimba, etc that they're supplied with, that for live preformances, they take one of those, run them through some MIDI software/hardware to take the midi signal through to make it into marimba, vibes, or whatever, patch that through the PA with the keys and (occasionally) vocals.
I saw a few problems with this:
- The integrity of midi tones and just general sound quality.
- The ability of the midi controller to track a mallet, should the controller exist.
- $$$$$$
So I guess I'm asking ya'll to weigh in on the issue. So hereare my questions:
- Do these controllers exist?
- If so, how much do they cost?
- Is there a decently-priced midi software system that could make a quality signal for a live preformance?
After thinking aout it a bit, I realized what a great idea that would be if it were real. Please reply if you know anything about this, even if it's just to say you have no idea what I'm talking about.
