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Ravenchord – A Radical Redesign of the Piano
- jannw 3y agonote to check back later
- gardenfelder 3y agoDuplicate https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37022857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37022857
- NikolaNovak 3y agoI don't know if this is just me being a negative grouchy old fart, but I have started deeply disliking such articles. I get so excited about something, only to learn it's somebody's random CAD sketch, probably without much in the way of practical engineering considerations, and will never ever see the light of day. Good on people for playing, imagining, considering, wondering, but I wish there were a tag or some way for me to avoid them, or just a more upfront admission of what it is. They always start so serious, full of world problem solving proclamations in present tense ("this solves / this will replace / enabling " etc) and only by mid way do you realize there's nothing there there :-/
- BaseballPhysics 3y ago> They always start so serious, full of world problem solving proclamations in present tense ("this solves / this will replace / enabling " etc) and only by mid way do you realize there's nothing there there :-/ For a second there I thought you were talking about the SV startup scene. "We're making the world a better place by..."
- Waterluvian 3y ago> …somebody's random CAD sketch, probably without much in the way of practical engineering considerations, and will never ever see the light of day. I would say, yes. This is, in a way, about SV startups.
- coldtea 3y agoAt least in the case of such designs it's just empty air. SV startups on the other hand, actively make the world a worse place...
- jackvalentine 3y agoWake me up when they’ve made a physical proof of concept right?
- labster 3y agoBut think how amazing it would sound in the metaverse.
- yieldcrv 3y agofor me its even worse to imagine someone actually did this instead of prompting Midjourney like if you’re going to waste everyone’s time, don’t waste your own too just embarrasing
- stefncb 3y agoEven worse is implying that we should replace all creative processes with AI. I honestly don't understand what world you'd like to live in. One where humans do almost nothing interesting and instead ask computers to do it? That sounds depressing.
- NikolaNovak 3y agoNot the op, but perhaps to put more charitable interpretation: - if you're going to try to solve an actual challenge, improve on something, truly consider the design and purpose and limits and compromises and propose a different approach, brilliant - but if all you're going to do is make a random somewhat pretty twist on existing thing, without actually considering the use, the purpose, the engineering, the what's and how's and why's, then... I'm kinda with him. What value did you add,that prompt to midjourney "create a spiral piano" wouldn't have?
- stefncb 3y agoI do understand the sentiment. I personally see value in human creation but I sort of get why others wouldn't. I'm somewhat shocked by this overwhelmingly positive reaction to AI replacing human creativity so I may be overreacting? It just doesn't sit right with me — trading human subtlety for raw efficiency — but to each their own.
- yieldcrv 3y agoIt doesn’t replace it, humans can always do art for self enrichment and fulfillment, just like the vast majority of artists were doing before image AI hit the scene, including the vast majority that thought they could exchange time for food and shelter this way and did not. Creativity has nothing to do with professional aspiration and entertaining the humans for transactions.
- wjnc 3y agoDid you notice the part where the designer is said to be celebrating his own legacy! Aren’t we all, aren’t we all. I do think it’s a beautiful design and would do great on stage. You need something to look at in the concert hall and machinery beats looking at a sole pianists hair and hand movement. It’s what I like about orchestras - so much skill to look at.
- fxtentacle 3y agoMe, too. The article is effectively an advertisement for WDL = Whipsaw Design Lab. The designer they talk about is the WDL CEO. All quotes are by himself. It's on the WDL homepage. I'm not surprised that it's heavy on marketing keywords and light on results.
- bambax 3y agoYes and also, the images seem wrong, because the strings are arranged short to long left to right, whereas the pitch goes the other way. (Low pitch (requiring long strings) is to the left of the keyboard, to high pitch to the right). So the thing that is shown would need to have hammer commands crossed to work as advertised. If done mechanically, it would add considerable complexity to the design.
- pygy_ 3y agoThe first image shows the back of the thing. In the second one, you can see the keyboard, and the pointy end is on the bass side.
- ZiiS 3y agoIt acknologes the hammers would have to be driven by solenoids.
- ilyt 3y agoWhich pianists would probably hate as that all the feedback from keys gone
- dxdm 3y agoNot saying this design has anything like that, but it could: high-end digital pianos come with mechanical key action that's very close to what upright or even grand pianos use - except the hammer strikes a sensor instead of a string at the end.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoThe sound in those high-end digital pianos is produced entirely electronically. For the sound to be produced by physical strings, you'd essentially be making a digitally-controlled 'player piano' mechanism: the keys strike a sensor, then the electronics control a solenoid to reproduce that strike on the real string. I feel that the latency of this setup would be quite noticeable compared to a fully mechanical action.
- footlose_3815 3y agoI thought there was going to be some actual innovation. Maybe somebody rearranging the keys, turning it into a different pattern or something. It's just somebody's art project.
- jacquesm 3y agoIf that interests you: Janko keyboard.
- analog31 3y agoThis seems like an outgrowth of design students being taught marketing.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoIt's certainly not designed by anyone who has the first clue about piano engineering. The rich sound of a real piano is created by acoustic chorusing, direct acoustic coupling between the various strings, and also by indirect coupling between the bridge, metal frame, and sound board. This works best when the strings are parallel and fairly close together, with some overlap in the bass. The entire assembly is tuned acoustically to highlight some notes more than others - for example Steinways have a powerful bass but a relatively controlled mid-range which brings out the details of the playing. Other brands make other choices. The design of the action - the playing feel - is not at all trivial. And good luck designing practical damper pedals for a spiral piano.
- raydiatian 3y agoWhooof, I almost got dizzy from the plumes of methane wafting off of that first paragraph.
- aidenn0 3y agoI've always liked the Alexander piano; an 18 foot long piano. https://www.alexanderpiano.nz/page/the-alexander-piano https://www.alexanderpiano.nz/page/the-alexander-piano
- pclmulqdq 3y agoI'm partial to the Bosendorfer Imperial for booming bass sounds (and, in theory, you can actually but one), but the Alexander piano is a very cool experiment.
- fortran77 3y agoI have a Bösendorfer in my living room and I can assure you it doesn't "boom" at least when I play it. It's more of a rich, full sound, more on the mellow side.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoMost Bösendorfers play like nice, tame European pianos. The average American Steinway "booms" more. However, the extra low notes on their oversized concert grand do boom quite well. I have only been able to play one, though.
- dheera 3y agoI've played a couple of Bosendorfers including an Imperial and the best I can describe it is that the lower end of the standard 88 keys produce very clean, solid bass sound and don't "fart". It's less about "booming" and more about just a very clean bass sound. The extra keys below the 88 do go into bass-fart territory, though. (For those who don't know, Bosendorfer Imperials have 97 keys, the extra ones all going deeper into the low range).
- amai 3y agoAgree, Bösendorfer rulez! https://youtu.be/9Hv98onkXKs https://youtu.be/9Hv98onkXKs
- SparkyMcUnicorn 3y ago
- rjvs 3y agoPity he didn't address functionality such as the width of the keys -- the standard size is too wide for most female hands and many men.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoHow are they too wide? Are you referring to the hand size differential between us mortals and people like Rachmaninoff? With narrower keys, he would have just written bigger chords.
- jojobas 3y agoIf there was demand for narrower keys synth manufacturers would be all over it, as there no string spacing constraints. There is non outside kids keyboards, because piano keys are sized just right.
- HerbMcM 3y agoA lifetime of practice on the wrong size leads to injury and the disappointment that maybe you as a pianist just will never get to play more technical pieces. Both are wrong. Pianists for alternatively sized keyboards https://paskpiano.org/latest-news/ https://paskpiano.org/latest-news/ Videos showing alternative sizes: https://youtu.be/TfdNxbHl_40?list=PLHBn-VaaOCGcfrUsklI1GztxTaaGj5sPh https://youtu.be/TfdNxbHl_40?list=PLHBn-VaaOCGcfrUsklI1GztxT...
- jojobas 3y agoJust a note: Myra Hess had "tiny" hands and played full size pianos beautifully. As the video says, it's always more about the ability to stretch than size. When you go for narrower keys for inability to stretch you lose fluency as your fingers are as thick as the other guy's.
- interglossa 3y agoJosef Hofmann and Daniel Barenboim played pianos with smaller keys.
- zharknado 3y agoLooks truly stunning, love the idea of exposing the mechanics to the audience. I suspect it sounds like garbage compared to a concert grand.
- HelloNurse 3y agoTo look at the performer and the strings, there are clavichords. Vastly easier to build, and presumably suitable for guitar-like pickups and electronic amplification.
- YossarianFrPrez 3y agoThis is very cool; I like it a lot. It's visually striking, and if it's sonically striking / it works, I could see it in people's homes or in concert halls. The article says it's "lighter, easier to move, and more convenient to fit in the home." Might be a piano game-changer if true, but given that there is no video, Whipsaw doesn't seem to have built it. Maybe that's the next step in the works. And yes, there's a decent bit of "artist's statement" patois in the article, but that's sort of expected from designers.
- cyberax 3y agoSo it's basically an upright piano with a nicer body?
- jojobas 3y agoUntil there's any proof it actually exists and is playable, it's a "concept" of an upright piano with unimaginably complicated hammer mechanics. But hey, LED lights.
- howenterprisey 3y agoHonestly a very cool design, but the choice of solenoids (more broadly, the choice to make it "fly-by-wire") feels to me like it removes an important element of the operation.
- Nition 3y ago84" long, which judging from the images means the lowest bass string is around 44" long. That's equivalent to a relatively short cross-strung upright piano, so there's nothing particularly special about the string length (longer generally sounds better). I wonder how well the sound board would resonate. I wonder if you could improve it by stringing the bass strings right across behind the treble strings. You could fit longer strings that way. The hammers get further down the strings as you go. That's kind of normal but it's a bit different to normal here. Might affect the sound in some interesting way. ---- Here are some more links if you'd like to see other "radical redesigns of the piano" (and these ones have actually been built): Kavins 450i: https://klavins-pianos.com/products/model-450i/ https://klavins-pianos.com/products/model-450i/ Janko keyboard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jank%C3%B3_keyboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jank%C3%B3_keyboard Seaboard RISE 2: https://roli.com/products/seaboard/rise2 https://roli.com/products/seaboard/rise2 Expressive E Osmose: https://www.expressivee.com/2-osmose https://www.expressivee.com/2-osmose Chichi Rocking Piano: https://www.facebook.com/chichi.rockingpiano/ https://www.facebook.com/chichi.rockingpiano/ Lyra Flugel piano: https://www.reddit.com/r/piano/comments/gu9lu9/lyra_flugel_and_what_to_do_next/ https://www.reddit.com/r/piano/comments/gu9lu9/lyra_flugel_a...
- DennisP 3y agoI recently got the Osmose and it's everything they said it'd be. Plus I find it quite comfortable to play.
- derriz 3y agoOsmose looks great but don’t seem to be for general sale? I suspect this sort of expanded polyphonic aftertouch will become commonplace in the future - my first exposure to the world of synths was via the relatively cheap/affordable arturia minifreak which provides poly aftertouch which seemingly until recently was rarely available or was v expensive. Seems like a very natural progression for keyboard hardware - although using the extra modulation effectively seems to be lagging. The Osmose seems to have spent a lot of effort on this aspect. Curious how you use it? As a live solo instrument? Looks like trying to exploit an instrument like this using a traditional DAW would be a nightmare.
- javajosh 3y agoSort of agree with the grouchy old fart take here, except a) it really is lovely to look at and b) I'm very curious to know how it would sound. If you didn't want to build it, how would you approach modeling the sound? I'm not even sure where I would start.
- squokko 3y agoSpoiler alert - this is just a drawing, not something anyone's built
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- conradfr 3y agoAt first I thought it was a new piano by Ravenscroft. https://ravenscroftpianos.com https://ravenscroftpianos.com
- ccppurcell 3y agoA few pictures and video demonstrations are necessary and sufficient to advertise any instrument. Paragraphs of waffle make me suspicious.
- stephen_g 3y agoIt looks like it only exists in CAD and fancy renders... Given that the most important aspects of a piano is both how it sounds and how the action feels to the player (with asthetics being nice but much lower down the list), yeah this is useless until it's built and shown to sound any good or play well!
- itsagavin 3y agoI've been getting spammed with this crap for a couple weeks by ad networks weird to see it here frontpage. It's not even a product what's the game?
- DeathArrow 3y agoCan a design from scratch be better than something that was iterated and improved in centuries by thousands of people?
- coldtea 3y agoOcassionally yes.
- enriquto 3y agoThis does not appear to be a "radical" redesign, it looks quite similar to a regular piano. I would love to see different key arrangements connected to regular hammers and strings, allowing for a wider span for each hand, opening a new era of virtuosism. Something akin to the buttons of a chromatic accordion [0], but with rectangular piano-like keys. We are used to the common arrangement of white and black keys centered around the major C scale, but this is just an arbitrary choice. [0] http://www.linusakesson.net/sixtyforgan/ http://www.linusakesson.net/sixtyforgan/
- coldtea 3y ago>This does not appear to be a "radical" redesign, it looks quite similar to a regular piano In the sense that it doesn't use superconductors instead of strings, or some novel isomorphic layout, yes. But, were it possible to actually be built, it still qualifies as a radical redesign -- just of the piano built, not of it's keyboard.
- HelloNurse 3y agoIt is radically good-looking (for some tastes) but radically impractical, probably because it is a design exercise made without any particular interest or competence for what makes a piano actually work well. I don't see a word about novel designs that allow fitting the mechanisms that are normally spread along the keyboard, with ample room along and below each string and vertically moving parts, into the small hub of the spiral, with oblique and all different movement directions; making this thing sound as well as a vertical piano with similar strings should be considered wishful thinking. Making those three rendered pedals do something seems also especially challenging.
- hooby 3y agoOoh, I love this. They sixtyforgan is just the kind of nerdy project that never fails to totally amaze me!
- wcerfgba 3y agoWhat needs a radical redesign is the keyboard: https://jpreston.xyz/1d-isomorphic-chromatic-piano-keyboard-mod.html https://jpreston.xyz/1d-isomorphic-chromatic-piano-keyboard-...
- denton-scratch 3y agoNot clear from TFA what the solenoids are for. Also, there doesn't seem to be any kind of soundboard; it seems the sound made by the vibrating strings is supposed to be enough. It has LEDs on the strings; so perhaps it also has pickups, and is designed to be plugged into an amp?
- kashunstva 3y ago> there is an optional subtle light behind each string that illuminates as the hammers strike. > activated by solenoids Professional pianist here. Undoubtedly the toy illumination concept may be useful to someone; that’s fine. But they seem to be positioning this as a bespoke high-end instrument. I’m confused. But replacing the action with solenoids? The double-escapement action of the modern grand piano is a thing of beauty. Reliable and nuanced; it’s irreplaceable. The tactile feedback, repetition rate, and feel offered by a well-regulated action is so essential to refined pianistic technique. I wish them well; but I won’t hold my breath waiting for this to materialize. I’m not sure it should. Undoubtedly there is room still to innovate in piano design. Beethoven himself was closely allied with designers and manufacturers of the day after all. But LEDs in the style of gaming computers and solenoids?
- seabass-labrax 3y ago> The double-escapement action of the modern grand piano is a thing of beauty. Reliable and nuanced; it’s irreplaceable. It certainly is an engineering marvel, but it is much heavier than an upright's action. Strong fingers required! :)
- jacquesm 3y agoYou can balance a grand action to the point that a landing fly would have a good chance to produce a tone. You don't want it that light though: your fingers brushing the keys would already cause them to move, a bit of resistance works. There are extremes, a famous concert pianist (for the life of me I can't remember which one) for instance had his piano set for super light touch, so light that others found his instrument(s) unplayable. And on the other end there is the mechanical church organ, with keys so heavy that playing anything at all turns into a physical work-out. Talk about 'strong fingers required', you need to be in top physical shape for that.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoThat light action for pianos sounds interesting, but I replied[1] to your other comment so maybe we should keep the discussion on that thread. As for organs on the other hand, I used to play a Victorian frankenstein^W 'hybrid' tracker organ in my local church (sadly now closed). The keys on that poor organ were certainly a work-out for the fingers, and of course got stiffer the more stops that were pulled out. I personally believe that it is valuable to maintain these now-rare tracker organs for their historical merit - they were arguably the most complex machines ever created before the electronic digital computer took that title. However, when it comes to music, I'm not a purist: there is nothing about the stiffness of the keys inherent to the sound of a pipe organ, so I'm all for pneumatic control. Electronic keys also work well if care is taken to reduce the overall latency, as witness by the success of the Wurlitzer theatre organs. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37054825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37054825 [2]: 'Hybrid' this instance means an original nineteenth-century tracker mechanism, combined with a 20th century blower and an electronic organ invisibly integrated into the instrument. Actually, not so invisibly, as it frequently malfunctioned. There is also record of a pneumatic action somewhere, but I haven't located it myself.
- ilyt 3y agoWhy I have a feeling it would sound shit and be absolute nightmare for engineer that had to figure way to connect the keys with hammers ?
- interglossa 3y agoThe Keybird X1 (https://keybird-instruments.com/ https://keybird-instruments.com/) is a more functional redesign - an acoustic which can be transported as two pieces of 43 and 16 kg and can be tuned by the owner. This can be purchased now.
- yayitswei 3y agoI thought it would be a new keyboard layout, like the Jankó keyboard [0] which lets you play all twelve keys the same way, similar to a guitar fretboard. Sort of like Dvorak for piano. We need more designs like that! [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jank%C3%B3_keyboard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jank%C3%B3_keyboard
- mrob 3y agoA guitar fretboard allows you to play all keys the same, but not by default (unless you limit yourself to the bottom four strings), because of the irregular major third between the G and B strings. If you want only one fingering you'll need to use a regular tuning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_tuning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_tuning
- ddingus 3y agoLooks like the cochlea in our ears.
- ForgottenPwd 3y agoWould it be too much to ask that the octave width of the keyboard be reduced to 6" or even 5.5" so that women and men with smaller hands could play with less discomfort, rather than being based on what someone in the 16th century preferred.