Laser piano - homemade laser musical instrument

Laser piano - homemade laser musical instrument

This is my homemade laser musical instrument. At first glance, it looks like a small old harpsichord, but in fact it works on a completely different principle. A thin metal plate or string is placed in the back of each key. The plates/strings are attached on one side only, so we rely on their elasticity to get sound. Just like the kalimba (Mbira) musical instrument works, but the plates are really small. When you press a key, the back of the key together with the metal plate rises upwards and the key hits a wooden limiter. From the sudden blow, the plate begins to vibrate.

The back of the keys and the metal plates

 The sound from these small metal plates / strings is very weak, practically inaudible. So we have to extract these vibrations, convert them into an electrical signal and amplify them through an amplifier. I did this using a laser and a photocell. A laser is placed at one end of the instrument, the laser beam passes over all the strings and finally reaches a photocell. When we press the keys, the strings go up and block the laser beam. Because the strings vibrate, they block the beam with the frequency of their vibration. The photocell detects these light pulses and converts them into electrical signals. This is how this musical instrument works. Because the metal plates are not in the path of the laser all the time (especially the low tones), the sound that this instrument creates is specific, resembling a bass guitar connected to a distortion effect. For now, the prototype of the musical instrument is not perfect, there are some problems with the precision and position of the laser, the keys are not perfect. But I'm happy with the result, there is just a need for more precise workmanship and stronger materials. Some modifications could also be made, such as placing several metal plates on each key and several lasers to achieve harmonious tones. Another interesting modification would be to be able to control the thickness of the laser and the photocell. This would change the effect of distortions. If the laser beam is thicker most of the time the strings will move through the laser beam, this will make the sound clearer and not distorted.

Watch the videos below for a clearer explanation of how it works, and a test sound from the instrument.

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