TurboFlutes are midi interfaces / breathing – not blowing instruments. Two prototypes were built in 2020, additional work was done in the next years – along with the preparation of printed-circuit-boards, etc. – and concerts…

During the first steps of elaboration it was clear that normal tone intervals as for the flute will be used. This made up a 12-tone scale with seven buttons on top. On the bottom left-hand side one octave up transposition button was replaced by two – going up 2 octaves – and going down two octaves. A five octave range. On the bottom right-hand side the idea for a looper emerged – one button pressed to record a loop while playing. When button released – looping what is recorded. Another button to stop or start the last loop.

Prototype made from a bit bigger diameter standard plastic tube with vacuum cleaner mouthpiece.

“The three brothers” trio are capacitive sensor design for seven top buttons (holes).

Buttons are of course normal press button switches that one finds in electronics. Not very reliable, not very durable. Very rarely soft enough, so that the seven fingers would not miss one press. There are softer buttons on the market, but they are much less sturdy. Capacitive contacts were good, but the drawback was that earthing wire was needed from the body to ground.

Bluetooth transmitter was also tried and worked well, but this would need a battery and a battery charging solution (that was envisioned and implemented in PCB design). So-far a little longer usb cable proved enough.

 

The microcontroller device is of course arduino type of device – namely Sparkfun Pro Micro – the Chinese clone. Here is the schematics with all the options -> breathMIDI

First Kicad pcb editor export is the sensor and pro micro mainboard:

and this is the switches or capacitive pads fingerboard: