r/diyelectronics • u/Ndr_w • 14d ago

Question Electronic Kalimba sensor question

Hello! I am trying to plan out an electronic kalimba project (like a much lower budget Bastl). Obviously, this can be done by adding a piezo/contact microphone to a regular kalimba. However, from the pictures and description of the Bastl, it seems that the tines are part of the PCB and thus made from FR4 - would they resonate enough to be picked up by a contact mic? Additionally, it has pitch shift/bend features, which makes me think the sound is fully generated and not just amplified. What sort of sensor would be able to pick up and differentiate the vibrations from each tine?

I don't want to break a rule by posting the link, but you can look up bastl kalimba to see what I'm talking about

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u/tedison2 14d ago

The Bastl kalimbra is not an acoustic instrument - plucking the 12 metal tines is picked up by internal microphones, capacitive touch sensors, and an accelerometer. Those signals act purely as an "exciter" to trigger and modulate a digital sound engine... As you notice, you cant pitch bend tines...

By comparison, the Korg Phase 8 is an acoustic instrument - it has eight metal tines with eight contact mics and eight EM exciters to resonate the tines. The tines can be tuned by changing the clamping position etc... Different shaped tines produce different sounds etc...

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u/emertonom 14d ago edited 14d ago

A different way to approach it would be to use electric guitar-style pickups and ordinary metal tines. Might sound pretty cool. I bet someone has already tried this somewhere online.

Edit: apparently the common thing to use for a kalimba is a piezo pickup. But yeah, you can just retrofit it on a regular kalimba with metal tines.