page_title: MIDI keyboard
section_title: Non-traditional
hierarchical_section_title: MIDI keyboard / Keyboard action / Non-traditional
caption_attribution_description: Image of Haken Audio's full-size Continuum Fingerboard.
context_page_description: A MIDI keyboard or controller keyboard is typically a piano-style electronic musical keyboard, often with other buttons, wheels and sliders, used for sending MIDI signals or commands over a USB or MIDI 5-pin cable to other musical devices or computers. The basic MIDI keyboard does not produce sounds by itself, as it lacks an onboard sound module. Instead, MIDI information on keys or buttons the performer has pressed is sent to a receiving device capable of creating sound through modeling synthesis, sample playback, or an analog hardware instrument. The receiving device could be:
  a computer running a digital audio workstation or a standalone VST/AU instrument
  a sound module
  a digital or analogue hardware instrument with MIDI capability, such as a drum machine
  While many digital and analog hardware keyboards in the aforementioned categories of digital piano, stage piano, and synthesizer can be used as MIDI controllers if they have MIDI capability, they often do not offer the same level of software integration and number of MIDI-mappable controls as a dedicated MIDI keyboard.
context_section_description: Not all MIDI keyboards utilize variations on the traditional piano-style action. One example of a MIDI keyboard with a non-traditional action is the Continuum Fingerboard, which is based on a "fretless" type keyboard interface, enabling portamento style note changes at will during play.  Another unconventional MIDI keyboard is the Tonal Plexus keyboard, which provides for up to 1266 different pitches possible through the TPX6 1266 Keys (Microtonal MIDI Controller).
  The Roli Seaboard line of MIDI keyboards has soft, squishy keys. All the above-mentioned MIDI keyboards take the concept of aftertouch to new heights: for instance, the Roli Seaboards can sense left-to-right, front-to-back, downward pressure/depth, and the rate of change in each of these parameters. All that information can then be used to control the behavior of a digital instrument.
caption: Continuum Fingerboard.
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