Use Control +/- to Zoom pictures
Here's how to connect the clip switches to the computer. To do this, you need a cheap circuit board, and finding that isn't hard at all. You just purchase a mini key USB MIDI keyboard controller (not a digital keyboard with speakers). It is just a little keyboard that plugs into a computer. You can buy them very cheaply on E-bay etc. I got one in a junk shop for £10. M-Audio produces a 37 key jobbie which is about £45 new. You do need to get one with at least as many keys as you have pedals, and able to embrace the same pattern, i.e., C to F for a 30 note pedalboard or to G for a 32 pedal. A 37 key keyboard suits 30 note pedals just fine and that's the way I went.
Here is a picture of the Clipology Technology. You can see the Rigid and the Moving contacts nicely labelled. Tag 1 is where you solder the wire that leads to a diode (see below). Tag 2 gets soldered to a galvanised cross wire (clearly visible in the first picture of 'Instructions Part 1') that links a group of contacts together. A single wire goes from the cross wire to the appropriate jumper or solder point (again, see below).
Once you have a keyboard controller, you take a deep breath, unscrew the case and take out the circuit board. When you do this, you will see rubber strips that lie under the keys and press contacts down onto tiny little wiggly carbon contact pads on the circuit board. First job is to label these circuit board contacts so you know what note they play when closed. Trace the tracks on the board so you can identify which diodes (shown below) are which on the other side of the board. Diodes (one for each note) are the little glass cylinders and you connect your own switch wires to these.
To do the labelling, plug the circuit board into a USB port on your computer and run something like Miditzer and configure it to run the board. Now you can take a bit of wire and play the notes with it, one at a time. Here's how. Looking at the tracks running from the key contacts on the circuit board you will note that they are set in groups, each with a common track connecting the keys in each group together. These run back to 'jumpers', little wire links, four of them on my board and one solder point. By shorting between the jumpers and the independent note contacts you can play the notes as if you had pressed a key. Write up a table so you can record which jumper and which key contact controls which note. It's all low voltage on a USB powered keyboard circuit board so safe to do and the circuit seems to cope with shorting the wrong bits, though avoid this if you can. BUT all the usual electrical safety rules apply so be safe and don't do anything likely to be shocking!
The following pictures show how the wires from the groups of clip switches run to their appropriate diodes, and you can also see where two of the wires, each connected to a different cross wire, run to the relevant circuit board jumpers. They are visible in the left picture at the bottom of the board; the one to the right is wired to a solder point on the reverse face of the circuit board.
The clip switches are just wired up in parallel with the same contacts used on the circuit board. You can see how I connected directly to the diodes because this is an easy soldering point but get the right end and use a 0.5mm wire. The jumpers and solder point are each wired to the appropriate galvanised wire connecting a group of rigid contacts. The photos show how this is done. Each paperclip switch is independently wired with a single wire running to its corresponding diode. Just don't lose your place or use a clunking great soldering iron; you need one designed for circuit boards. Practice first if you need to!
That's about it ... except for the 'fairy dust' without which it doesn't work all that well! The bare wires are zinc coated and make a reasonable contact when the pedalbar presses them together. But you can also get a bit of scratching noise as they slide a little on each other. This is where the fairy dust comes in, in the form of graphited grease. Sandpaper pencil lead into a lid, half a teasoon is enough. Mix with a light grease or Vaseline to create a thickish black paste and then just smear a very little onto each nail type contact. It will miraculously make the contact definite and noise free. It is the vital final step.
It all works surprisingly well on my pedalboard. For the long term, I have a proper reed switch and encoder harness from MIDI Gadget Boutique as the main system. This Paperclip project was made in a couple of days as a quick backup device when the MGB device needed to go back to Bulgaria for attention under warranty (a very good, helpful service, by the way). Good Luck be with you if you decide to give this a go. I'm posting the link on the Magle music forums, which has all manner of useful goodies and information for virtual pipe organ builders and players.
