Research & Development
Kaduk develops musical instruments from first principles. Research and development are not a separate department, but the basis on which our instruments are conceived, engineered, and tested.
Our work addresses the instrument as a single system: the interaction between the human body, mechanical action, sound generation, and control. This includes acoustics, mechanics, ergonomics, electronics, materials, and system architecture, considered together rather than as isolated disciplines.
Where required, this research is supported by collaboration with external specialists, including medical professionals and biomechanical researchers, particularly in areas related to physical load, injury mechanisms, and long-term playability.
The sections below outline the core research domains through which this work is carried out.
Core Domains
Research into how musicians physically and perceptually interact with instruments over time. This work integrates ergonomics, reach, leverage, fatigue, medical and biomechanical research, psychophysics, and performer-centered psychoacoustics to determine which aspects of touch, timing, and geometry are musically meaningful, and which impose unnecessary physical load.
Research into piano actions and key systems for acoustic, digital, hybrid, and active instruments, treated as dynamic physical systems. This includes inertia, friction, compliance, deformation, regulation, and long-term stability, with a central focus on the piano as a ballistic instrument where timing, predictability, and control are defined by physical causality.
Research into sound as a physical phenomenon unfolding in time and space. This includes applied physics and mathematical modeling, sound synthesis as a tool for acoustic understanding, wave propagation, temporal coherence, and the study of traditional, active, and hybrid soundboard systems as energy-radiating structures.
This research direction exists to make demanding musical goals realistically buildable. Kaduk develops materials, mechanisms, and production systems that allow instruments to reach professional-level behavior, consistency, and reliability at all. Technical extremity is used only where necessary to support the artist—whether by stabilizing key behavior, enabling precise interfaces, or creating production systems that make previously impractical instruments viable in reality.