Thinking about making myself a Jankó pad controller, and I thought the cheapest and easiest way would be like those velocity sensitive rubber pads usually found on drum machines and samplers.
I remember some forum posts about DIY-ing these kind of conductive rubber dome switches, so it must be possible somehow with the right kind of chemicals…
Most decent MIDI keyboards feature velocity detection via the same method as SP404 pads, with two sets of contacts. Their contacts strips are usually quite narrow and could easily be placed in rows. Might be easier to use them instead of DIYing a bunch of rubber.
Maybe you could use arcade buttons instead.
Expensive and too big, my other options were either regular keyswitches, or the Hall effect ones. Also found this:
https://www.instructables.com/DIY-6-Button-Silicone-Rubber-Keypad/
I just need to make it bigger, and modify the contact pads (hope that the short-long pair of switches will be sufficient for velocity sensing).