The Instrument That's the Key to Electronic Music's Future

[Joyrex]

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/linnstrument/?mbid=social_twitter

 

 

 

WHY DOES THE music in Blade Runner resonate so deeply? Because Vangelis, the mad genius Greek who wrote and performed the score, relied primarily on one instrument: the Yamaha CS-80.

The thing that made this ’70s-era synthesizer so special was an inspired feature called “Polyphonic Pressure.”

 

The CS-80 was one of the last keyboards where a note’s volume could be tweaked by varying the finger pressure on a key. The resulting acoustic-like voicing was eerie and remarkably expressive. By massaging individual keys to varying degrees, Vangelis could summon the plaintive cries of tin foil unicorns or replicants in love. Alienation and melancholy never sounded so good.

 

From Wired

[Lucas]

looks great!

 

not too hyped about all the videos of acoustic instruments emulation but at least it shows the level of expressiveness this controller enables. It's probably a great instrument for playing complex programmed sounds, can't wait to hear more demos.

[Brisbot]

 

The Juilliard faculty doesn’t want to hear this, but Linn says conventional musical instruments are destined for the scrapheap. “Young musicians aren’t buying violins or cellos or saxophones. For better or worse, these instruments are becoming obsolete. Instead, they’re buying a variety of sound controllers—mixer type things—and they’re playing music with them in a variety of ways. They may buy a grid controller, and then use it with Ableton Live as a clip launcher, where they sample these little musical objects, and paste them together in a unique way to form a sonic collage.”

Linn is convinced this is how music will be defined in the 21st century: PMCs, software, and grids. “If I want a violin sound, I don’t want to hold a piece of wood between my chin and my neck. I want to have keys that are ergonomically spaced for human hands, not a neck that’s so small I can’t possibly play it in tune unless I study for five years.”

Not sure how much I agree with this. I don't really.

 

But the linnstrument seems pretty natural!

 

[Lucas]

Oh, I didn't see that. This bit is extremely silly, how can you seriously say that?... I disagree about every sentence of this quote lol

[Dan C]

I think it looks like shit, but I never like these jumped up sampler things.

[Guest Chesney]

Seen this. It could be interesting but filming Rudess widdling like a cunt on it is not selling it as a forward thinking machine.

[andihow]

been lusting over the linnstrument since i saw this vid a few years ago:

 

all dat expression. they are so expensive though.

[Guest Chesney]

The expression is great but it will be marred by the wrong people. I know that sounds ridiculous but people are fickle and if people demo this like rudess, it will fall on it's ass. Expression is nothing if the sounds are shit.

I am still waiting on a decent guitar controller. There is that recent one I wanna try.

[digman]

There seems to be a lot of these sort of Open Source Input Grids coming out at the moment. I went to a demo from the guys at monome.org the other night and their devices have some huge potential especially if you can do a bit of coding

[mcbpete]

"The CS-80 was one of the last keyboards where a note’s volume could be tweaked by varying the finger pressure on a key" - isn't 'aftertouch' still a pretty common feature on keyboards ?!

[Guest Chesney]

Poly aftertouch is still pretty rare. Some ensoniq keys have it.

Not the be all and end all though.

[b born droid]

 

 

The Juilliard faculty doesn’t want to hear this, but Linn says conventional musical instruments are destined for the scrapheap. “Young musicians aren’t buying violins or cellos or saxophones. For better or worse, these instruments are becoming obsolete. Instead, they’re buying a variety of sound controllers—mixer type things—and they’re playing music with them in a variety of ways. They may buy a grid controller, and then use it with Ableton Live as a clip launcher, where they sample these little musical objects, and paste them together in a unique way to form a sonic collage.”

Linn is convinced this is how music will be defined in the 21st century: PMCs, software, and grids. “If I want a violin sound, I don’t want to hold a piece of wood between my chin and my neck. I want to have keys that are ergonomically spaced for human hands, not a neck that’s so small I can’t possibly play it in tune unless I study for five years.”

Not sure how much I agree with this. I don't really.

 

 

I actually see their point. I mean, who the fuck plays a harpsichord these days, or a lute, or *insert baroque instrument* here. The idea of instruments going in and out of use is not new. But obsolete ones are always replaced by newer versions, and I don't necessarily see their replacements as immediately being of this electronic/controller variety. That just seems like them wishing for it so they are the market leader. But I don't think it's too outlandish to suggest the common instruments of 2100 will not be the same as say 1900.

[Bubba69]

polyphonic aftertouch !!!!

[Lucas]

polyphonic aftertouch !!!!

 

lol yeah, basically. this grid thing is interesting though, maybe it provides an good way to play notes for people who didn't learn piano.

[Braintree]

Sampled horns sound like shit.

Passable at best.

[mcbpete]

Sampled horns sound like shit.

Passable at best.

It's a midi triggerer you silly sausage, he's just using that instrument as an example of the playing style

[awepittance]

really creeps me out when people use these expressive controllers and when they do the by hand finger vibrato it always sounds the same LFO speed. cant you stop being a classically musically trained robot for a sec and play different vibrato speeds? whats the point, why not just use a mod wheel?

[Braintree]

 

Sampled horns sound like shit.Passable at best.

It's a midi triggerer you silly sausage, he's just using that instrument as an example of the playing style

Haha, I didn't even watch the video. I just think there's no replacement for a good horn player since most sampled horn instruments are total guano.

 

When I was in college, I had to do a mock-up of Beethoven's 5th. I spent tens of hours on it and the horns still sounded like shit. Everything was fine except the horns.

[auxien]

Anyone claiming anything is 'the future of music' or that some musical instrument/genre/whatever is always, terribly horribly obviously wrong wrong wrong.

 

That said, more expressive and interesting ways of physically controlling synthesized sounds is a good thing.

[morgang]

I purchased a madronalabs soundplane a few months ago. Same sort of thing just considerably more minimal in its physical design, for better or worse :P

 

http://madronalabs.com/soundplane

[awepittance]

I purchased a madronalabs soundplane a few months ago. Same sort of thing just considerably more minimal in its physical design, for better or worse :P

 

http://madronalabs.com/soundplane

how do you like it?

[vamos scorcho]

actually I agree somewhat.

 

traditional instruments will be around for a long, long time to come obviously, so long as they sound better

 

 

 

 

that said, I really think MIDI and its manipulation, as well as the way that we are going to think about it and how it can be manipulated by the body (as with a violin, etc) is going to play a huge role in how music progresses from here. the LinnStrument is just one of the first attempts I've seen to come up with the next era of instruments, It's very impressive. I imagine we can do much better than this though.

 

think something like Steven Hawking's voice system

[mcbpete]

Haha, I didn't even watch the video. I just think there's no replacement for a good horn player since most sampled horn instruments are total guano.

It's actually the VSTi / Sample library I'm seeking the most at the moment. The nearest to something I think sounds acceptable is a couple of VSL libraries :

 

VSL's Eb muted trumpet -

http://www.vsl.co.at/audio/GB_Snowden_Blues.mp3

VSL's C muted trumpet -

http://www.vsl.co.at/audio/GB_Mystic_Voices.mp3

[sweepstakes]

Cool idea but without a musical framework it makes sense in I don't see how it will catch on. All the demos sound like emulations of violins or trumpets or guitars and that's not very interesting although it's a cool demonstration of how "expressive" it lets you be.

 

Has anyone done any, like, fucked up noise stuff with this? Or really complex synthesis models that aren't emulating acoustic instruments? That could be really cool.

[morgang]

 

I purchased a madronalabs soundplane a few months ago. Same sort of thing just considerably more minimal in its physical design, for better or worse :P

 

http://madronalabs.com/soundplane

how do you like it?

 

From the small amount of time I have spent playing with it i can say that it works amazingly well for ambient/droney stuff. Fun to turn the lights down low and get sexy with it and zen the fuck out.

 

My biggest complaint is that if you don't use it with the OSC capable synths made available by the same company (Aalto, Kaivo) then it is essentially just an overpriced wooden midi ckeyboard, because without OSC it loses most of the expressiveness which to me is what is unique about these things. Trying to get it to communicate with other OSC synths/vsts has been really difficult for me to wrap my head around and I pretty much gave up on it. It's pretty incredible when used with Aalto and Kaivo though. Also the limitation of having no buttons faders knobs etc is nice and allows you to really focus on using the controller as a straight up instrument.

 

I performed a couple songs few months back with the soundplane controlling Aalto:

 

ugh those youtube thumbnails :(