Roger Linn nobly shoulders the blame for pop’s drum-machine induced deterioration in the 80’s. After all, (he admits) it was his revolutionary LinnDrum drum machine that sucked the soul and human-ness out of music, descending us into the computer-pop era of today.
To redress, Linn has set out to rehumanise synthesized music. His latest creation, the Linnstrument aims to allow the virtuosity and musical expressionism that could never quite be achieved on a midi keyboard whilst drawing on the wealth of sounds available on today’s synths.
Essentially a keyboard with notes arranged like a guitar, cello, mandolin or any stringed instrument, each of the Linnstrument's 200 touch cells can output continuous information about pressure, X and Y axis movement. Pressure controls loudness, left-right axis movement controls pitch for a kind of manual vibrato, and up/down movement controls the instrument tone or timbre.
Most of us have already forgiven Linn - having brought us the MPC - but if the Linnstrument does achieve organic/synthesized harmony, we’ll have a lot more to thank him for.
Linnstrument
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