Comment by notfed | Hacker News Reader

Comment by notfed | Hacker News Reader

For $800 this is a scam. (Though in their defense they admit that it is a cult on that page.) If you're interested in this because you're someone who "doesn't know music": don't believe the "does not require any previous musical experience" bait.

The key "thing" about this Omnichord device are that its notes are arranged in fifths, and you can play chords with a second button which means not having to memorize chord shapes. That's neat, but...

I'm going to suggest an app that is vastly superior to Omnichord's layout. It's called "Navichord Lite". It uses the Tonnetz layout: a layout that arranges notes like The Universe intended: you really have to see it to believe it. Basically, notes near each other sound good. Any local triangle of notes is a major or minor chord. A fifth or seventh means adding on one more note nearby. It's (two-dimensionally) isomorphic. The list goes on for advantages here. (Also, you don't need to know any of this to start. You just play. It's intuitive. It's actually a great way to learn music.)

Navichord Lite also highlights notes in whatever scale you choose, and highlights a few other things in a useful way...THIS is the ultimate "don't need to know anything about music" instrument and you can play like Mozart within minutes. (It's only available on iOS, unfortunately. But, for $800 you can buy an iPad and use it just for this.)

Also, I'd like to add an alternative reason why Omnichord is a ripoff, especially to a "person who doesn't know music". For $800, you can buy a used MacBook, a Novation Launchkey Mini MK3, and a USB cable to connect them together. You can then install Reaper and map the MIDI keys to a scale, any scale, or a chord, and literally hit random keys and it will sound good. You don't need to know anything about music, you don't even know what a scale or a chord is, and it will sound good.

And if you are willing to go slightly higher than $800, get a Linnstrument: https://www.rogerlinndesign.com/linnstrument

you can buy a used MacBook, a Novation Launchkey Mini MK3, and a USB cable to connect them together. You can then install Reaper and map the MIDI keys to a scale, any scale, or a chord

When you put it that way, buying an Omnichord sounds a lot more straight forward.

One does not simply buy a used MacBook. Or install Reaper. Let alone map Midi controllers.

And that’s without waiting for updates, registering on websites, and installing the right OS.

Tbf I'm pretty sure the main reason people are gonna be buying omnichords is because they want specifically omnichords- the layout + sound of the thing has a pretty strong romanticism/pop culture significance to it.

I can play piano and I'm still kinda tempted.

Amusingly, I've been on a 2D note layout Wikipedia reading spree lately. I'm really digging the idea of isomorphic layouts, and I've been thinking of picking up something to help me see the chord patterns better in whatever music I'm already familiar with. Any thoughts on the Exquis? Any VSTs worth looking into as well? Linnstrument looks cool too.

Check the Striso Board.

Hey, I've been on a similar spree!

It all started when I asked myself why I still suck at guitar and piano, despite a decade of on and off playing.

On piano, jumping between keys/modes is non-trivial, unless you have an extensive amount of practice building memory and muscle memory. And guitar...guitar is just so much work to play, even with years of practice. In both cases, the result is that your playing is biased due to memory and finger-strength constraints.

I've realized now that both piano and guitar are (very) unnecessarily difficult. It only took me 15 years of failure to realize it. What's really odd is that I look around and see very few people also realizing this. Instead I see many people struggling to play their instruments, especially on guitar with people generally sticking to 3-chord songs.

I ended up getting a Linnstrument. Best decision I've ever made. I feel limitless now, musically. The device is high quality, has lots of buttons (I got the larger version), and is fully programmable (it uses an Arduino). It may seem pricy, but you're dealing with something one-of-a-kind here, totally worth it.

The feature that sold me is that you can choose what scale you want to be in, and it will light up only those notes in the scale. This works out of the box, but if you're willing to do some C programming, you can extend it however you want. (I programmed mine to use a different color for each note.) From what I've seen, both piano and guitar communities tend to be snobs about lighting up scale notes: "lights are for children", "lights are a crutch, learn the scales without them". These people are ignorant. I've gone from 0 to 100 very quickly due to being able to light up scales. I also drive with a GPS.

Exquis looks pretty awesome, too!

> On piano, jumping between keys/modes is non-trivial, unless you have an extensive amount of practice building memory and muscle memory.

If you learn your circle of fifths it is quite trivial, because nearby scales on the circle (i.e. scales that have tonal centers a fifth apart) only add or remove a single black key. F to C (Bb becomes B) to G (F becomes F#) to D (C becomes C#) etc. is very easy and a lot of music will stick to those. Learning scales on guitar (or indeed on an isomorphic keyboard, for that matter) is only slightly harder, the trick there is knowing your solfège so that you can find your way around the semitone intervals and (for guitar) what to expect when you shift to a nearby string.

For me there is a muscle memory component. I can easily switch between keys that I regularly play in, but going to something like c# is difficult because I don’t have the muscle memory for it. I mainly play by ear and chord notations too. I have never been able to read sheet music real time.

C# can be overwhelming without some assistance, I’d recommend Visual Studio

The Synthstrom Deluge (even more expensive, around $1200) has an isomorphic keyboard mode which is a lot of fun to play.

Tonnetz is cute, but it's just another perspective with its own limitations. Why is the double triangle ceg together with egb a nice harmonic chord, but the triangle ceg plus c-eflat-g a disharmony? They form the same shape.

They technically form the same shape, but orientation matters. Triangles pointing up are major, those pointing down are minor. Minor and major chords from the same base note, C in this case, will have both major and minor tonalities clashing.

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