The Instrument That's the Key to Electronic Music's Future
wired.com
wired.com
This article is typical of Wired-- Junk technology writing. They haven't really been competent since the 1990s.
Wired articles really don't belong on Hacker News. It's "technology" reporting for people who don't understand technology.
The product page [1] explains pretty well how the instrument works and why you would like to play it instead of a standard keyboard. The demo videos at the bottom are pretty cool.
By the way, this is "just" a MIDI controller, so Linn is not claiming to have improved synthesis in any way with this product... he does recommend a 3rd party synthesis package though.
Are there disadvantages to MIDI? I'm just starting to learn about digital audio, so I'm curious how well regarded it is.
controller --[midi messages]--> synth --[real audio signals]--> speakers
I'm not aware of any alternatives to MIDI, so if you want to make live synth music with any controller, you'll probably have to deal with it :-). MIDI is so pervasive that working with it is pretty much transparent, in the same vein you don't have to do anything special to use your computer keyboard or mouse.
On the features list: "Polyphonic aftertouch".
It's a little scary; I thought that was a super common feature and didn't think to check that the one I was ordering didn't support it. I'm glad it does, though.
In the end, I'm a little sour on any "more is better" approach to control. Breath control is really cool, but it's hardly ever used. Organs have had massive polyphonic range for quite some time, but relatively few people are going to learn to play them. Roland has been marketing the "D-beam" for at least a decade now and it's about as much of a gimmick as ever. There were pitch ribbons on synthesizers back in the CS-80's era, and they occasionally reappear, but the standard is a pitch bend wheel, and that probably isn't just because MIDI dictated a pitch bend. Most music gear is fairly pedestrian stuff, marketed to existing audiences with a coat of paint and a dose of hype, but that doesn't mean it can be revolutionized - the design constraints are mostly ergonomic these days. We want play to be easy and immediately gratifying and to simultaneously control every aspect of the sound, and somewhere in there, a compromise has to occur.
For example, the idea of performing everything by sample playback as the article implies misses how music is mostly driven by performance and how most instruments are basically optimal to play on their own, even if their skill ceiling is high. A commercial multi-sampled violin will have better tone than an amateur player, but you still have to perform with it like a violinist, using appropriate techniques, if it's meant to channel "violin." Otherwise, it'll be another synth timbre. That latter issue surrounding skill and performance is a much broader one with no "obvious" technological endpoint, even when considering AI performance algorithms. Humans will want to play along too.
Most keyboards support aftertouch, but only as channel pressure, where the same aftertouch value is applied to all notes. Only a handful of MIDI controllers have ever supported polyphonic aftertouch, where the aftertouch value is applied per-note. On conventional keyboard mechanisms, this is extremely expensive, because each key requires a separate pressure sensor rather than simply measuring pressure across the whole keybed.
The LinnStrument also supports polyphonic pitch bend, which is even rarer than poly AT. Due to the limitations of the MIDI protocol, polyphonic pitch bend requires note-per-channel support, which is available on less than a dozen software instruments.
The only mass-market controller that is remotely comparable in expressiveness is the Keith McMillen QuNexus, but this is a much less musically useful product with only a two-octave range. The Eigenharp Alpha is truly comparable in features to the LinnStrument, but this is an exotic built-to-order product that costs $6000, has a six month wait list and requires proprietary host software.
This is true only of velocity and monophonic aftertouch. Polyphonic aftertouch is actually pretty rare. The only controllers I know which provide it today are the Native Instruments Maschine series. The only synth engines I know which support it are Serum and Animoog.
But it died out not just because of "buzzkill accountants" or whatever the article said, but also because very few people wanted it. And the idea that it's the secret sauce in Vangelis's Blade Runner soundtrack is just dipshit ridiculous.
This article is typical of Wired-- Junk technology writing. They haven't really been competent since the 1990s.
I can't totally agree. They've definitely gone downhill, but this was probably the stupidest thing I've ever read from Wired, so I can't call it typical.
But: poly aftertouch for... $100: http://www.amazon.com/Xkey-25-Key-Portable-Musical-Keyboard/...