Make the rubber nice and smooth again

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@ghiekorg, at least your coating lasted 6 months; mine wore off in a section in my first day of playing. Admittedly, I was making heavy use of Y-axis "smooshes", which I have found critical for truly expressive play. But having the rubber "grabby" (high friction / bare rubber) in some areas and "slick" (low friction / coated) in others makes it difficult to develop a consistent technique.

@Roger_Linn, I just bought a new LS128, and it may be the most exciting new gear I've ever owned. You seem like a real class act, the kind this world could use many more of. So please don't take this as overly critical; I just want the LS to be as perfect as possible, and optimizing the pad surface is a big part of that. The fact that the pads are replaceable is great; at some point in the future we can hopefully get them perfect.

I have actually found the coated areas to be *too* slick, while the uncoated areas are too grabby. I'm thinking the best solution might be to combine an uncoated pad with a dry lubricant for the fingers themselves. Like violinists use rosin on the bow to increase friction, we might use a bit of talc-free dusting powder (or maybe some dry non-toxic PTFE?) on the fingers to reduce it. I haven't tried this yet, so not sure how well it might work. But oily lubricant would be a mess and petroleum-based would likely destroy the silicone.

Regarding the "Braille dots", they are a problem for my developing technique. As much as I appreciate making the LS accessible, the dots can interfere with smooth expression and I think blind people could easily use more subtle cues. I think making the dots smaller and/or moving them to a corner of the pads instead of the center would help tremendously. I'm actually considering removing mine with a razor blade, but I don't see any LS128 replacement pads on the web store. Are those also available?

Thanks for everything!

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puresignal wrote:Regarding the "Braille dots", they are a problem for my developing technique.
I felt this way at first, but honestly, once I developed a stronger, more consistent technique and generally got used to the overall feel of the LinnStrument, I don't even notice them anymore. When you're new to something, every little anomaly poses a potential distraction, but eventually you learn to compensate and said distractions tend to fade into the background.

The same goes for the resistance of the rubber as the pads wear: i.e. the more you play, the more of the playing surface you use, the more you get to know the wear-patterns and subtleties of your LinnStrument, the less you're likely to notice it. That said, once you've become proficient enough to truly appreciate the finer points, if it's still bothering you, then you can purchase a new playing surface if you so choose. But I would recommend sticking with the one you've got for now (no pun intended).

I mean, every instrument comes with physical challenges. Many are downright painful to play, especially at first. The fact is, few instruments are as comfortable to play as the LinnStrument all considered. Hell, I've got guitars that play like pigs, but I can coax great tone from them, and I wouldn't change them if I could at this point, because I'd have to learn to play them all over again. Eddie Van Halen and Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitars were notorious pieces of sh_t, but look what they could do with them. By comparison, a little friction on the LinnStrument's playing surface should prove easy enough to overcome (wink).

Anyway, just my proverbial two-cents...

Cheers!

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Of course you're right that the physical difficulties are nothing compared to playing badly set up guitars until your fingers bleed. But guitarists do fret (pun intended) about ideal setups, pickups, bridges, intonation, frets, necks, fingerboards and string gauges.

I am realizing that the LS is extremely flexible, and for playing it in the style of guitar, keyboard or percussion neither the dots nor the surface friction make much difference, because those playing styles don't really use the y-axis (or x, y, and z simultaneously). I think, though, that the ultimate expressive performance, which can really showcase the LS' unique capabilities, requires using all 3 mod axes (with properly designed patches, of course).

When I first got the LS I thought the dots were a great idea as I touch type and can't stand computer keyboards without home-row dots. But when pushing up on the y-axis while maintaining z-axis pressure (increasing friction) the physical characteristics of the surface become more important. Sometimes my nails (though already fairly short) catch on the dots during a y-slide. I imagine cutting them as short as possible will help, tough luck for classical / fingerpicking guitarists who need their nails. And the grabby bare rubber tends to pull my fingers away from the nails if I play with flatter fingers, kinda painful after a while.

Anyway, I'm now practicing more keyboard / guitar-style with both hands. Fun, but also plenty challenging to adapt. Still looking forward to doing more expressive stuff with strings, sax / brass, and synths like the iOS Minimoog Model D, which in my opinion is PERFECT for showing what the LinnStrument can do. It's actually how I wore off my surface coating, couldn't get enough of that sound.

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I found for y-axis playing to just bend the finger instead of scratching much easier. This won't create any friction at all, you roll along the y-axis... For pitch bend of course you have friction, but the aftertouch expression I tend to put on a fixed pitch...

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Thanks for the suggestion, but just to be clear, I wasn't talking about scratching the surface or making contact with the nails, just that they come very near the rubber due to the downward z-axis pressure. I was pressing down while simultaneously pushing up the y-axis (starting at the bottom == filter closed) to manually open a filter, ending with an x-axis vibrato at the top of the y-slide. It can make a very realistic / expressive brass / trumpet sound. I suppose the patch determines how much timbre modulation can happen without sliding up the y-axis, but if you want to start with the minimum value (e.g. closed filter) I'm pretty sure you would typically need to start near the bottom of the pad. I'm still learning though.

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Scratching was the wrong word. If I roll the finger allong y, I can still press it down. Of course you need to keep your finger nails short...; - )

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HI everyone, sorry for posting on this old thread. I saw the "new" surface on the store, but it seems to be available only for the big version. What about the 128 version?

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Roger already answered this question on the first page of this thread... (wink).

Cheers!

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ghiekorg wrote: Mon Jan 07, 2019 12:52 pm HI everyone, sorry for posting on this old thread. I saw the "new" surface on the store, but it seems to be available only for the big version. What about the 128 version?
Hi ghiekorg-- Thanks for reminding me. I've just posted it on the online store.

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puresignal wrote: Tue Jul 17, 2018 10:00 pm @ghiekorg, at least your coating lasted 6 months; mine wore off in a section in my first day of playing.
Hi puresignal,

I'm sorry-- somehow I missed your post on page 1 from July of last year. Please contact me at the normal support email. If your coating wore off after only a day, it sounds like the factory applied it too thin, in which case I'll send you a replacement rubber sheet with the new polyurethane coating for free.

Regarding an ideal feel to the touch surface, in a perfect world I'd be able to order a custom non-stick coating for the rubber touch surface that has my ideal amount of friction. But I've learned this isn't possible, at least with all the suppliers I've contacted, perhaps due to the problems of bonding well with the underlying stickier raw silicone. It seems the two available options for non-stick coatings for silicone rubber are 1) silicone, which feels right to me but eventually wears off and which I used initially; and 2) matte-finish polyurethane, which never wears off and which I'm now using, but which is a little slipperier than the silicone coating. I suppose there are companies like Dupont that will develop a custom non-stick coating on request, but I'm too small to be on their radar. I could use other rubber types if I didn't need the LED light to shine through, but I do.

Regarding the "C" note bumps, it's true that they are helpful for blind musicians but my intent was to reduce the dependence on the lights for all players, allowing you to find any note in relation to C by feel instead of sight.

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