Brilliant.
A couple years ago, there was a discussion around here, with Roger, about the prospect of making a LinnStrument with a built-in synth engine... My suggestion to Roger was to design something akin to what you've come up with here; such that those of us who already own a LinnStrument might just purchase the module and attach it ourselves.
Anyway, a fine proof of concept, this is. I love it.
Cheers!
Work in Progress: LinnStrument Backpack
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John the Savage John the Savage https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=396119
- KVRian
- 868 posts since 28 Mar, 2017
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- KVRist
- 268 posts since 25 Jul, 2010
About 8 months before the pandemic, I got to play a Linnstrument into a tiny Axoloti synth running Mutable Instruments’ Plaits code. It was battery powered and shocking how good it sounded, and it was polyphonic. I never got around to building one, so this sounds like a nice alternative.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 173 posts since 22 Aug, 2019
Pretty exciting update! I just got to the point where I can have fun with this away from a computer. There are lots of quirks in the sound to iron out, and the menu pages have a long way to go. See video below.
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- KVRer
- 22 posts since 10 Feb, 2020
This is looking super dope! Looking forward to seeing its final form.
Btw how much battery life do you get?
Btw how much battery life do you get?
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- KVRian
- 821 posts since 11 Aug, 2018 from UE
Awesome DIY project, congratulations!
I'm using an axoloti but since I have a ipad8, the axoloti takes the dust.
About portable solution, when I see the price of an iPhone 6, around 100€ and the possibilities...( far away from a diy project-:))
I'm using an axoloti but since I have a ipad8, the axoloti takes the dust.
About portable solution, when I see the price of an iPhone 6, around 100€ and the possibilities...( far away from a diy project-:))
Best
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John the Savage John the Savage https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=396119
- KVRian
- 868 posts since 28 Mar, 2017
If the above DIY concept could be refined though, I'd take it over a iPhone or iPad any day.
Cheers!
Cheers!
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- KVRAF
- 2721 posts since 8 Jun, 2010
- Roger Linn Design
FYI, here's an early LinnStrument design concept. it's difficult to equal the synthesis bang-for-the-buck that an iPhone delivers. Unfortunately Apple changes the size and shape every year. Then there's the problem of your LinnStrument occasionally ringing.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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- KVRist
- 59 posts since 26 Mar, 2020
Awesome project!
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 173 posts since 22 Aug, 2019
What a cool render Roger! Thanks for the encouragement everyone.
No progress to show this weekend because I spent most of my time assembling a standing desk and moving into it. That cost a lot of developer time. The business department believes that this desk will give the team a 1% efficiency boost so we'll be net positive on productivity in a few months.
I have been enjoying playing my prototype though. The only sound that's passable right now is the square wave with pressure modulating cutoff frequency and lots of reverb.
The prototype is telling me that having the screen off to the side is not the right way to go. It's so hard to see over there, bending over to look at it saps the fun out of playing. Now I'm thinking the Backpack should be behind the LinnStrument with the screen in the center. Mounting the Backpack this way would expose the USB cable but also gives easier access to the I/O ports. The 128 and 200 have different screw patterns which is an issue.
Regarding Z expression, I'm thinking about having an envelope AND the pressure signal, then a "mixer" page where the user can mix the two together. I think that would make assigning Z modulations more streamlined. Think that's a good idea or should the two bet kept separate?
I'm definitely on the edge of my coding knowledge, so progress is slow as I keep bumping in to challenges. The folks on the Teensy forum are helpful though. I've seen a few people coding awesome Teensy synths on YouTube so I'm going to start asking around to see if anyone wants to help. I did talk to Technobear but he didn't have anyone to recommend.
My goal next weekend is to add a transpose menu and make the sounds more interesting. Thanks again!
No progress to show this weekend because I spent most of my time assembling a standing desk and moving into it. That cost a lot of developer time. The business department believes that this desk will give the team a 1% efficiency boost so we'll be net positive on productivity in a few months.
I have been enjoying playing my prototype though. The only sound that's passable right now is the square wave with pressure modulating cutoff frequency and lots of reverb.
The prototype is telling me that having the screen off to the side is not the right way to go. It's so hard to see over there, bending over to look at it saps the fun out of playing. Now I'm thinking the Backpack should be behind the LinnStrument with the screen in the center. Mounting the Backpack this way would expose the USB cable but also gives easier access to the I/O ports. The 128 and 200 have different screw patterns which is an issue.
Regarding Z expression, I'm thinking about having an envelope AND the pressure signal, then a "mixer" page where the user can mix the two together. I think that would make assigning Z modulations more streamlined. Think that's a good idea or should the two bet kept separate?
I'm definitely on the edge of my coding knowledge, so progress is slow as I keep bumping in to challenges. The folks on the Teensy forum are helpful though. I've seen a few people coding awesome Teensy synths on YouTube so I'm going to start asking around to see if anyone wants to help. I did talk to Technobear but he didn't have anyone to recommend.
My goal next weekend is to add a transpose menu and make the sounds more interesting. Thanks again!
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peter.antoniou peter.antoniou https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=392106
- KVRer
- 13 posts since 17 Jan, 2017
Brilliant idea with the back mount - and bonus that you can use the mounting screws that are already there.
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- KVRian
- 759 posts since 22 Mar, 2002 from fi
We chatted about this a while on Polyexpression, hi there 
(Looks like my age old KVR account is still alive, hooray!)
I'll try to give a hand with the software side as I've wanted something similar for my Linnstrument for a while now. I've done quite a bit of software dev but not on the DSP side though, and have some additional projects of my own (plus some ideas that may or may not eventually converge with the overall vision of the project), so let's see how fast the progress on my side will be!
From some of the points in the thread, I started thinking... One thing I'd like to try initially is to adapt some of Émilie's Braids and/or Plaits oscillator models (like so many have done) for polyphonic playing, and give the user possibility to assign the MPE Y+Z controls to the timbre, harmonics and morph parameters. Due to the quality and modularity of code, re-use is very easy, and I've thought before that the originally CV-controllable parameters would lend themselves nicely to expressive playing with some scaling - the timbre parameters of the modules are really designed to sound good when they're modulated on the fly already.
Eg. in Plaits you already have models like the waveshaping OSC, 2-op FM, harmonic / additive, a dual subtractive "VA" oscillator et cetera, so there's quite a palette of sounds already, and those are from someone who really knows her synth DSP. Plus there's a rudimentary envelope control which could be enough in the first stage.
I'm not sure how many voices of these engines you could pull of on a MCU like this, but I suppose it's worth trying out - with 4 voices it'd already be quite interesting, with 6 voices it's as close to "full poly" playing as I could personally wish for. Add a master reverb and the end result would probably be quite interesting already. Or maybe not. In any case, that's something I intend to try once I get my dev setup and some free time
(Looks like my age old KVR account is still alive, hooray!)I'll try to give a hand with the software side as I've wanted something similar for my Linnstrument for a while now. I've done quite a bit of software dev but not on the DSP side though, and have some additional projects of my own (plus some ideas that may or may not eventually converge with the overall vision of the project), so let's see how fast the progress on my side will be!
From some of the points in the thread, I started thinking... One thing I'd like to try initially is to adapt some of Émilie's Braids and/or Plaits oscillator models (like so many have done) for polyphonic playing, and give the user possibility to assign the MPE Y+Z controls to the timbre, harmonics and morph parameters. Due to the quality and modularity of code, re-use is very easy, and I've thought before that the originally CV-controllable parameters would lend themselves nicely to expressive playing with some scaling - the timbre parameters of the modules are really designed to sound good when they're modulated on the fly already.
Eg. in Plaits you already have models like the waveshaping OSC, 2-op FM, harmonic / additive, a dual subtractive "VA" oscillator et cetera, so there's quite a palette of sounds already, and those are from someone who really knows her synth DSP. Plus there's a rudimentary envelope control which could be enough in the first stage.
I'm not sure how many voices of these engines you could pull of on a MCU like this, but I suppose it's worth trying out - with 4 voices it'd already be quite interesting, with 6 voices it's as close to "full poly" playing as I could personally wish for. Add a master reverb and the end result would probably be quite interesting already. Or maybe not. In any case, that's something I intend to try once I get my dev setup and some free time
never stop loving music.
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- KVRist
- 71 posts since 3 Mar, 2021
Hi all,
I'm not (yet) a Linnstrument owner, at least not till my tax refund comes in.
I was thinking of a different approach to building a wireless Linnstrument rig. Roger reviewed https://www.cme-pro.com/widi-master/ some time back, which looks like a great option for removing a MIDI/USB cable between Linnstrument and your sound module/s. The problem then is getting power to the Linnstrument.
In this forum some time back, Geert published a 3D printer design to mount a portable battery pack to the Linnstrument. From memory, it held a typical Anker-type (10000-27000 mAh) battery pack and clipped to the body of the Linnstrument.
*If* there's a way to mount both the 3D battery holder and a WIDI-Master to a Linnstrument, that would remove the need for any cables. You'd have a completely wireless Linnstrument setup, and could keep your sound module/s (likely a fragile iPad in my case) safely out of the way along with your amp rig.
No idea if this will work, but it's what I'll be looking at when the time comes
I'm not (yet) a Linnstrument owner, at least not till my tax refund comes in.
I was thinking of a different approach to building a wireless Linnstrument rig. Roger reviewed https://www.cme-pro.com/widi-master/ some time back, which looks like a great option for removing a MIDI/USB cable between Linnstrument and your sound module/s. The problem then is getting power to the Linnstrument.
In this forum some time back, Geert published a 3D printer design to mount a portable battery pack to the Linnstrument. From memory, it held a typical Anker-type (10000-27000 mAh) battery pack and clipped to the body of the Linnstrument.
*If* there's a way to mount both the 3D battery holder and a WIDI-Master to a Linnstrument, that would remove the need for any cables. You'd have a completely wireless Linnstrument setup, and could keep your sound module/s (likely a fragile iPad in my case) safely out of the way along with your amp rig.
No idea if this will work, but it's what I'll be looking at when the time comes
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- KVRist
- 32 posts since 21 Feb, 2021
I don't think there's anything so complicated about this. Here's video of doing basically same thing to an EWI-USB wind controller:monch1962 wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 11:35 am *If* there's a way to mount both the 3D battery holder and a WIDI-Master to a Linnstrument, that would remove the need for any cables. You'd have a completely wireless Linnstrument setup, and could keep your sound module/s (likely a fragile iPad in my case) safely out of the way along with your amp rig.
I have to say I do like the idea of having my controller unencumbered by cables. Bluetooth MIDI (I use Yamaha UD-bt101) with a charger gets you there. If using an iOS or MacOS device, you don't even need the widi bud he uses in the video, Bluetooth midi works seamlessly.
Having a synth attached to the controller sounds fun, but in practice you're going to want an audio cable taking the synth's audio output to some sort of amp device/speakers. So I don't see the attached synth as a "cables free" solution. (Bluetooth audio would work without a cable, but the latency for Bluetooth audio is too much to play comfortably [while latency with Bluetooth MIDI, on the other hand, is quite low, negligible in comparison to Bluetooth audio].)
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 173 posts since 22 Aug, 2019
Thanks for the suggestions Monch and Hesitz. You make a good point that the true way to go wireless is with wireless MIDI. That helps me understand that what I really want is simplicity and not true wirelessness. I want to get away from cables, adapters, power supplies, apps, pairing etc. The wireless MIDI on the other hand adds complexity to the Linny setup. The goal is to be able to make sound in two steps:
1) turn on instrument
2) press pad
I haven't made any progress in the past two weeks since I've been visiting family. I just got an iPad and am learning procreate though! I'm thinking through the interface for v2. The front panel block diagram shows how the signal flows from the 4x modulators into the mod matrix, which controls the parameters for the sound engine and effects. The blocks in the diagram are also buttons. If you press one it will pull up the page for that item on the screen and you can edit parameters with the four knobs. Each item can have up to 3 sub pages using the 1, 2, 3 buttons next to the screen. The three buttons to the left of the screen are Tuning, Undo, and Help.
I'm trying to limit myself to 4 modulators because I want to use the right 4 columns of the Linny as a mod matrix selector (due to the tuning and MIDI output I can't have more than 4 columns). I'll make a fridge magnet that sticks onto the faceplate with modulator icons for the 4 columns and destination icons for the 16 rows.
I wish I could do 5 modulators: velocity, envelope, pressure, LFO, random/Y. I need to pick one to cut. I might be able to cheat by making a "macro modulator" that mixes the Z signal with an envelope. What do you think are the most important modulators for Linny patch design?
1) turn on instrument
2) press pad
I haven't made any progress in the past two weeks since I've been visiting family. I just got an iPad and am learning procreate though! I'm thinking through the interface for v2. The front panel block diagram shows how the signal flows from the 4x modulators into the mod matrix, which controls the parameters for the sound engine and effects. The blocks in the diagram are also buttons. If you press one it will pull up the page for that item on the screen and you can edit parameters with the four knobs. Each item can have up to 3 sub pages using the 1, 2, 3 buttons next to the screen. The three buttons to the left of the screen are Tuning, Undo, and Help.
I'm trying to limit myself to 4 modulators because I want to use the right 4 columns of the Linny as a mod matrix selector (due to the tuning and MIDI output I can't have more than 4 columns). I'll make a fridge magnet that sticks onto the faceplate with modulator icons for the 4 columns and destination icons for the 16 rows.
I wish I could do 5 modulators: velocity, envelope, pressure, LFO, random/Y. I need to pick one to cut. I might be able to cheat by making a "macro modulator" that mixes the Z signal with an envelope. What do you think are the most important modulators for Linny patch design?