LinnStrument: Playing without looking at hands (Sightreading)

[wldmr]

Alright, it's been a while, sorry for not checking back. Once you asked what kind of Linnstrument I used, things became a litte too real, and I realized I didn't actually want to experiment with my Linnstrument too much, lest I damage it.

So I spent some time tracking down a used Linnstrument 128, so I could experiment with it. It arrived yesterday, and now I'm ready to tinker away.

So if you ever make sheets for the 128, I'd be up for that now. Let me know when (and if) you have a batch ready, and I'll PM you my details.

[TigerBalm]

Hey wldmr, thanks for checking!

You’ve made the right assumptions. When I put my homemade surfaces into the linnstrument I have some problems with notes getting stuck. So I don’t want to encourage other people to try it.

However, I tried putting my surface top of the stock surface and it works pretty well! So I’m going to update my design to make sheets that fit on top of the stock surface inside the frame created by the steel top plate. That should be pretty low risk because the sensor is protected by the stock silicone sheet.

Also, I just found learned that JLCPCB makes high quality 3d prints that are very cheap, so I can stop fiddling with my silly fdm printer and get some nice molds made.

My goal is to have a stack of 128 and 200 sheets to show off at the next monthly video chat

[flyingaudio]

TigerBalm, nice to hear about the progression of the project. I look forward to your next show and tell.

[ebinary]

Nice to see this progress still moving forward. I've been out of the Linnstrument loop for a while.
I may have posted, in the past, the solution I came up with for the GeoShred... starting from a clear screen protector, I used a Cricut scrapbooking cutter to score holes centered on each key. As it turned out, I never even needed to remove the holes... the scoring was more than enough to let my fingers know where they were. And it also served the addition purpose of always knowing where pitch center was.

In my experimentation, I preferred a well to a bump, because, in general, we WANT to stay on pitch (resting in a well, however shallow). A well encourages resting while a bump discourages resting on it. 

I did buy an extra surface for my Linnstrument, so I will soon take a crack at this minimal change (possibly with a combination of large scoring on root note, smaller scoring on other notes). It will be interesting to see if silicon will be as easy to feel a score mark.



Can barely even see it, but it's on there:

[Roger_Linn]

I think cutting away the touch areas of an overlay sheet is a good idea. I did that for my original 2010 proof of concept for LinnStrument, in which I taped a transparent plastic sheet onto the surface of a TouchCo pressure-sensing multi-touch sensor. Just like you, I used a Cricut cutter to cut the touch areas out of the plastic sheet. If you look close at the attached photo, you can see the rectangular cutouts.

I think you'll find it difficult to successfully score the LinnStrument playing surface. The problem is that the silicone rubber is highly resistant to cutting and gets squishy under the knife, making it difficult to cut the intended shape. You’ll likely only cut the non-stick coating, then sliding over it will feel something like a cracked surface under your finger, exposing the higher friction of the raw silicone. But try it and please post your results here for others to learn from.

LinnStrument_input_surface.jpg

[TigerBalm]

Hey ebinary, thanks for the inspiration! I'm working on more tactile silicone surfaces for the linnstrument (look for my thread on "speedbumpy Linnstrument surface").

The speedbump shape works great for helping you feel the Y-center of the pad. But I've been looking for a way to provide tactility for the X-center of the pad. In my last iteration I added bumps shaped like guitar frets. However, including both protruding "frets" at the X-center of the pad and recessed "gaps" at the boundaries between the pads created too much noise, my fingers can't discern between the frets and the gaps. I also noticed that the frets tend to bump my finger to the left or right of the fret.

So I read your post saying that a recessed feature is better than a protruding feature, that's a great point. Then I thought, "hey, we already have gaps between the pads and the users know how to slide over the gaps during pitch bends, what if we just moved the gaps to the X-center of the pad?" So that's what I did!

Here's a preview. Those troughs or gaps actually line up with the x-center of each pad. I'm making sheets now with a variety of gap widths (0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.5, 2mm) and gap depths (0.3, 0.6mm). I'll check back in in 3 weeks!

[Roger_Linn]

Hi Chris (tigerbalm),

Shifting the gaps to the pitch center is well-intended but I fear my be under-appreciated. When people see rubber pads, piano keys, or buttons in general, they tend to assume that they should press the center. I see the merit of the tactile feedback afforded by the speed bump idea, but I question whether people are actually having any trouble finding the center of a 3/4 inch square pad. Is that the feedback you’re getting?

[TigerBalm]

Hi Roger, thanks for chiming in. That is true it could be counter intuitive for a new player to aim for the recess feature that typically indicates a boundary between notes. Hopefully that isn't too hard to adjust to. I trust LinnStrument players are good at changing up assumptions about things.

I have gotten feedback a few times to add a feature for feeling the x-center of the note. What happens for me is that it's easy to find the center of a flat pad when playing one line, backed up by my eyesight. However as I start to play more polyphonically my fingers need more ability to "autopilot" and that's when I want something to feel.

Here's my thought process on the shape:

On my latest prototype I added a x-center features, shaped like frets, and found a conflict with the gaps on the boundaries of the notes. My finger can't feel the frets and gaps apart instantly, which is an issue. I need to delete the gaps to declutter the surface.

So I'm left with features only at the x-centers of the notes. Now it's a question of convex vs concave, and ebinary has shown me the light of the concave feature. If I cut a concave recess into the center of the note, why not cut all the way forward and back across the speedbump? At that point this center feature looks like a "gap" again but at the center of the note instead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

[Dirk Diggler]

Roli is supposed to be changing their Seaboard's with the new v2 Rise version.
They are adding fret like bumps, but the Seaboard is a larger key.

[Roger_Linn]

It will be interesting to see how it’s received. Another option could be to have each pad be a slight circular mound, just enough to feel the pad center quickly in both X and Y direction but not enough to impede pitch slides. This seems easier than the concave idea for finding the pad centers by touch while lightly gliding your fingers across the surface: wherever there’s a mound, there’s a pad center.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[TigerBalm]

Last night I took out my DIY speedbump sheet and shifted it so the gutters lined up with the centers of the notes (the gutters were originally intended to be the note boundaries). It feels quite good. As you described it locks your finger onto the center of the note. When needed, it’s easy to slip out of the gutter to slide to a new note. It feels nice to let go of one gutter, slide, then catch the next gutter at your target. Will be ordering some parts with only gutters and delete the frets.

[aardwolf]

i remember the stevie wonder harpejji video where said he just got his instrument several months ago and then performed on it, so clearly it is possible to play without looking with that instrument. i recall thinking to myself how does he remember x & y? today it dawned on me - i touch type every one of the around 100 keys on my computer keyboard in the dark because i've got a tactile "home" position that i reference to, and i find the home position on my split keyboard in the dark without error because feel with the keyboard with my palms instead of fingertips. i do the same thing on a piano - when i sit down, my index fingers naturally go to C3/C5 so i get my butt in the right place. for x position on the harpejji, i expect stevie wonder does something similar - for X, he might even have braille labels and for y, since the harpejji has muting pickups, he might be able to lightly feel for the frets like you'd feel for the bumps. kind of like how knowing relative pitch is way easier than absolute pitch.

the black and white keys on the piano don't give you home, they give you hints at where you've gone. so, i don't think the dots on C serve to identify home, they are too subtle and there are too many of them. even if they were only on C4, i don't think it would work as "home", because you run into edges.

so, i am thinking why not place some X indexing bumps on the frame so you could start learning a home position? i don't know if it will help, but they wouldn't need to be slippery since you don't play there. you could make the guitar players more comfortable by positioning them like fret markers at 3, 5, 7, 9, 15, 17, 19, 21 (one for each finger) with a double at 12. i'm thinking an easy hack to test it out would be some of the adhesive bumper feet or adhesive closed cell foam insulation tape. just don't put them on the lettering in case the adhesive lifts it.

[ebinary]

I missed your new changes TigerBalm, but you are absolutely right. My fingers can't feel humps, but concavity is easy-peazy for my fingers to find. It is important in complex pieces where non-centering can affect pitch, because pitch center is intuitively felt, as is minor deviation from center. It doesn't need to be deep at all from my experiment on GeoShred.

It's one thing if you are going to stare at the Linnstrument, but if you are going to read music or keep eye contact with an audience, a reference is super handy.

I will attempt the create center indents on my spare original Linnstrument pad sometime in September.

Good luck with the speedbumps and keep us up to date.

[rtwfroody]

I'd love to try TigerBalm's latest experiment. What do I need to do to get one that I can play with in Seattle?

[Roger_Linn]

Here's his page on Reverb where he sells them:
https://reverb.com/item/54840088-speedb ... rument-200