Hi there,
Firstly congrats on a beautiful looking instrument. At the minute i'm comparing a few instruments and seeking feedback if possible. I'm also looking at the Linnstrument. Am I right in saying with the soundplane you can slide between notes horizontally and vertically? other then obviously the material, is there any other differences I should know about?
Oh another thing I meant to ask, I know it's open source so it maybe an unintelligent question but I'm not really a tech guy. How easy are chords with this thing? Is it more similar to the continuum? It's exciting but confusing times
a few months ago I got a soundplane, but did seriously consider a linnstrument. I've also got an eigenharp, and also recently was able to spend some quality time with a continuum.
chords.. perhaps have a look at this [url=http://madronalabs.com/topics/4085-how-do-you-play-your-soundplane]thread[/url], it details how Im playing chords, and also the current limitations. (that Randy is working on :))
first, id say the soundplane/eigenharp/continuum all feel completely different, none is better just different and id suspect the Linnstrument will be different again. what works for you will probably be down to what you want to play and prefer.
the big deciding factor for me (except the beautiful look and feel), was the Linnstrument can only slide in the Y axis for one cell, unlike the soundplane/continuum which is fully continous.... so in that regard, yes its closer to the continuum. (but again, the continuum is a very different beast, due to pressure axis/eagen matrix )
also at the moment, the 'standalone' nature of the linnstrument, is important to some, but for others (like me) not as important, or the potential CV box for the soundplane could be perhaps important to some.
whats important to you?
With the Soundplane you can slide any touch anywhere. With the Linnstrument I believe you can only slide a note in the x axis. In general I would say that the Soundplane is more like a continuous controller that lets you quantize it to keys, whereas the Linnstrument is more a 2D keyboard that lets you slide the keys after playing. They get to a similar place from different directions.
The biggest differences are with aesthetics and connectivity. Roger puts all the configurability and lots of labels on the instrument, so that no computer is needed to work with a MIDI device. Linnstrument outputs MIDI only. The Soundplane puts out raw pressure data that external devices can convert into MIDI, OSC or into sound directly. This requires a computer, for now. What I like about this approach is that the hardware is minimal and very reconfigurable.
I believe that OSC will continue to grow in popularity. It is capable of higher resolution than MIDI, and it is more suited for open-ended experimentation. On the down side it is not plug-and-play with any synthesizers, except the ones I make.
Two good instruments. Exciting times indeed.