Playing surface mod for improved ability to feel the center of the pads

[zxv]

I'm a long time jazz musician, and I've purchased a Linnstrument 200 a few weeks ago and am beginning to practice scales and arpeggios.

I'm wishing that instead of a nipple on each "C" note, there were nipples on every note on the pad. It would be helpful to have some tactile marker to be able to continuously feel how close my fingers are to the centers of the pads throughout scales without looking at the keyboard.

Is this something that has been discussed in the past? Has anyone tried mods for this purpose? Or is this a non-issue given sufficient practicing and experience?

Thanks in advance,
Rich

[FranklyFlawless]

Is this something that has been discussed in the past?

Not exactly, but there have been other hardware modifications focusing on tactile feedback, such as the Speedbumpy Surface, which has its roots in the Sightreading thread. My LinnStrument Darker Mod and its subsequent revision go in the exact opposite direction.

Has anyone tried mods for this purpose?

No, not as far as I am aware of.

Or is this a non-issue given sufficient practicing and experience?

Correct, you can use visual and auditory feedback instead.

[Rune_7s]

I'm wishing that instead of a nipple on each "C" note, there were nipples on every note on the pad. It would be helpful to have some tactile marker to be able to continuously feel how close my fingers are to the centers of the pads throughout scales without looking at the keyboard.

I agree, it would be nice to have a guage of where one is on the pad when one isn't right up at the edge. I think just a small dot a few millimeters in diameter of a different texture would be enough, though I'm not sure what one could use on silicon to try this as a mod.

I have a spare silicon grid/top form my linnstrument 200 and I'd be perfectly willing to try a mod like this. Maybe a small dab of glue on the center of each pad. Anyone know what kind of glue sticks well to silicon?

[FranklyFlawless]

Anyone know what kind of glue sticks well to silicon?

It depends if there is a non-stick coating on it or not.

[John the Savage]

Or is this a non-issue given sufficient practicing and experience?

I'll take "non-issue" for a thousand.

Think about, Rich... When's the last time you actually thought about where your fingers were, in real-time, whilst playing your instrument? Muscle memory is everything, in terms of proficiency, and renders any and all conscious thought redundant.

There simply wouldn't be enough time to feel, let alone acknowledge, the Braille bumps, in the middle of a fast passage; especially if they were on every note.

Think of the bumps on your QWERTY keyboard, on the F and J keys... They're fine for reorienting yourself maybe, when your fingers are at an idle; but once you start typing, they all but vanish. And if they were on every key, you'd have no idea where you were anyway.

To that end, the LinnStrument is a lot more forgiving than most fretless instruments, and they've never held anyone back.

So, ya, practice and experience...



Cheers!

[FranklyFlawless]

Right, my current thinking is to always keep at least one finger on each hand touching the playing surface, since all orientation is lost when either or both hands are lifted, unless you have developed an acute awareness of your hands' spacial position. Following that, the FSRs respond to approximately 50 to 500 grams for full dynamic range, so in order to control when notes are intentionally played or not, one could develop an awareness of applied weight/pressure with each finger at all times, adjust the Touch Sensor Prescale value in Global Settings, and/or adjust the current synthesizer patch's values so that the threshold for producing a sound is higher or lower depending on your use case.

[zxv]

Or is this a non-issue given sufficient practicing and experience?

I'll take "non-issue" for a thousand.

Think about, Rich... When's the last time you actually thought about where your fingers were, in real-time, whilst playing your instrument? Muscle memory is everything, in terms of proficiency, and renders any and all conscious thought redundant.

There simply wouldn't be enough time to feel, let alone acknowledge, the Braille bumps, in the middle of a fast passage; especially if they were on every note.

Think of the bumps on your QWERTY keyboard, on the F and J keys... They're fine for reorienting yourself maybe, when your fingers are at an idle; but once you start typing, they all but vanish. And if they were on every key, you'd have no idea where you were anyway.

To that end, the LinnStrument is a lot more forgiving than most fretless instruments, and they've never held anyone back.

So, ya, practice and experience...



Cheers!

OK, thanks for the thoughts. Yea, I wish this were a non-issue, but sadly that's not the case, and I'm concerned about the long run.

You are correct that I don't think about where my fingers are within a pad. For any given exercise, my progress is by far best when I focus on visualizing the sequence of pads (the fingering).

So yes, I am expecting my fingers to learn to position themselves, but that's not happening. I'm making progress, but have trouble keeping fingers in alignment with the pads. If my fingers could feel their position relative to the centers of the pads, I am fairly certain my fingers would learn the alignment.

My main instrument is upright bass. I learned without looking at the fret board, and hope to do the same here. Since initial pitch doesn't vary with placement on a pad, using ears to learn position doesn't seem feasible.

On all of my qwerty computer keyboards, the keys are contoured, so I can feel the placement. On the linnstrument, each pad is more flat and uniform texture, except for the "C" notes. So, yea, for me it feels more difficult than learning a qwerty keyboard did.

That's why I'm looking for additional ways to sense placement. Without pitch and without tactile sense as ques, I'm concerned it will be harder in the long run as well. Perhaps one can compensate, but will it not hinder performance in the long run, and why make it harder in the learning phase? That's my current thinking about it.

I'm making progress learning fingerings, but the results sound awful, because misalignment happens fairly quickly. Still plugging away at exercises....
Rich

[zxv]

Not exactly, but there have been other hardware modifications focusing on tactile feedback, such as the Speedbumpy Surface, which has its roots in the Sightreading thread. My LinnStrument Darker Mod and its subsequent revision go in the exact opposite direction.

Thanks very much for the pointers. I've contacted them about the Speedbumpy Surface, but haven't heard anything. It looks like it may have been a limited run.

Just for reference, at this stage, mentally visualizing the fingerings has had the most impact, and turning the note indicators seems to be helping. So in my case, I've turned off all of the note indicators on the keyboard.

I'm making progress learning the fingerings. I'm able to find notes. But I'm sliding off pads, into the adjacent pads, and losing alignment of the whole hand and pattern.

Thanks again for all the links to resources!

[FranklyFlawless]

Chris will probably produce another batch using General Silicones next time after their Wiggler and/or Quord projects are dealt with first, but it will not necessarily be what you are looking for. What you could do instead is take inspiration from our hardware modification experiences to create your own bespoke playing surface. If you want to follow through with this concept, Roger and I can provide support so that you can achieve the results you seek.

Otherwise, there are some other experimental ideas that I had in mind that may be a workaround to your issue. One of them is using motors that respond to note touches via haptic feedback, but I have not discussed this with Roger just yet. It could potentially indicate the positioning of fingers relative to the centre of the rows and/or columns by increasing or decreasing oscillation intensity as necessary.

[rtwfroody]

My main instrument is upright bass. I learned without looking at the fret board, and hope to do the same here. Since initial pitch doesn't vary with placement on a pad, using ears to learn position doesn't seem feasible.

You can configure the Linnstrument to not quantize the notes, so then initial placement does affect the initial pitch. If you're playing just one note at a time, I think this makes a lot of sense. For chords I feel it's impossible, but that's really just another word for more-practice-than-I-want-to-do.

[FranklyFlawless]

Right, unpitched performances quickly become unwieldy with increased polyphony. There are a few workarounds to it, like breaking up chords into chord tones/arpeggios, and/or utilizing splits to only have either the left or right split unquantized, but they come with tradeoffs.

[Rune_7s]

My reason for wanting a center detent on every pad is so that I can determine where the center of the pad is so I can apply pressure in the correct location without having to "find" the right placement after triggering the note. I expect this will have very little practical value for quick playing, but with held notes that require some finer control of the Y axis, I think it would be useful.

Sure, one could just go by sound, but then the sound has already been heard and depending on the patch, it could be too late. Not a problem with some kind of synth patches, but it can be a disaster with others.

I'm going to experiment with some different varieties of glue on my old silicon grid, and if Infind one that stays put long enough to try out on all of the notes then I'll report back on how useful it is was.

[bohred]

What is there was a notch or other tactile feeling along the edges of the LS? That could be the basis of a reference point relative to the pads. It would be pretty straightforward to tack something on temporarily as a proof of concept before making a permanent notch or adhering something to the edge of the LS.

With that tactile spot, it might be a reference for 'positional playing' that would develop one's sense of relative distance of one's fingers to the pads. i.e. using the touch of one's thumb or wrist or something relative to that tactile spot serves as a consistent reference location.

It might serve as almost a tactile 'fret marker' in the way a guitar/bass has visual fret markers at 3/5/7/9/12 etc...

[FranklyFlawless]

What is there was a notch or other tactile feeling along the edges of the LS?

The original LinnStrument Darker Mod utilized pan head screws for that secondary purpose, but it requires that your arms or wrists are in constant contact with them. If you lose contact with the pan head screws to access a different section of the LinnStrument, you will need to reorient yourself again.

[zxv]

My main instrument is upright bass. I learned without looking at the fret board, and hope to do the same here. Since initial pitch doesn't vary with placement on a pad, using ears to learn position doesn't seem feasible.

You can configure the Linnstrument to not quantize the notes, so then initial placement does affect the initial pitch. If you're playing just one note at a time, I think this makes a lot of sense. For chords I feel it's impossible, but that's really just another word for more-practice-than-I-want-to-do.

Hey rtwfroody, Thanks so much for mentioning quantization. It took me a while to figure out how to configure it - I'm very new to to the instrument, bitwig, and surge XT. After disabling "Pitch/X" "quantize" and "quant/hold", I'm finding it fairly effective feedback to help maintain "X" position during scales and arpegios.

Does anyone know of a way to make the "Y" axis affect the pitch as well? If "Y" variation of pitch is not possible, is there any stock (bundeled) instrument in bitwig or surge XT that would have a easily distinguishable tembre change in response to Y variation?

Thanks again for the help!