LinnStrument ‘Blues Slide Guitar’

Instrument designer Roger Linn shared another sneak preview of his new LinnStrument in action – doing ‘blues slide guitar’. 

The demo highlights the malleability of notes on the LinnStrument. Linn stretches and slides individual notes around the instrument, articulating the sounds expressively in ways more familiar to string musicians than keyboardists.

The LinnStrument is currently under development. Release date and pricing is still to be announced.

via rogerlinndesign

14 thoughts on “LinnStrument ‘Blues Slide Guitar’

  1. Looks interesting…but seriously, why reinvent the wheel? Just go out and buy a guitar and learn. I doubt this will be any cheaper.

    1. “The demo highlights the malleability of notes on the LinnStrument. Linn stretches and slides individual notes around the instrument, articulating the sounds expressively in ways more familiar to string musicians than keyboardists.”

      I don’t think the point is that you buy this to get that slide guitar sound, it’s that you can control your instruments with that expressive control that that a slide guitar has.

      1. The Haaken Continuum does that too – so presumably this is cheaper? And looks cooler because of the lights – but it most likely doesn’t have the full 7 octave range? or do you also need to learn some weird fingering too? (in which case you might as well go learn to play a guitar :o)

        1. It looks like a harmonic table layout, or at least something very similar. You’d have to be quite thick not to be able to learn it.

  2. Cool stuff, how about playing something else?
    Some trombone or a string orchestra?
    Actually I want to hear 5 min of polyphonic slides of a fender rhodes sound, just because I love that sound 🙂

  3. If I close my eyes and listen I think “hmm it’s a novice guitar player”. Will we ever get to the point with this evolution of controllers where people actually develop virtuosity? Not if we keep jumping to the next new thing. Will one controller emerge as so superior to the rest that people actually stick with it and practice for 10,000 hours?

    1. Amen, Ben. That’s my one recurring issue with the field. I’m not seeking to dis anyone, because c’mon, the gear is impressive and represents a lot of honest sweat. Roger’s noodling is ample evidence of the merits. Its that 10,000 hour thing that’s too often missing. Novelty alone will never replace hard work and well-invested time. It would not bother me a bit to see several people tear up Linnstruments until the alternate field had a group AHA! moment because someone showed more of The Path. Its a stylistic and social issue, because people want so much so fast now, they uncork the wine while its still just sour grape juice. 😛 I have faith in Roger & his counterparts, but its up to us to make their gear really breathe. That will happen more when people stop doing covers of “On the Run” and take greater risks.

  4. Thanks goodness for people like Roger. I think some people are missing the point. He’s giving us new tools TO reinvent the wheel with. Before Hnedrix, nobody did that with a guitar. Roger is not a virtuoso, but there will be people who pick this up and do things we’ve never imagined. I think that’s the point.There are many virtuoso guitar players already, do we need more?

  5. I am impressed by this device, and interested in getting one. But not for making guitar sounds. After years of playing guitar I got so fed up with the limited pallet of sounds that I learned how to play keyboard also. Something like this is what I’ve wanted for a long time, so I could be more expressive in a guitar-way, but with the broader sonic range of a synthesist. Somebody needs to come along with that approach and show what this thing can do, otherwise it will always sound like a crappy guitar player.

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