Roger Linn demonstrates some of the sounds for the "LinnStrument MPE" library of sounds that he and other LinnStrument players created for the free Surge XT software synthesizer. www.rogerlinnde... surge-synthesi...
Thanks to all for your kind comments. Surge is a great synth and a good match for LinnStrument. It’s so deep-I’m still discovering hidden gems in it, which always makes me smile.
This could be a bit long for some (especially in a GenZ world where we don't like reading text anymore)? However for those of you who got a good beverage and tucked in to read this, you're in for a treat. (Remember I'm a totally blind person using SurgeXT so I'd think I'm a bit more qualified to offer some other random sound-shaping ideas)? 1. If you're looking for that old NES ramp-type sound a. Choose the Alias osc type. b. Choose Ramp in the Type slider (next to Pitch). c. Set the BitCrush value to 5. 2. Key-Tracking a filter a. Set up any filter of your choosing (including SubType, CutOff, Resonance and F.E.G. Mod Amount to taste). b. Push that filter's Key-Track slider all the way up (or all the way down for reverse key-tracking). 3. Individual note distortion The quickest way to pull off is either HeavyFuzz/FuzzCenter WaveShape Type (in the Filter section). The WaveShaper Drive and PreFilterGain levels directly impact how much distortion you get. 4. For widened stereo filter-type oscillating/resonating use the Filter Configuration called Wide. 5. To force all oscillators on phase with every note a. Right-click PlayMode slider under Same Note Allocation choose the ReUse Single note allocation so a checkmark is next to it. b. Right-click over any one of the/a scene's Osc's Retrigger buttons choose Enable ReTrigger For All Oscillators (BTW that's just for this scene only). 6. One of me late faves: Key-Tracking LFO movement (for Raw, then EG (EnvelopeGenerator) situations) Let's go Raw WaveForm first. a. Find the slider you want to have an LFO move. (I'll be using a voice (not a Scene) LFO for this. Just as a torture test (lol), Let's choose the Classic Osc type (Modern also works here too but just using Classic for speed sake). b. Right-click an Osc parameter to modify via the voice LFO proper (I'll take the Sync parameter slider). c. In this menu, choose Add Modulation From; expand it; choose Voice LFO; expand it; choose LFO1; expand it; choose the LFO1 - Raw WaveForm option. d. A box now appears to type in a number indicating how much movement you want done; (I'll type 7 in this example (I can always change this later in the Modulation Overview window)). With LFO1 moving at 1.0 hz from what I just did, now the real fun happens... Question is; Do I want the LFO to re-trigger on each note (KeyTrigger), act random on each note (Random) or a free-run type that actually forces all notes in sync regardless of where they are (FreeRun)? To go KeyTrigger, e. Leave the LFO1 waveform movement at KeyTrigger (don't touch it in this case). f. Locate the voice LFO1 Rate and right-click. We'll be doing as we did with adding modulation in step c. However here's where we apply the KeyTrack. Instead of the Voice LFO menu, we go to the MIDI menu and choose KeyTrack. g. Another box now appears (now we're setting the amount of KeyTracking done. Just for a laugh, let's enter 1 here (Again this can be edited later in the Modulation Overview window). h. Let's listen... As we play notes now, Voice LFO1's Rate is - in fact - being KeyTracked - as we set it. (Lower notes will give us a slower rate). While the Raw WaveForm is cool, each LFO set of controls (6 Voice and 6 Scene) has its own envelope that can be applied. Now let's go Envelope and - seal something... Steps a. and b. are the same as before, but in c., we choose Voice LFO1 - EG Only. Step d. Is also the same. Step e.'s where things done gonna get nutty... (For one thing, you'll hear nothing's happening because Attack and Decay adjustments haven't yet been set). So go ahead and set the Attack and Decay sliders of the Voice LFO1 EG to where you want. For a proper KeyTrack we Absolutely Must key-track Both the Attack And Decay sliders. Step f. will be combined so that both are covered. In either case you will right-click over each slider, Add Modulation From; MIDI; KeyTrack; type your preferred value and you're done. In the Modulation Overview you can slide the Depth adjustment of a mod to negative territory to reverse the direction of the modulation).
Brilliant. Just getting into creating my own music aged 63 and I find the LinnStrument MPE very interesting. As a veteran of the UK Military I wonder, is there discount for us or is it only for American Vets (which would be totally understandable). Anyway, saving to buy it. Thank you for your hard work.
@@Algux I’m sorry that I don’t offer a military discount, even here in the US. However, if I did it would only apply to direct sales, which would require additional shipping cost to the UK, plus of course collection by the shipper of UK VAT, duty and Customs fees. An alternative is to look at the used market, which offers good deals and if you register your used purchase with me, I’ll transfer any remaining warranty to you.
Wow! I’m going to have to download surge and breakout my linnstrument again. Finally synthesis/software is catching up. When I originally purchased mine it was an instrument way ahead of its time and still is. These sounds are great.
This is great! I look forward to experimenting with Surge and my Linnstrument. At the moment I've really only used it with a couple of sounds I made in Vital, but I'd like to use it more often as a main controller. I was trained on piano so when I sit at a keyboard I get stuck in the accustomed patterns I've learned. Using a completely different pitch layout is helpful for me to find new musical places to go.
Roger, you mentioned that you aren't entirely satisfied with how life-like your guitar patches are. To me, they succeed greatly if for no other reason than they are very pleasing to the ear (mine anyway)! Thank you for these patches and for all you do!
You’re very welcome, Rob. To my ears, they sound more like a synth through an amp because they lack the true timbral character of a guitar string. If you’re on Mac, you can hear better guitar sounds in my sounds file for Logic or MainStage, which you can download from the Recommended Sounds page on my site, in the listing of MPE synths under the Apple item. These sounds use guitar samples and sound much better to me. I think synthesis is better for some sounds and samples work better for others. But I’ll keep trying to get better guitar sounds in Surge.
Surge is a natural for the Linnstrument - had it about a month now and every day is a deeper dive. One thing I'm having trouble bending my mind around is the pressure curve and how to make it sound natural without peaking too loud, red on the meter. If you or someone on the Surge Team could do a short video on the topic it would be greatly appreciated. Big Thanks.
I agree- I often find new pleasant surprises in Surge. Regarding pressure curve, did you see the pressure curve trick near the bottom of the Surge page on my site?
I haven't bought your instrument yet, still in the exploration phase (i have concerns on playing it with eyes closed, as well as velocity sensitive which i read might be a limitation relative to others). But man i gotta say I'm impressed by you as a creator of it. The one arm expression video\award, that it's so flexible and open source. We can tell you're so passionate about it, as opposed to companies who are so much more disconnected from the community
Thanks for your kind words, Shaun. Regarding playing with eyes closed, many would say the same about piano or guitar, and note that LinnStrument has Braille-size bumps on all “C” pads, which help with playing by feel. Regarding velocity accuracy, you may have read old posts before we made velocity improvements about 6 years ago. On my site’s FAQ page, I candidly discuss velocity accuracy in the second FAQ on the page: www.rogerlinndesign.com/support/support-linnstrument-faqs
The trick to guitar sounds IMO is (mono) channel-per-row to simulate strings and allow hammer-ons and pulloffs. I don't think there's a way to do that setup in-synth though. The beer flute is just blowing across the top of an empty bottle. It's mixed with a recorder (I think) at the top of the Y-axis. Wonderful sounds and it's great to have an official LinnStrument synth. Thanks for the shoutout!
Hey, this is totally out of the blue but I was wondering if you could explain the thought process behind the FM with the filtered noise in your patches. I don't quite understand what effect it's generating, but I know it's important! Could you explain what you are doing when you use it?
@@Venthorn This just gives some "air" to the wind patches. It's a standard synth practice to mix in some white noise when you want your synth to sound like a flute. The filtered noise in Surge, IMO, is great for this--better than any other synth I've used. It gives the sound that breathy quality. I try to use it subtly...you could crank up the FM level to really hear what's going on :)
Could it be argued, since the Surge Synthesizer does not employ sample-playback, that its synthesis method is sort of an updated and more advanced version of the method pioneered by John Chowning which made its way into the Digital Keyboards Synergy, the Crumar GDS, the Con Brio models and - dare I bring it up - the DX7? (I ask that question realizing that such a method depended almost exclusively on stacked harmonics and didn’t include any subtractive properties like the ones occasionally employed here.) The guitar sound at 13:00 distinctly reminded me of a resonator guitar. I say it is very believable when you shut your eyes. “Beer Flute” - strikes me as a kind of sound you would hear in a medieval ale hall. I wonder if other people have put that in their comments. Thank you Roger for bringing up the spelling of the name. Some people that have studied classic synthesizers the way I have may have mistakenly written the name associated with the late Serge Tcherepnin who worked with Morton Subltnik as Donald Buchla’s successor. I can imagine all three of those cats would want to harness the synthesis system and the LinnStrument itself in an effort to follow up where they left off with their modular systems.
Chowning’s highly successful innovation was FM (Frequency Modulation) synthesis, which is included in Surge XT, though currently none of the sounds in my “LinnStrument MPE” library use FM. Surge XT does include simple sample playback, though only for short sounds, for example the wavetable synthesis sounds demonstrated at 14:30 in the video, or for one-shot sounds like drums or a violin bow attack as the start of a synthesized violin sound. A true sample player must include long samples and multiple samples for pitch and loudness in order to insure sonic accuracy throughout the pitch and dynamic range. Interestingly, the Surge team is currently working on a free open-source sample player called ShortCircuit XT.
On my linnstrument 128, I don't seem to be getting any change in the note when moving my finger up and down on the note pad. I do get the Vabrato effect moving left and right on the pad
@@TwinCitiesOxygen There are some recommendations on my site’s Recommended Sounds page, but it’s out of date. You can find some updated info on this topic by searching the LinnStrument forum on KVR. One problem is that few LinnStrument players use iPad because its sounds are still not as good as on Mac or Windows.
Hello, afetr watching a lot of videos about surge i decided to install it so i went on the official site and then dowbloaded it. When i started install i got a security alert from windows 10 pro about it and so decided to abort install. Is there a risk for my computer and had you already eard about this issue ?
Sorry, I don’t know how to contact and such support for Surge, given that it’s free and open source. Perhaps their web site offers such information. There’s probably a forum.
Sorry, I cancelled the project. It was too much work to do it right, plus to be honest I’m not as into drum machines as I was 40 years ago. I’ve never been as interested in the past as the future, and I think what I’m doing now with LinnStrument is the future.
@@rogerlinndesign interesting, Wikipedia says it was renamed "The Tempest" and was released with Dave Smith instruments, would you say that's inaccurate?
@@JC20XX Yes, the wikipedia page is not correct, Tempest was developed independently with more of a focus on Dave’s analog synth customers. I had planned LinnDrum II as a separate product but later cancelled it for the aforementioned reasons.
Yes, I’m sure all artists would agree that a small sheet of hard glass with no tactile feedback or velocity or pressure sensing is their first choice for a musical instrument.
Absolutely loving Surge with my Linnstrument 128, gotta be one of the most expansive and robust free synths around, let alone free MPE synths! Only thing im having trouble finding is setting the smoothing of pitch bends and pressure. I'm hoping someone comes out with a plugin at some point to alter the MPE signal before it hits the synth, so i can smooth my pitch, pressure, and timbre on any synth.
Hi, have you tried different Menu->MPE Settings->MPE Pitch Bend Smoothing modes? I added this in v1.8, as well as correcting smoothing elsewhere (Menu->MIDI Settings->Controller Smoothing) - if you're still getting steppiness, let us know (ideally on GitHub, or on Discord), maybe we should add a mode with even more slew. (I also use a 128 - it got me into working on Surge! Thanks Roger!)
@@lunalangton5776 Thanks for your helpful post, Luna. It’s good to (virtually) meet you, and good to learn that yet another person on the Surge team plays LinnStrument, in additional to Paul and Mario.
